TYPICAL MURDERERS
Andrew Bichel, the German “Jack the ripper,” murders many
women for their clothes--John Paul Forster murders a
corn-chandler in Nürnberg and his maid-servant--Mysterious
circumstances cleared up by clever inferences--Circumstantial
evidence conclusive--Sentenced to perpetual imprisonment
in chains--Rauschmaier, the murderer of a poor charwoman,
detected by his brass finger ring--Sentenced to death and
decapitated--The murder of August von Kotzebue, the German
playwright, by Karl Sand, to avenge the poet’s ridicule of
liberal ideas--Wide sympathy expressed for the murderer and
strange scene at the scaffold.
A chapter may be devoted to some of the especially remarkable murders
recorded in German criminal annals, which go to prove that the natives
of northern regions, while outwardly cold-blooded and phlegmatic, will
yield readily to the passions of greed, lust and thirst for revenge.
The case of Riembauer, the abominably licentious priest, who murdered
the victims he seduced, and who long bore the highest reputation for
his piety and persuasive eloquence, rivals any crime of its class in
any country. Germany has also had her “Jack the ripper,” in Andrew
Bichel, who destroyed poor peasant women for the pettiest plunder.
Murders have been as mysterious and difficult of detection as that
of Baumler and his maid-servant at Nürnberg, and conversely, as
marvellously discovered as by the telltale brass ring inadvertently
dropped by the murderer Rauschmaier when dismembering his victim’s
corpse. The murder of the poet Von Kotzebue by the student Karl Sand
was a crime of exaggerated sentimentalism which attracted more sympathy
than it deserved. Quite within our own times the killing of an infant
boy at Xanten unchained racial animosities and excited extraordinary
interest.
Let us consider first the case of Andrew Bichel, a Bavarian who lived
at Regendorf at the beginning of the nineteenth century. He was to all
outward seeming well-behaved and reputable, a married man with several
children and generally esteemed for his piety. But secretly he was
a petty thief who robbed his neighbours’ gardens and stole hay from
his master’s loft. His nature was inordinately covetous and he was an
abject coward, whose crimes were aimed always at the helpless who could
make no defence. No suspicion was aroused against Bichel for years.
Girls went to Regendorf and were never heard of again. One, Barbara
Reisinger, disappeared in 1807 and another, Catherine Seidel, the year
after. In both cases no report was made to the police until a long time
had elapsed, and a first clue to the disappearance of the Seidel girl
was obtained by her sister, who found a tailor making up a waistcoat
from a piece of dimity which she recognised as having formed part of a
petticoat worn by Catherine when she was last seen. The waistcoat was
for a certain Andrew Bichel, who lived in the town and who at that time
followed the profession of fortune-teller.
Catherine Seidel had been attracted by his promises to show her her
fortune in a glass. She was to come to him in her best clothes,
the best she had, and with three changes, for this was part of the
performance. She went as directed and was never heard of again.
Bichel, when asked, declared she had eloped with a man whom she met at
his house. Now that suspicion was aroused against him, his house in
Regendorf was searched and a chest full of women’s clothes was found in
his room. Among them were many garments identified as belonging to the
missing Catherine Seidel. One of her handkerchiefs, moreover, was taken
out of his pocket when he was apprehended. Still there was no direct
proof of murder. The disappearance of Seidel was undoubted, so also
was that of Reisinger, and the presumption of foul play was strong.
Some crime had been committed, but whether abduction, manslaughter,
or murder was still a hidden mystery. Repeated searchings of Bichel’s
house were fruitless; no dead bodies were found, no stains of blood, no
traces of violence.
The dog belonging to a police sergeant first ran the crime to ground.
He pointed so constantly to a wood shed in the yard and when called off
so persistently returned to the same spot, that the officer determined
to explore the shed thoroughly. In one corner lay a great heap of straw
and litter, and on digging deep below this they turned up a quantity of
human bones. A foot deeper more remains were found and near at hand,
underneath a pile of logs by a chalk pit, a human head was unearthed.
