Allenstein Affair

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A murder case in 1907 in the former East Prussian garrison town of Allenstein (now Olsztyn , Poland) became known as the Allenstein affair or the Allenstein officer tragedy . The murder was the result of a love affair and took place in the context of Wilhelmine militarism . The act was followed by a suicide and a lawsuit. The case aroused the hearts of the upper class and was followed in the international press. It also led to discussions about the reduction of sentences for persons of reduced sanity .

course

The 37-year-old Captain Hugo von Goeben, son of a landowner, was appointed chief of the 3rd battery to the Masurian Field Artillery Regiment No. 73 (subordinate to the 37th Field Artillery Brigade of the 37th Division ) in the garrison town of Allenstein in December 1906 offset. He had previously fought against British troops in the German Freikorps Deutsches Kommando Johannesburg in the Second Boer War in South Africa . After this combat mission, he returned to the German army and was dispatched to advise the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire on the impending Balkan war and to support him in the suppression of the Ilinden uprising in 1903.

In 1907, at a costume ball in Allenstein, von Goeben met the attractive wife of Major August von Schoenebeck, who was also stationed here and served as a staff officer in the East Prussian Dragoons Regiment No. 10 (subordinate to 37th Cavalry Brigade , also 37th Division ). Von Schoenebeck was a passionate hunter and pursued this hobby intensively. He neglected his wife, the married couple had become estranged; however, the officer refused to divorce. Antonie von Schoenebeck, born in Görlitz in 1876 as Antonie Lüders (according to another source: née Liebert), mother of two children, had already had several affairs in Allenstein at the time of the meeting with Goeben. She also began a relationship with him, pretending to suffer from her husband's alleged rudeness. Von Goeben fell in love with her and wanted to help her out of the supposedly unbearable situation. On Boxing Day 1907 he broke into the Schoenebecks quarters in the then Allenstein officers' mess and killed the major with a shot in the head from a dueling pistol . A soldier found von Schoenebeck in the morning with a service weapon lying next to him, so that a brief suicide was suspected. The major's burial took place on December 29, 1907 in the Protestant cemetery in Allenstein. The officers' casino, which was sold to a private individual in 1912 and replaced by a new building, was henceforth popularly known as the “murder villa”.

The new building from 1913 on the site of the former officers' casino in the old town of Olsztyn

After it was established that the fatal shot had not been fired from the Schoenebecks service rifle, the suspect von Goeben, whose aversion to the major was known, was arrested a few days after the incident. After the mensur pistol found in his apartment had been identified as a murder weapon and incriminating correspondence between him and the widow had been intercepted, he confessed to the crime on December 31st. He testified that it was a duel without witnesses. Since there were doubts about his sanity, he was first examined in the nearby Kortau Provincial Sanatorium and then in a military hospital. The psychiatrist who was brought in was Albert von Schrenck-Notzing . A first suicide attempt by Goebens failed. During interrogation, he initially denied complicity, instigation or aiding and abetting by his lover; later he incriminated her.

At the beginning of the investigation, doubts arose about von Goeben's confession, as it was assumed that he wanted to protect and exonerate Antonie von Schoenebeck. Therefore, Antonie von Schoenebeck was arrested on December 31, 1907.

The military trial against Hugo von Goeben to be held in Allenstein was postponed twice, and the date was finally set for mid-March 1908. Two weeks before the trial (March 2, 1908), he committed suicide in the military prison by cutting his neck with a blunt knife given to him for dinner. His funeral took place on March 5th.

After her arrest, Antonie von Schoenebeck was also placed in the Kortau psychiatry for several months. She was released from custody on bail of 50,000 marks (equivalent to around EUR 280,000 today). After a long preliminary investigation - the taking of evidence turned out to be difficult because the only witness (von Goeben) was no longer alive - she was tried on June 6, 1910 for aiding and abetting and inciting murder. Among others, they represented the Berlin defense lawyers Erich Sello and Walter Behn. Before the proceedings were concluded, von Schoenebeck married the writer Alexander Otto Weber . On the 22nd day of the trial in 1910 the trial was temporarily suspended due to the defendant's incapacity to stand trial and later not resumed because she was placed under the tutelage of a lawyer, which ruled out further prosecution. After Weber's death, Antonie von Schoenebeck-Weber married his brother Fritz, a banker. She died in Rapallo in 1931 .

Reporting and Consequences

In the summer of 1910, the well-known and controversial journalist Maximilian Harden published three articles on the case, one after the other, in the magazine Die Zukunft , which he edited , in which he went into great detail on the perpetrator Hugo von Goeben from a sexual pathological point of view. His colleague Karl Kraus attacked him for it; the court later accused him of having written and disseminated an indecent pamphlet.

