It reads like the script from one of his horror films; a stolen head, burnt black candles and satanic symbols - but this week they became elements of Berlin police department's latest case.

The head in question belonged to Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, the director of the iconic early-20th-Century Dracula film adaptation 'Nosferatu - a Symphony of Horror', taken from his grave near the German capital.

And officers have have already turned their attention to Germany's darker sects as they search for those who took the well-preserved body part from a grave site often scrawled with pentangles and other symbols of devil worship.

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Victim: Grave robbers broke into the tomb of acclaimed horror movie pioneer FW Murnau (pictured left and right) and stole his head. The director died in a car crash in the Californian city of Santa Barbara in 1931

Murnau's 'Nosferatu' was and remains one of the most important milestones in cinema.

Based upon Bram Stoker's 1897 novel 'Dracula', it told the story of Count Orlok of the undead, and its moody scenes and clever camera angles influenced generations of fans and filmakers alike.

But death was at the heart of the movie and death has continued to stir the passions of vampire lovers ever since it was made in 1922.

Indeed, his own death in 1931 aged 41 was enough to elicit some fascination of its own: openly homosexual, he was engaging in oral sex with his 14-year-old Filipino houseboy on the Pacific Coast Highway at Santa Barbara when he lost concentration and slammed into a telegraph pole.

His corpse was embalmed and placed in a metal coffin, and the following year it was shipped to Germany for burial in Stahnsdorf's south-west cemetery.

And down the years the lovers of the undead - goths, ghouls and living vampires who get their sexual thrills from the drinking of human blood - have made the pilgrimage to the grave of Murnau to pay their respects to a man.

Daniel and Manuela Ruda, the country's most infamous satanic couple, were known to visit the cemetery.

In 2001, Ruda, 39, killed baker Frank Hackert and with his wife Manuela, 32, shared in a blood-drinking ritual afterwards.

At their trial the couple said they had chosen 'Hacki', as they called him, for sacrifice because he was 'so funny and would be the perfect court jester for Satan'.

Draw: It has made his grave in Berlin (pictured) a shrine for devil worshippers and vampire enthusiasts

Satanists: Couple Manuela and Daniel Ruda, who killed their friend on a coffee table made of a coffin, visited the grave on many occasions, along with other people drawn to the dark side

Ruda had filed his canine teeth into sharp points to give him the appearance of a vampire when he was jailed for 15 years.

He killed Mr Hackert, 33, by stabbing him 66 times on an oak coffin that doubled as a coffee table in the flat.

Manuela was sentenced to 13 years for her role in the killing and has since been freed from a psychiatric unit. She has been given a new identity, divorced her svengali and has no further contact with Ruda.

At his trial the court heard how the pair were obsessed with Satanism and had spent holidays in England and Scotland, sleeping in graveyards and attending devil worship parties.

But they also journeyed to the grave of their idol Murnau often joined in their excursions by like-minded death worshippers.

But even knowing this didn't make Stahnsdorf cemetery warden Olaf Ihlefeldt's discovery of the theft during his rounds on Monday morning any less shocking.

It was, the horrified Stahnsdorf said, 'a scandal that has robbed the dead director of his dignity'.

He found the head missing as he slid the lid of the coffin away while investigating minor damage he had spotted on mausoleum number 22.

'The body is still in pretty good condition,' he said.

Murnau's head was still recognisable and had its hair and teeth, he added, 'the last time I saw it'.

Rampant: There are thought to be about 7,000 satanists in Germany, according to experts

Police said there was no trace of the thieves or indication of their motives - despite the remains of melted black wax found in the coffin and nearby, and the scrawling of devil worship signs in chalk.

'I have no idea what kind of people the thieves were,' said a spokesman. 'But of course we cannot rule out an occult motive.'

But there is little doubt in the minds of locals or the German media.

'Did devil worshippers steal the skull of the Nosferatu director?' asked the N.24 TV channel on its website.

And it is not as far-fetched an idea as it at first appears.

After all, satanism is rampant in Germany, according to cult watchers.

Experts believe there are up to 7,000 satanists in the country - any one of whom might have carried out the skull robbery in Berlin.

In 2008 the shady world of German devil worship was uncovered when a woman called Laura went public with details of her bizarre upbringing in a coven in the Catholic city of Muenster.

Terrifying: Ruda killed baker Frank Hackert at the home he shared with his wife Manuela in Bochum in 2001. She assisted, and then they drank his blood

Laura said she worshipped Satan and told how she endured rape and torture in his name.

She said she was prostituted out to men to bring in money for the coven and learned to suffer pain in silence.

By day, she said, she was a normal schoolgirl - but at night she was a handmaiden of the devil officiating at black mass rituals.

Marburg-based religion expert Adelheid Herrmann-Pfandt said Laura's parents exposed her to a Satanic cult that is particularly worrying - one that celebrates an especially brutal form of Satanism and keeps itself out of the public's eye.

'Those who conduct these really extreme practices are not recognisable in society,' Herrmann-Pfandt said. 'They don't go running around with upside-down crucifixes in their hands. They want to stay under the radar their entire lives.'

Brigitte Hahn, sect commissioner for the Catholic Diocese of Muenster, agreed. She said 30 victims of such Satanic cults have sought help from her office. Some of the women described black masses, which also included ritualistic abortions and even murder.

'The women say they are impregnated during special ceremonies,' Hahn said. 'Then there are rituals for delivering the babies and sacrificing them.

'The pregnancies are kept secret, the babies are born but disappear.'

But it is not just in Muenster. In 2008, Hahn sent around a survey to 2,000 doctors and therapists in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

Shockingly, some 120 responded saying they had female patients who had suffered violence in Satanic groups.

Alfons Strodt, capitular in the Catholic Diocese of Osnabrueck, has helped former members of Satanic cults for years.

He has collected drawings they have created of the rituals which most would have thought only possibly in bad horror films - images of children lying on an altar, or bound on a cross.

'In the beginning, I had to process all of this alone,' he said, adding that it took a long time until others in the church started believing him. 'People would tell me to stop making up such stories.

'I'm grateful that our bishop and the vicar-general now believe me and realize that it is an issue that can no longer be kept under wraps,' he said. 'Now, the victims can get some of the help they need.

'There were threats that our churches would be blown up with bombs, or set on fire,' Strodt added. 'I was under surveillance. That takes its toll - the feeling that they are always nearby is scary.'

Measures: Those behind the theft will face charges of disturbing the peace of the dead and grave robbing if caught. while the tomb may be permanently sealed to protect the rest of Murnau's corpse (Nosferatu, above)

Herrmann-Pfandt, who investigates what occurs among satanic cults, said: It's really about transcendental experiences - and blood often plays a major role. Some people say it intensifies the experience, and it seems to put them in a state of arousal. And the cults play on that.'

Laura said she was supposed to have a child for her parents' Satanic circle but escaped the cult then and now lives in a high-security shelter for traumatized women. Though she has not pressed charges against her parents, she has left records of her experiences with a lawyer.

'In the event of my death, even if it appears to be an accident or suicide, all of the data will be sent to the district attorney's office,' she said. 'It's my form of life insurance - so they don't feel they can try to do something to me or try to kill me.'

Police investigating Murnau's head theft said vampire obsessives are the main suspects rather than necrophiles because the graves of both of Murnau's brothers in the mausoleum were untouched in the raid which they think took place on Saturday.

It is not the first time Murnau's grave has been raided. His coffin was opened early in 1970 and since then authorities have lost count of the number of times the lid has been slid back for ghouls to look in upon their dead hero.