NACHZEHRER

A Nachzehrer is created most commonly after suicide, and sometimes from an accidental death. According to German lore, a person does not become a nachzehrer from being bitten or scratched; the transformation happens after death and is not communicable. Nachzehrers are also related to sickness and disease. If a large group of people died of the plague, the first person to have died is believed to be a Nachzehrer.
Typically, a nachzehrer devours its family members upon waking. It has also been said that they devour their own bodies, including their funeral shrouds, and the more of themselves they eat, the more of their family they physically drain. It is not unlikely that the idea of the dead eating themselves might have risen from bodies in open graves who had been partly eaten by scavengers like rats.
The official killing myth says a nachzehrer can be killed by placing a coin in its mouth, and then chopping off its head. It can be discerned from this that a mere coin in the mouth may result in paralysis as some myths say that a stake through a vampire's heart does. Finding nachzehrer in order to kill them is not difficult; it is characteristic of a nachzehrer to lie in its grave with its thumb in its opposite hand, and its left eye open. Additionally, they are easily found while eating their burial shroud due to the noise they produce doing so.