All of Germany's major newspapers reported on the murder. Many magazines also picked up on the incident. The cultural magazine Der Sturm headlined on June 30, 1910 under a full-page caricature of the headless von Goeben: Desperate scene from the drama of Allenstein . In the January and March 1908 editions of the satirical magazine The True Jacob , a mocking rhyme (“Justitia”) about the easy ride of the widow to the remand prison and under the heading “v. Arnim-Schnodderheim to v. Below-Pleitenburg “a gloss in the form of a fictional letter on the scandal.

The international press also took up the case. The New York Times headline on March 3, 1908: “Von Goeben a suicide. German Captain who killed Major von Schoenbeck cuts his throat ”. The daily newspaper The Advertiser in the Australian Adelaide brought on 5 March 1910 an article under the headline "Murder and adultery. Faithless wife's arrest ”. On June 25, 1910, Le Figaro described in detail the statements of reputation made by comrades about von Goeben.

The procedure in the trial against the widow, u. a. referred to as the "Allenstein judicial drama" caused a sensation. Even in the Prussian House of Representatives , equal treatment in court was discussed regardless of the status of those affected. The necessity of legal regulations regarding a reduction of sentences in case of reduced sanity was recognized.

Literary processing

Paul Lindau published the drama of Allenstein in 1909 as a chapter in his work Excursions into the Criminalist . The writer Sybille Bedford , a niece of the murdered major, processed the case into the novel A Legacy , which appeared in 1956. Entitled A legacy it was the other library in 2003 out in a new translation. Around 20 years after the event, Friedrich von Oppeln-Bronikowski , translator and writer, had also written a manuscript for a novel based on the Allenstein events. However, he did not find a publisher. In 2012 his descendant, Friedrich-Wilhelm von Oppeln-Bronikowski, published the work under the title Der Exot in Schneesturm-Verlag (Itzehoe).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b The officer drama in Allenstein. In:  Oesterreichische Kronen-Zeitung. Illustrirtes Tagblatt / Illustrierte Kronen-Zeitung / Wiener Kronen-Zeitung , January 2, 1908, p. 5 (online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / short
  2. ↑ a b The end of the Allenstein murder affair. In:  Leitmeritzer Zeitung , January 21, 1911, p. 19 (online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / lmz
  3. ↑ This figure was based on the template: Inflation determined, has been rounded to a full ten thousand EUR and relates to January 2020
  4. ↑ Schoenebecks. In: Die Zukunft from June 25, 1910
  5. ↑ Schoenebeck. II Sinfonia hysterica. In: The Future of July 9, 1910
  6. ^ Residua. Allenstein life. In: The Future of July 16, 1910
  7. ↑ a b Julia Ilgner: Zarathustra's poor heirs . March 26, 2013 on literaturkritik.de
  8. Jump up ↑ Der Sturm , Number 18, June 30, 1910.
  9. ^ The true Jacob , Issue 561 of January 21, 1908 / Issue 566 of March 21, 1908
  10. ↑ New York Times, March 3, 1908, p. 1. ( fee required )
  11. ^ Trove database , National Library of Australia
  12. ^ Database Gallica , Bibliothèque nationale de France
  13. Jumped into a woman and committed murder. In: Preußische Allgemeine Zeitung of June 24, 2012
  14. ^ Paul Lindau: Excursions into the criminalistic. Albert Langen, Munich 1909, pp. 172-240 .
  15. ↑ Marius Meller: The homeless . In: Der Tagesspiegel from February 22, 2006
  16. ^ Novel by Friedrich v. Oppeln-Bronikowski: The exotic on ostpreussen.net (Potrimpus UG)

literature

  • Walter Bahn: The trial of Frau v. Schoenebeck-Weber . Steinitz, Berlin 1910.
  • The devil from Allenstein . In: Paul Schweder: The great criminal trials of the century . Kriminalistik, Hamburg 1961, pp. 145–150.
  • Prussian elite. The case of Frau von Schönebeck . In: Friedrich Karl Kaul: So help me God. Pitaval of the imperial era . Verlag “Das neue Berlin”, Berlin undated, pp. 267–291.
  • Helga Neumann, Manfred Neumann: Antonie von Schoenebeck. In: Maximilian Harden (1861-1927). An intrepid German-Jewish critic and publicist. Königshausen & Neumann , Würzburg 2003, ISBN 3-8260-2409-5 , pp. 127–129. ( limited preview on Google Books )
  • Joachim Kronsbein: Quicksand of Life. In: Der Spiegel , issue 46/2005 (from November 14, 2005) ( online )
  • Zbigniew Bielewicz: Femme fatale z Olsztyna. Jej sprawa poruszyła cały kraj. In: Gazeta Olsztyńska of April 18, 2015 ( online , in Polish)

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