Not far off was a second body, which, like the first, had been cut into
two pieces. One was believed to be the corpse of Barbara Reisinger; the
other was actually identified, through a pair of pinchbeck earrings, as
that of Catherine Seidel.
Bichel made full confession of these two particular crimes. The
Reisinger girl he had killed when she came seeking a situation as
maid-servant. He was tempted by her clothes. To murder her he had
recourse to his trade of fortune-telling, saying he would show her
in a magic mirror her future fate, and producing a board and a small
magnifying glass, he placed them on a table in front of her. She must
not touch these sacred objects; her eyes must be bandaged and her hands
tied behind her back. No sooner had she consented than he stabbed her
in the neck, and after completing the hideous crime, appropriated her
paltry possessions.
A complicated and for a time mysterious murder committed at Nürnberg
in 1820 may be inserted here, as it throws some light upon the prison
system of those days. A rich corn-chandler named Baumler was violently
put to death in his own house in the Königstrasse late one evening,
and with him his maid-servant, Anna Schütz, who lived with him alone.
It was noticed that his shop remained closed one morning in September
much later than five o’clock, his usual hour for beginning business.
With the sanction of the police, some of his neighbours entered the
house through the first floor windows by means of a ladder. They came
upon a scene of wild disorder; drawers and chests had been broken open
and ransacked with all the appearances of a robbery. Descending to the
ground floor, the corpse of the maid-servant was discovered in a corner
close to the street door, and soon the body of Baumler was found lying
dead in the parlour by the stove.
There was little doubt that the master had been killed before the maid.
She had been last seen alive the night before by the baker near-by,
whose shop she had visited to purchase a couple of halfpenny rolls, and
in answer to a question she had said there were still some customers
drinking in Baumler’s shop. Corn-chandlers had the right of retailing
brandy and the place was used as a tavern. The murderer was almost
certainly one of those drinking in the shop, and the last to leave. The
maid must have been attacked as soon as she returned, for the newly
purchased rolls were picked up on the floor where she had evidently
dropped them in her fright. She had apparently been driven into the
corner of the shop and struck down. Baumler must have been killed
first, for he would certainly have come to the maid’s rescue when she
gave a first cry of alarm. His body was found near the overturned stool
on which he sat of an evening smoking his pipe, which lay under him
with several small coins fallen out of his pocket when rifled by the
murderer. The drawers and receptacles of the shop had been thoroughly
ransacked and a large amount of specie had been removed, although a
repeater watch and other valuables were overlooked.
The murderer had evidently acted with much circumspection. The entrance
to the shop during working hours was by a glass door which was
unhinged at night and a solid street door substituted, usually about
eleven o’clock. The change had been made three-quarters of an hour
earlier than usual, and the place had been closed, no doubt to prevent
premature discovery of the bloody drama. All was dark and quiet by half
past ten, although the miscreant was still inside, seeking his plunder,
washing off the bloodstains and changing his clothes. He had taken
possession of several of Baumler’s garments, and this imprudence, so
frequently shown by murderers, contributed to his detection.
Suspicion soon fell upon a stranger who had visited the shop at
an early hour in the evening and had remained there alone after
nine o’clock, when the other guests had left. All agreed in their
description of him as a man of about thirty, dark, black haired and
with a black beard, who wore a dark great-coat and a high beaver hat;
he described himself as a hop merchant and sat with a glass of red
clove brandy before him, his eyes fixed on the ground, saying that he
was waiting for a friend. He was easily identified as a certain Paul
Forster lately discharged from prison, whose father was a needy day
labourer with vicious daughters. The son Paul lived with a woman named
Preiss, in whose house he was arrested, together with the woman, and
a substantial sum in cash was found on the premises. Next day Forster
was recognised by the waiter at an inn as the man who had entrusted an
overcoat of dark gray cloth to his keeping. The coat when produced was
seen to be soaked in blood. Forster himself was wearing another, a blue
overcoat, which soon proved to have belonged to Baumler.
