August Sternickel

August Sternickel

August Sternickel (born May 11, 1866 in Mschanna ( Rybnik district ), † July 30, 1913 in Frankfurt an der Oder ( executed )) was a German arsonist and murderer . Two acts in 1905 and 1913, in which he burned the corpses of his victims in fires, became known in particular. In the time between the crimes, he was wanted on a wanted record, but was under a false name and disappeared. The years of search led to a downright sternickel horror in the population, during which fires in farmhouses throughout the German Reich were publicly attributed to him. Even after his conviction in 1913 the case was Sternickel subject of ballads at fairs and also the subject of newspaper reports.

Life

August Sternickel was born the son of a baker. He learned the trade of a miller , became a miller journeyman and grinding servant. Personally eloquent and handsome, he first began to work as a marriage fraud. So he got engaged to the daughter of a wealthy family in the Oderbruch area and pretended that he was the son of a manor owner . He himself is about to look around for a good to buy. Because of an alleged short-term liquidity problem, he turned to the father of his fiancée and asked him for a loan of 3,000  marks . After the father asked third parties about Sternickel and the answers were negative, the engagement was broken off. Sternickel managed to evade criminal prosecution in this case. However, he was then convicted several times for other frauds, even if the sentences were minor.

Property crimes followed , from theft of his sleeping quarters to burglary. Because of burglary he was then for the first time in a penitentiary convicted. His last related sentence for relapse theft was pronounced by a criminal chamber in Neisse . After serving this sentence, he went to Berlin , where he worked as a casual worker in and around Berlin. Eventually he finally embarked on a life as a migrant worker.

1905 murder case

Windmill in Plagwitz, with the murdered Müller Knappe

In 1905 Sternickel came to Plagwitz in the Löwenberg district in Silesia . He found a job with Mr. Knappe, the owner of the mill. The mill there was relatively well-known as there had been heavy fighting between French and Russian units around the Plagwitz mill during the wars of liberation .

With the help of two accomplices, the brothers Reinhold and Wilhelm Pietsch, he robbed and murdered the owner of the mill. To cover up the crime, Sternickel then set the mill on, which then burned down on the night of July 8th to 9th, 1905. The corpse could still be found under the rubble; it was also still evident that the miller had been murdered.

It was clear relatively quickly that Sternickel had committed the crime, but he had disappeared. The involvement of the murder commission in Berlin was unsuccessful in the investigation into him. After a long investigation, however, his accomplices were arrested. On October 20, 1910, the Pietsch brothers were tried at the Hirschberg Regional Court. Both stated that Sternickel was the author of the act. Reinhold Pietsch could indeed be proven to be involved in the robbery of the miller, but not to be involved in the murder. He was sentenced to ten years in prison for the robbery. His brother Wilhelm could not be proven that he was involved in the crime, so he was acquitted for lack of evidence.

Time of immersion

Between 1905 and his deed in 1913, Sternickel could not be found by the authorities, although even the criminal police of Berlin was called in as the leading criminal authority at the time. He had embarked on a journey again and worked in the country as an agricultural worker and sometimes as a miller's journeyman. He used wrong names for this. His employers at the time were extremely satisfied with him. He showed hard work and diligence. He was particularly exemplary in dealing with animals entrusted to him.

The large group of people who led a similar wandering life as Sternickel during this time had already been viewed by the police authorities of the 19th century as a considerable security risk. As a result, comprehensive reporting and identification requirements for police surveillance were gradually introduced. These were more and more refined and were relatively comprehensive at the beginning of the 20th century, despite some logistical problems. Despite the lack of appropriate papers, Sternickel benefited from the fact that at the time of his escape in the countryside, especially during the harvest season, there was a considerable shortage of workers. As a result, the operators of agricultural businesses were much more interested in capable and willing workers than in compliance with reporting regulations.

From testimonies it could be deduced that as the alleged hay dealer Winckler he had killed a widow Krause in 1909 and the Kossaten Knöting in 1910 .

Act of 1913

Franz Kallies, the owner of an approximately 60  acre estate near Ortwig , hired August Sternickel as a farmhand under the name Otto Schöne in October 1912 . In addition to managing his estate, Kallies also ran a branch of the local savings bank . Schöne proved to be a good worker, and he treated the animals entrusted to him in an exemplary manner. The farmer noticed, however, that Schöne was occasionally absent for days and that he did not present him with any papers. Schöne refused to tell his employer where he was going. While the servant was absent one day, at the end of 1912 Kallies searched the estate of Schöne for papers. Schöne noticed this. Sternickel later testified that this was the moment when he decided to take revenge on his employer. In a hostel in Müncheberg, Sternickel approached Georg Kersten, who was 20 at the time, his 18-year-old brother Willy, and Franz Schliewenz, who was 21, asking whether they were “great Berliners” who wanted to “do something” with him. These answered in the affirmative. According to the appointment, the three of them went to the Kallies cowshed one early morning. There the farmer was overwhelmed and strangled with a string . When the 16-year-old maid Anna Phillip entered the barn shortly afterwards to milk the cows, she too was overwhelmed and also strangled. The four then went to the main building and Kallies' wife was killed in bed. The farmer's two children were then woken up, threatened with a pistol and forced to tell where the Kallies cash box was. The two daughters were then imprisoned. The booty was divided by Sternickel - each of his accomplices received 100 marks.

execution

Sternickel wrote his memoir in the last few days before his execution in Frankfurt an der Oder in 1913 and did not let himself be disturbed. "When he was done with it a few hours before the critical point in time, he asked for a bath, dressed very favorably and later gave a funny speech to the people gathered at the place of execution," reported 1930 in the monthly magazine for criminal psychology and criminal law reform . The 47-year-old was beheaded by the executioner Lorenz Schwietz from Breslau .

literature

• Maximillian Jacta , A clever capital criminal - The August Sternickel case , in: Famous criminal proceedings , Volume Germany II , Goldmann-Verlag, Munich 1967, pp. 200-214

Web links

• Hugo Friedländer , Interesting Criminal Trials , Volume 12, Berlin 1913, Chapter The robber being / The robber murderer August Sternickel in front of the jury ( e-text on zeno.org )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ territorial.de
2. ↑ Maximillian Jacta , Famous criminal trials , tape Germany II , Goldmann Verlag, Munich 1967, p 202 f.
3. ↑ Maximillian Jacta, Famous criminal trials , tape Germany II , Goldmann Verlag, Munich 1967, p 211th
4. ↑ ^{a b} Maximillian Jacta, Ein rissener Kapitalverbrecher - Der Fall August Sternickel , in: famous criminal processes , volume Germany II, Goldmann-Verlag, Munich 1967, p. 202.
5. ^ Peter Becker, On the trail of the perpetrator - A history of criminalistics , Primus-Verlag, Darmstadt 2005, ISBN 3-89678-275-4 , pp. 70–74.
6. ↑ Maximillian Jacta, A clever capital criminal - The August Sternickel case , in: Famous criminal processes , Volume Germany II, Goldmann-Verlag, Munich 1967, p. 205.