Though Leopold and Loeb knew each other casually while growing up, meeting in the summer of 1920,[1] their relationship flourished at the University of Chicago, particularly after they discovered a mutual interest in crime. Leopold was particularly fascinated by Friedrich Nietzsche's concept of supermen (Übermenschen)—transcendent individuals, possessing extraordinary and unusual capabilities, whose superior intellects allowed them to rise above the laws and rules that bound the unimportant, average populace. Leopold believed that he was one of these individuals, and as such, by his interpretation of Nietzsche's doctrines, he was not bound by any of society's normal ethics or rules.[7] Before long he had convinced Loeb that he, too, was an Übermensch.