Silent director F.W. Murnau’s eternal rest is proving to be not so restful. The Nosferatu director’s grave has been broken into again, and this time, whoever was responsible made away with his head.
In the 1970s, people started creeping to Murnau’s tomb in Stahnsdorf cemetery, breaking in and damaging his iron coffin. This winter, another group disturbed the filmmaker again, the Washington Post reported.
This time, officials in Potsdam say the perpetrators used Murnau’s tomb for something more sinister. German newspapers have reported that wax drippings were found on the scene, suggesting some kind of occult ritual. According to NBC News, such ceremonies have been performed on the Nosferatu director’s grave for years.
Though police haven’t formally identified the remains, the Murnau Foundation and cemetery manager, Olaf Ihlefeldt, confirmed they belonged to him. Ihlefeldt discovered his skull had been pilfered from his coffin on Monday but believes it was taken early this month.
He has called the grave robbers “Satanists” who practice “black magic.”
“There was a candle… A photo session or a celebration or whatever in the night. It really isn’t clear.”
Nosferatu was easily Murnau’s most legendary work, setting the formula for horror movies that followed. The film — now in the public domain and available to watch in full online — was a retelling of Bram Stoker’s Dracula . Murnau won two Oscars at the first ceremony in 1929 for another film, Sunrise , A Song of Two Humans.
He died only two years later in a car crash and has been seeking eternal rest for 83 years in the family plot where he resides next to two brothers , Variety added. Their graves were opened that night as well, but the “ occultists ” left their remains untouched, Deutsche Welle added.
Officials have no idea where Murnau’s skull has been taken.
Police in Potsdam, only a few miles southwest of Berlin, are investigating and seeking out witnesses. Now, the graveyard may have to rebury Murnau’s remains or limit access to his current tomb.
Police aren’t sure whether the director’s grave was targeted specifically. However, given the acclaim Nosferatu has earned over the years — often being called the scariest horror movie ever made — it seems logical that it was.
Murnau’s prestige and the legacy of Nosferatu in film history was a point of pride at the cemetery, considered one of the best places for eternal rest in Europe other than Vienna’s Venice Toteninsel San Michele and Père Lachaise in Paris
“It was a really special, special thing there,” Ihlefeldt said. “It was really important for us. It’s an absolute scandal here.”
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