On reaching Nürnberg, both prisoners were confronted with the bodies of
the two murdered persons. Forster viewed them with great unconcern, but
the woman Preiss was visibly shocked. Forster’s movements on the night
of the crime were traced, and he was shown to have visited his father’s
house just after the murder, also it was proved that his sister had
given him an axe some time before to take into the town to be ground,
and this was found in his house lying behind the stove wrapped in a wet
rag, and visibly stained with blood.
The circumstantial evidence against Forster was conclusive. The
blood-stained great-coat, the possession of Baumler’s property and
clothes, and his presence at the scene of the crime were significant
facts. The accused felt that all this surely tended to convict him,
but he thought out a line of defence in the quiet of his prison cell.
He sought to throw the blame upon others. He invented two persons,
relatives of the murdered Baumler, who, he said, invited him, Forster,
to go with them to Nürnberg where they promised him work, and from
them he got, as a gift, the incriminating clothes. This fictitious
story could not be sustained. The two relations did not exist and they
had had no dealing, as pretended, with Forster. The whole defence was
a failure, but not the less did the accused persist in his denials
of guilt and fight strenuously with the examining judge. He was
questioned on thirteen separate occasions and replied to thirteen
hundred questions, after being confronted with innumerable victims.
No confession could be wrung from him, and without it no sentence of
capital punishment was admissible in the Bavarian courts. He held
out obstinately to the last, under a well assumed cloak of calmness,
gentleness and piety, as if submitting passively to a fate he did
not deserve. He must have seen toward the end of his trial that the
truth could not be overcome by his fables and cunning evasions, but he
remained unmoved and, as his reward, escaped with his life.
The sentence passed upon him was perpetual imprisonment in chains
and it was endured in the fortress of Lichtenau in Hesse-Cassel.
His behaviour in gaol was in keeping with his dogged, unemotional
character. He bore his heavy punishment in impenetrable silence for
years. His unbending obstinacy of demeanour was partly due to his
callous, apathetic temperament, his unyielding power of physical
endurance and his exalted personal pride. He liked to think that by
stolid endurance he was proving his heroism. He boasted of his unbroken
steadfastness of purpose, “Believe me,” he told a fellow prisoner,
“I shall never confess; I shall resist all persuasion to do so until
my last dying breath. I never gave way all my life in anything I
undertook. I hug my chains.” He did so, literally, treating them as a
badge of honour, a tribute to his constancy, and set himself in his
leisure hours to polish them till they shone like silver. He delighted
in the manifest admiration of his fellows, and at one time conversed
with them freely, giving picturesque descriptions of his adventurous
career and enlarging with evident pleasure on the details of his
principal crime. He was often sullen and insubordinate and would do
no work; no punishment would compel him or break his spirit; when
they flogged him, he offered his back to the lash with the utmost
indifference, taking the strokes without moving a muscle or uttering a
sound, calmly protesting that they might do what they liked with his
body, his spirit was unconquerable.
Forster’s countenance was vulgar and heavy, his face was long, with an
unusual development of chin in contrast with a narrow forehead; this
gave a harsh revolting animal expression to his fixed and unvarying
features, in which the large prominent eyes alone showed signs of
baleful activity.
In one of the remote quarters of the town of Augsberg, a charwoman of
the name of Anna Holzmann lived in a shoemaker’s house. She was rather
more than fifty years of age and, on account of her poverty, was in the
habit of receiving relief from charitable institutions. It was thought
by some, however, that she was not really in poor circumstances. She
had good clothes and other possessions, for which she was envied. She
evidently had more beds and furniture than she required for her own
use, for she was able to take in two men as lodgers, who paid her
rent and occupied a room next to her own. It was generally rumoured,
moreover, that Mother Holzmann, although receiving alms, had put by
quite a considerable sum and had a pot full of money saved.
