July 29, 1975

July 29, 1975, marks the moment when suspicion in the Zeißstraße 74 case became a confession: after days of silence during questioning, the forty-year-old night watchman Fritz Honka admitted the murders to criminal investigators Peter Seeler and Hans-Peter Untermann.

The Confession

The date followed the discovery of human remains during firefighting at Zeißstraße 74 on July 17. The remains indicated a homicide, and suspicion quickly focused on Fritz Honka. His eventual confession came not at the scene but in police questioning, after several days in which he had said nothing. July 29 therefore serves as a turning point in the account, moving the investigation from the discovery of evidence and identification of a suspect to Honka’s admission of the murders.