Die Engelmacherin - the silent children

She made a promise to desperate parents. Their children would be safe. But then they disappeared.

Hamburg, 1903: Elisabeth Wiese, known as the “Angel Maker of St. Pauli,” took in children whose desperate parents believed she could give them a better life. She promised to care for them. But behind those promises lay a horrifying truth.

Five children were murdered - leaving Hamburg in shock and confronting the city with one of the most disturbing criminal cases in its history.

At the Hamburg Dungeon, the story begins with a desperate search. A frantic knock at the door. A locked room. A parent searching for their child.

Then: darkness. Voices. The sound of children crying. And the chilling story of a woman whose crimes still haunt Hamburg to this day.

“Die Engelmacherin - the silent children” - a dark true-crime special show, exclusively at Hamburg Dungeon from 1 October to 1 November 2026.

What you should know about the Angel Maker:

• Elisabeth Wiese was originally a midwife, but was later banned from practising her profession.
• She preyed on desperate parents, promising to place their children with caring foster families
• She charged parents for arranging the children’s care – but the promised foster families never existed.

The Hamburg Dungeon reveals the truth

Elisabeth Wiese was eventually sentenced to death for the murder of five children. The court found that she had killed the children for financial gain and disposed of their bodies.

On 2 February 1905, the woman known as the “Angel Maker of St. Pauli” was executed at the remand prison near Holstentor.

“Die Engelmacherin - the silent children” brings one of Hamburg’s darkest true-crime stories back to the very place where it once shocked the city - telling a story that reveals just how horrifying the consequences of an innocent-sounding promise can be.