On Good Friday, 1821, which fell on April 20th, Mother Holzmann was
seen for the last time. From that day she disappeared and left no
trace. Her two lodgers, after awaiting her return for several days
in vain, vacated their quarters. One, called George Rauschmaier, was
the first to go. His companion, who bore the name of Josef Steiner,
waited rather longer, and then he, too, took his departure. Believing
the absent woman Holzmann would presently return, they had notified
the fact of her disappearance only to the proprietor of her house who
lived in the next street. This man took over all the keys which his
tenant had left behind, but, seeing nothing particularly remarkable in
the circumstance of the woman’s disappearance, he forbore to report
it to the police until May 17th. The police immediately notified a
magistrate, who caused Anna Holzmann’s nearest relatives, her brother
and sister-in-law, to be questioned. The brother shared the prevailing
impression that she had probably committed suicide. It was the general
belief that she was a usurer who lent out money at high interest, and
it was thought she had probably been defrauded of a large sum, and that
when she found she could not pay her rent, she had no doubt drowned
herself.
The seals which had been placed upon her property were now broken and
an inventory made of her possessions. The brother and sister-in-law
testified that the best articles were missing, and the pot of money
which she was supposed to keep by her was not unearthed, nor any other
hidden treasures. In all this there was nothing to arouse any suspicion
of foul play, except a dreadful odour pervading the room, which greatly
incommoded the persons engaged in drawing up the inventory. It was
argued that a closer examination of the premises ought to be made, but
for lack of any suspicious evidence pointing to a crime having been
committed, the further search was postponed. Nothing occurred until
early in the new year, when it so happened that one day in January a
laundress and her son wanted to dry linen in the attic of the house
which Holzmann had occupied. In this attic, as was indeed the case
throughout the wretched tenement, brooms and dustpans had never played
a great part, and dust, old straw and other rubbish covered the floor
and all the corners. Having kicked away some of the refuse with their
feet, the two workers came upon something solid, which on closer
inspection they discovered to be the thigh, leg and foot of a human
body. Mother and son at once became convinced that these were the
remains of the missing woman, and they hastened to acquaint the legal
authorities with the facts of their ghastly discovery. A deputation
from the courts of justice immediately proceeded to the spot and found,
among the straw and refuse in the corner of the garret, a naked left
thigh with the leg and part of a foot attached. About six paces further
on, inserted between the chimney and the roof, was a human trunk
without head, arms or legs. On closer search, an old petticoat with a
bodice and a red neckerchief were disclosed, the whole thickly coated
with blood. These garments were immediately identified by the persons
living in the tenement as having been worn by the woman Holzmann.
The search was now pressed forward still more energetically, and under
the floor, concealed by one of the boards and in close proximity to
the chimney, a right arm was found. The rotten boards in the small
room Holzmann’s lodgers had occupied were now further loosened and
broken up, and a large bundle was uncovered. When the blood-drenched
petticoat, which formed its outer covering, was unwrapped, there came
to light a compressed right thigh with the leg and part of the foot,
and separately enclosed in an old linen shirt, a left arm bent together
at the elbow joint. All these limbs, as well as the trunk, were
shrivelled like smoked meat and much distorted from long pressure. The
process of decomposition had not set in, owing to the draught of air or
from some other unknown causes. Now, with the idea of restoring them
to their natural shape, the limbs were soaked in water for some days,
then enveloped in cloths damped with spirits and stretched out as much
as possible to prepare them for the autopsy, at which it was easily
proved that all these members must have belonged to the same woman’s
body. The deceased, moreover, must have had small bones and have been
well shaped. The arms and thighs had been adroitly extracted from their
sockets, and neither on the trunk nor the limbs was there a trace of
any injury capable of having caused death. If therefore a wound had
been inflicted, fatal to life, it must have struck that portion of the
body which was missing, and in spite of all research could not be
brought to light, namely, the head of the victim. But even without the
head, the dismembered limbs were identified as having belonged to the
vanished Anna Holzmann. This there was abundant evidence to show.
A sure clue was presently found with regard to the head. Near the house
inhabited by the deceased, a canal passed, receiving its water from the
Lech; there were several of these water courses and they flowed through
Augsberg with strong currents. The overseer of a factory, situated on
the bank of this canal, had found, as far back as the Whitsuntide of
the previous year, a human skull in the water, which might have come
from a charnel house. He had examined it, had showed it to his brother,
and then had thrown it back into the water to avoid any troublesome
investigations. The skull was small, entirely stripped of flesh and
only two or three teeth remained in the jaw. This head corresponded
with that of Anna Holzmann as described by her relations. Obviously,
if she had been murdered and dismembered, the easiest way of disposing
of the head was to fling it into the canal at night time. As the water
from the canal flowed back into the Lech, it would be swiftly carried
away.
Another possibly important clue had been obtained when the corpse was
laid out for the postmortem. The doctor, in trying to straighten out
the left arm, had seen a brass finger ring drop to the floor from
the inner bend of the elbow. This ring had not belonged to Mother
Holzmann. No doubt it was the property of the murderer and, in the
excitement of carrying on the dismembering process, it must have
slipped off his finger unknown to him. The arm of the dead woman had
caught and detained it. Here was conclusive evidence at first hand. But
to whom did the ring belong? No one could say. Suspicion at once fell
on the former lodgers of Anna Holzmann. They were the last persons who
admitted having seen her and they had remained in the house without
giving notice of her disappearance. Besides, who but they could have
accomplished the dismemberment of the corpse, for which time and
freedom from interruption were essential? Again, it was in the room
occupied by them that a portion of the body had been disinterred.
Rauschmaier had plainly prevaricated; he had stated on oath before the
court of justice that his landlady had gone away on Good Friday with
another woman, leaving him the keys of the lodging; yet this statement
was, according to the clear evidence adduced, a distinct lie. It also
developed that on the Saturday after Good Friday, Rauschmaier had, with
the help of his sweetheart, carried off a part of Holzmann’s property
and sold or pawned the articles. This was deemed sufficient ground for
his arrest.
Rauschmaier had not left Augsberg and his lodging was well known.
When apprehended, he behaved with a mixture of calm indifference and
seemingly absolute ingenuousness. He denied all knowledge of any crime
committed on the woman Holzmann and again declared that she had gone
away on Good Friday with another woman whom he did not know, leaving
her keys in his charge. When taken to the cemetery and shown the corpse
with its dismembered limbs pieced together, he exhibited no emotion
and declared that he did not recognise the body. After being detained
till the end of January, he begged to be brought before a magistrate
and requested to be set at liberty. On the following day, however, he
admitted that he had allowed himself to be tempted to take possession
of some of his landlady’s belongings during her absence. Yes, he was
the thief. He also confessed that his sweetheart had removed the
stolen goods with his knowledge and consent. With this frank avowal,
all hope of further elucidation seemed at an end. There was nothing
against him but that he had been the last to see the murdered woman;
that he had omitted to report her disappearance; that he had excellent
opportunities for murdering and dismembering her and that he was
clearly a thief. But there were no witnesses to prove him worse.
The judge felt convinced of Rauschmaier’s guilt. Another circumstance
told against him. Among his effects there was a paper of a kind well
known to the police. It was printed at Cologne, was ornamented at the
top with pictures of saints and purported to be a charter of absolution
from all sins and crimes however heinous, and it was claimed that
it had been written by “Jesus Christ and sent down to earth by the
angel Michael.” These worthless documents were often palmed off on the
superstitious in those days.
The examining judge now proceeded with circumspection. Instead of
making more searching investigations into the murder, he dropped it
entirely and, pretending to be occupied only with the theft, questioned
the culprit solely in regard to this. The woman Holzmann’s clothes were
spread out before Rauschmaier, and he was inveigled into recognising
all of them. But various little trinkets had been included, which had
been found in his room and about the ownership of which some doubt
existed. Among them were two earrings, two gold hoops and the brass
ring already mentioned, which the corpse had tightly pressed in her
left arm. The judge now seemed on the point of closing the examination,
as though he took it as a matter of course that Rauschmaier, who had
admitted so much, would not hesitate to confess that he had also stolen
these trifling pieces of jewelry as well. “No,” the accused exclaimed,
suddenly protesting against the supposed injustice, “these are mine, my
own property.” The judge strongly urged him to make no mis-statements
but to stick to the truth. Nevertheless Rauschmaier continued to assert
with great violence that the earrings, the hoops and the brass ring
really belonged to him. He declared that he had always been in the
habit of wearing the ring, and, as the judge still shook his head,
Rauschmaier drew the ring on to show that it fitted the little finger
of his right hand. It did so, but very loosely, and it could be twisted
about from one side to the other. This betrayed him. He was further
interrogated, and the judge laid much stress upon the suspicious
circumstance, whereupon Rauschmaier broke down utterly and made full
confession of his guilt.
He had been an idler from his childhood and, after serving in the
Franco-Russian war, he deserted and was often an inmate of the house of
correction at Augsberg. When free, he had supported himself in various
ways in that city till he became a lodger in the house of the ill-fated
woman Holzmann, whom he had resolved to kill on finding that she had
so many valuable things and was supposed to possess much money. He was
long undecided as to the method of doing the deed, but at last chose
strangling as the easiest form of death and because it could be carried
out without noise or leaving traces of blood; and he had heard doctors
say that a strangled and suffocated corpse yielded little blood when
dismembered. His opportunity came on the morning of Good Friday, when
all the people in the house were at church and the lodger, Steiner, had
gone out. Silence reigned in the tenement; he was alone in the upper
story with the woman Holzmann. He stepped into her room and, without
a word of warning, seized his victim around the throat with both hands
and pressed his thumbs against her wind-pipe for the space of four or
five minutes until he had murdered her outright. Then, when certain of
the fact, he threw the corpse down and hastened to ransack her chest,
which he found practically empty. Instead of a great treasure, he came
upon only eight kreutzers and two pennies, and nothing more was brought
to light after further minute search. He had strangled her for a few
coppers.
Concealment was now imperative. After a quarter of an hour the corpse
was cold, and he dragged it out through the door into the garret
adjoining. He then proceeded to the ghastly work of dismemberment, and
acquitted himself of the horrible task with the greatest adroitness,
thanks to the knowledge he had acquired when campaigning, from watching
the Russian surgeons at the same work. His labours occupied only a
quarter of an hour. His plan for disposing of the limbs has already
been described. Rauschmaier was condemned to be beheaded, but the
additional sentence that he should previously stand in the pillory was
remitted.
Besides Rauschmaier, his sweetheart and the other lodger, Josef
Steiner, had been involved as suspects in the cross-examination. The
woman’s guilt consisted only in her having assisted in selling the
stolen goods, and she came off with a trifling punishment. Steiner’s
connection with the principal crime was looked upon in a different
light and was more complicated. This man caused much perplexity to the
judge. In point of education and intelligence he was far inferior to
his late room-mate. He could not be sworn because, although thirty-four
years of age, he could not be brought to understand the nature and
meaning of an oath. The judge declared that Steiner was on the
borderland of insanity and on the lowest level of intelligence. When
interrogated, he at first denied any knowledge of the crime, but later
he practically became a witness for the prosecution and his evidence
helped materially to secure conviction. Steiner himself was acquitted.
At Mannheim, on March 23, 1819, August von Kotzebue, the eminent German
playwright, author of the famous play _The Stranger_, was stabbed to
death by a hitherto unknown student named Karl Ludwig Sand. It was
a murder of sentiment, not passion, and inflicted with cold-blooded
calmness, to vindicate the liberal tendencies of the age exhibited by
the so-called “Burschenshaft” movement, which Kotzebue had unsparingly
ridiculed and satirised by his writings. Immense sympathy for the
criminal was evoked in Germany; the heinous deed was approved by even
the right-thinking, phlegmatic Germans, and tender-hearted women wept
in pity for the assassin. His last resting place was decked with
flowers, and he was esteemed a martyr to the cause of romanticism,
while no one regretted the great dramatic poet.
As a youth, Sand suffered much from depression of spirits and
pronounced melancholia. He was a patriot even to fanaticism, and showed
it in his fierce hatred of the Napoleon who had enslaved his country.
He could not bring himself to attend a review of French troops by
Napoleon, lest he should attack him and so risk his own life. After
the return from Elba, he entered the Bavarian service and narrowly
escaped being present at the battle of Waterloo. At the end of the war
he matriculated at the university of Erlangen and became affiliated
with the “universal German students’ association,” the Burschenshaft,
to which he vowed the most enthusiastic devotion. “It became,” says a
biographer, “his one and all, his state, his church, his beloved.”
This guild did not develop very rapidly. But its leading members
selected a meeting place situated on a hill in the vicinity of
Erlangen. Here, after smoothing the ground and piling up stones to
serve as seats, the students held a consecration feast at which
punch and beer were freely indulged in. Hot discussions, followed by
reconciliation, interrupted the proceedings. Dancing was indulged in
around a fire, under the rays of the moon which shone through the pine
trees, until the tired and probably somewhat intoxicated students,
including Sand, lay down in different parts of the ground to sleep
off their excitement. From Erlangen Sand moved to Jena, where he was a
much less prominent student, and his life was uneventful, but when he
left after eighteen months’ residence there, it was for Mannheim with
daggers in his breast and a matured purpose of slaying Kotzebue. He
had satisfied himself, after much inward conflict, that by killing the
satirist he would be rendering a supreme service to the Fatherland.
He was now possessed with a passion for notoriety. At Erlangen he had
championed a good cause; at Jena his activity had perforce ceased, and
the desire to do some remarkable deed had grown upon him. Constantly
hungering for an opportunity to make himself celebrated, he resolved at
least he would become a martyr if he could not be a hero.
No obvious reason existed for his attack upon Kotzebue. The poet had
many foibles and failings, it is true, but he had done nothing to
deserve to be struck down by the dagger of a fanatic in the cause
of virtue, liberty and the Fatherland. He had indeed ridiculed the
outburst of German national feeling which was now being developed,
and thereby gave great offence to the youthful enthusiasts. He was
employed as a correspondent by the Russian government, to report
upon German conditions, literary, artistic and intellectual. Men of
ability were often chosen in a like capacity by the Russian and other
governments, and their calling was regarded as a perfectly honourable
one. Kotzebue, however, wrote of Germany in a malevolent spirit. His
vanity had been wounded by the public burning of his “History of the
Germans,” and this, no doubt, inspired the bitter sarcasm with which he
attacked the German character, though his strictures were taken much
too seriously by the Germans of that day.
Before Sand left Jena for Mannheim, he had a long dagger fashioned
out of a French cutlass of which he made the model himself. This was
the dagger which actually penetrated Kotzebue’s breast. Sand called
it his “little sword.” On arrival, he engaged a guide to take him to
the house where Kotzebue lived. The poet was not at home. Sand gave
his name as Heinrichs from Mitau to the maid, and she appointed a time
between five and six o’clock in the afternoon for him to call again.
Soon after five o’clock he stood once more in front of Kotzebue’s door.
The servant, who admitted him at once, went up-stairs to announce him
and then called to him to follow, and after some further preliminaries
ushered him into the family sitting room. Kotzebue presently entered
from a door on the left. Turning toward him, Sand bowed, of course
facing the door by which Kotzebue had come into the room, and said
that he wished to call upon him on his way through Mannheim. “You are
from Mitau?” Kotzebue inquired as he stepped forward. Whereupon Sand
drew out his dagger, until then concealed in his left sleeve, and
exclaiming, “Traitor to the Fatherland!” stabbed him repeatedly in the
left side. As Sand turned to escape, he paused to notice a little child
who had run into the room during the progress of the murderous attack.
It was Alexander von Kotzebue, the four-year-old son of the victim,
who apparently had watched the proceedings from the open door. The
boy shrieked and the murderer, who had been stupidly staring at him,
was recalled to what was happening. But for this incident Sand would
probably have escaped. A man-servant and Kotzebue’s daughter now rushed
in and raised the wounded man, who still retained sufficient strength
to walk into the adjoining room with their assistance. Then he sank
down near the door and died in his daughter’s arms.
The house was in an uproar and for a moment Sand found himself
alone. He fled downstairs but was interrupted; loud cries of “Catch
the murderer, hold him fast!” pursued him, and being held at bay,
he stabbed himself in the breast with his dagger. When the patrol
appeared, he was carried on a stretcher to the hospital. For some hours
after his arrival there he appeared to be sinking, but toward evening
he revived sufficiently to be subjected to some form of examination.
When questioned as to whether he had murdered Kotzebue, he raised his
head, opened his eyes to their fullest extent and nodded emphatically.
Then he asked for paper and wrote what follows:--“August von Kotzebue
is the corrupter of our youth, the defamer of our nation and a Russian
spy.” On being told that he was to be removed from the hospital to
the prison, he shed tears, but soon controlled himself, ashamed, as
he said, of showing such unmanly emotion. In gaol he was treated
considerately and allowed a room to himself, being always strictly
watched and allowed no communication with the outside world.
On May 5, 1820, the Supreme Court of the Grand-Duchy of Baden passed
sentence on him in these terms: “That the accused Karl Ludwig Sand is
convicted, on his own confession, of the wilful murder of the Russian
counsellor of state, Von Kotzebue; therefore, as a just punishment to
himself and as a deterrent example to others, he is to be executed with
a sword,” etc., etc.
May 20th, the Saturday before Whitsuntide, was the day fixed for
the execution. The place selected was a meadow just outside the
Heidelberg gate. The scaffold erected there was from five to six
feet high. In spite of precautions, the news of the approaching
event spread far and wide so that crowds poured into Mannheim. The
students’ association had agreed to mourn in silence at home. Most of
the students, therefore, came to the fatal spot only when the bloody
spectacle was over. Measures were taken to avoid disturbances by
strengthening the prison guard, surrounding the scaffold with a force
of infantry, using a detachment of cavalry to escort the procession
from the prison, and providing a detachment of artillery under arms to
call upon if necessary. Those of the educated inhabitants of Mannheim
who felt sympathy for Sand did not show themselves outside their
houses. Nevertheless, the streets were thronged, but in spite of this
everything passed off quietly. When the scaffold was completed, the
executioner appeared with his assistants. Widemann, the executioner,
wore a beaver overcoat under which he concealed his sword, but the
assistants were dressed in black. They are reported to have eaten their
breakfasts and smoked their pipes on the scaffold. In the covered
courtyard of the prison Sand was lifted into a low open chaise, which
was bought for the purpose, as no vehicle could be borrowed or hired in
Mannheim for such an occasion. Looking around, he silently bowed his
head to the prisoners whose weeping faces appeared behind their grated
windows. It is said that during the course of the trial they were
careful when being led past his window to hold up their chains so that
the rattle might not annoy him. When the door of the yard was opened
and the assembled crowd perceived the condemned man, loud sobs were
heard in every direction. Upon perceiving this Sand begged the governor
of the prison to call upon him by name should he manifest any sign of
weakness. The place of execution was hardly eight hundred feet from
the prison. The procession moved slowly. Two warders with crape bands
round their hats walked on either side of the chaise. Another carriage
followed, in which were town officials. The bells were not tolled. Only
individual voices saying, “Farewell, Sand,” interrupted the pervading
silence.
Rain had recently fallen, and the air was cold. Sand was too weak to
remain sitting upright. He sat half leaning back, supported by the
governor’s arm. His face was drawn with suffering, his forehead open
and unclouded. His features were interesting without being handsome;
every trace of youth had left them. He wore a dark green overcoat,
white linen trousers and laced boots, and his head was uncovered.
Hardly was the execution over than all present surged up to the
scaffold. The fresh blood was wiped up with cloths; the block was
thrown to the ground and broken up; the pieces were divided among the
crowd, and those who could not obtain possession of one of these, cut
splinters of wood from the scaffolding. According to other accounts, a
landed proprietor of the neighbourhood bought the block, or beheading
chair, from the executioner and erected it on his estate. Single hairs
are said to have been bidden for, but the headsman protested against
the accusation of having sold anything at all. The body and head were
promptly deposited in a coffin which was immediately nailed down. After
it had been taken back to the prison under military escort and its
contents examined by the governor so that he might assure himself of
the identity of the corpse, it was removed to the Lutheran cemetery
where Kotzebue’s remains were also interred.