Bernhard Kimmel

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Crime scenes in the Federal Republic of Germany
Bernhard Kimmel (Germany)
Palatinate Forest (1957-61)
Palatinate Forest (1957-61)
Trebur (1975)
Trebur (1975)
Bensheim (1981)
Bensheim (1981)

Bernhard Kimmel , also called Al Capone von der Pfalz in the media (born May 21, 1936 in Liestal , Switzerland ; † December 6, 2019 in Landau in der Pfalz ), son of a German father and a Swiss mother, was a German criminal. He became known throughout West Germany because he was involved in break-ins, robberies and a murder around 1960 and committed a murder himself in 1981. He first served a long-term, later a life sentence . Because of his good conduct, he was released early in December 2003 after a total of more than 31 years in prison.

Family and education

Kimmel's father came from the Palatinate town of Lambrecht , in the central mountain region of Palatinate Forest in Rhineland-Palatinate is, his mother from the Swiss municipality of Liestal ( Basel-Country ). Kimmel spent his early childhood there and with his grandmother in Basel .

The parents' marriage failed during the Second World War . Kimmel's father returned to Lambrecht, taking his son with him. It was there that Kimmel graduated from primary school and learned the trade of cloth weaver in the early 1950s . At a young age he got on the wrong track.

Crimes in the Palatinate Forest

The Kimmel gang

From 1957, when the first criminal offenses became known, to January 7, 1961, Kimmel was the head of the "Kimmel gang" named after him. This group of six young criminals made the area around Lambrecht unsafe first with found weapons that came from the Second World War, then also with stolen ones. Above all, the Totenkopfstraße leading south of the city through the forest and its surroundings were the gang's playground for more than three years, of which 187 crimes were recorded. The looted almost 150,000  DM (around 341,087 euros ) were a considerable fortune at the time, given an average monthly income of less than 400 DM (around 910 euros).

Property damage - break-ins - murder

The scene of the murder: the Hellerhütte
Ritterstein 190 for murder victim Karl Wertz

The list of crimes began in 1957 with target practice on street signs, continued with arson on buildings and rose to a three-digit number of break-ins . These were mainly aimed at banks; the first, however, was directed against the AOK office in Lambrecht on October 24, 1957 . Their safe was stolen and buried in a nearby garden, but due to the traces, the police found it two days later including the intact contents - 19,000 DM cash (around 46,304 euros) and a blank check for 10,400 DM (around 25,345 euros). In 1959, the gang carried out an armed robbery on a weapons depot of the French occupying power in Lachen-Speyerdorf (now part of Neustadt an der Weinstrasse ) . The most lucrative break-in occurred on March 31, 1960. The gang entered the Neustadt department store Weickert through a cellar door and cracked the safe on the upper floor, which contained more than 40,000 DM in cash (around 93,231 euros) in wages due to be paid out.

The events finally culminated in a murder : on New Year's Eve 1960/61 the gang was out and about in the Palatinate Forest southwest of Neustadt. First, the Totenkopfhütte was set on fire at the eponymous pass , then the route continued to the Hellerhütte, a good 1 km away . At 3 o'clock in the morning, gang member Lutz Cetto shot down the 49-year-old hut warden Karl Wertz (1911–1961) from Haßloch , who ran the hut for the Palatinate Forest Association, with a 9 mm pistol . Wertz had illuminated the young people who were drunk and rioted in front of the house with a flashlight, and Cetto had feared, as the court later revealed, that the hut warden might identify gang members as perpetrators. A little later in the Neustadt Hetzelstift hospital it was discovered that Wertz had died on the transport. A member of the Palatinate Forest Association witnessed the fatal shots. Knight's stone no.190 , which was later set at the Hellerhütte, announces the murder .

Manhunt and arrest

Police situation center: the school in Lambrecht

After this bloody act there was a large manhunt. It was coordinated by the head of the Ludwigshafen Police Department , Georg Fleischmann (1906–1970), who lost his post in 1963 on charges of having committed murderous acts during World War II. More than a thousand police officers - a larger number of whom were housed in the Lambrecht schoolhouse, so that the students had a few days of "special vacation" - tracked down Kimmel, who with his then partner Mathilde "Tilly" Dohn (who occasionally "revolvered" in the press) Tilly “) was out and about in the wintry Palatinate Forest for a week. Then, on 22 January 1961, both were arrested and were in custody . Kimmel had been persuaded to give up by a distant relative from whom he had found food.

During a local meeting the following month (February 1961), Kimmel managed to escape once again under the eyes of police chief Fleischmann and three police officers: he had the handcuffs removed in the forest so that he could take off his coat and hang it around his allegedly freezing partner . Suddenly he jumped down a steep slope without being shackled and found himself in a hiding place nearby with a submachine gun. In the subsequent shooting, his girlfriend was also able to escape. After four days, however, the couple had to surrender to the February cold and surrendered to the authorities.

Processes

Police and public prosecutor's investigations as well as the trials cost the Federal Republic more than 100,000 DM (around 221,198 euros). In the fall of 1962, the jury at the Frankenthal regional court chaired by Erich Barbier (1908–1988), director of the regional court, led the first convictions for burglaries and thefts. The head of the court gave the police an unflattering testimony during the main hearing:

"If the police had worked faster and better and had followed up the clear indications, then the gang could have been rendered harmless as early as 1957 after the break-in of the AOK Lambrecht."

- District Court Director Erich Barbier on October 11, 1962

The police did not trust Kimmel with this AOK burglary and, after the incriminating testimony of an eyewitness, noted in the investigation files:

“Kimmel is out of the question for the break-in. He comes from a deeply religious family. The reporter, however, has a criminal record. "

- Interrogation protocol of the Gendarmerie Lambrecht from 1957

In 1963, the same court was responsible for the crime complex surrounding the nocturnal murder, which tried several days in January and February. The sentences imposed at the end of 1962 have been partially incorporated into the new judgments.

Especially because part of the booty that was supposedly buried in aluminum milk cans in the forest was missing and because he was the leader of the gang, Kimmel received a 14-year prison sentence. From this he had to serve a little more than nine years - taking into account his pre-trial detention and good conduct; he was released in May 1970.

Cetto was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder, which he was supposed to serve in the Freiendiez correctional facility ; after a few months he committed suicide there in early January 1964. The other of the five gang members who were present at the murder were given temporary prison sentences: Rudi Hartmann received nine years and eight months, Bruno Veit three years, Mathilde Dohn two years and ten months.

Bank burglary and acquittal

In 1975 there was a night break into a bank in Trebur - southwest of Frankfurt am Main . The police arrested Kimmel near the crime scene and found tools in his car that would have been suitable for carrying out the crime. He refused to make a confession and was charged. In 1976, however, he was acquitted because there was insufficient evidence against him.

Bank burglary and police murder

To the right of the church: entrance gate and wall of the Schwalmstadt prison

On December 12, 1981, Kimmel and an accomplice tried to break into a district savings bank branch in Bensheim on Bergstrasse in southern Hesse at night . He attacked the alerted police officers at gunpoint. The 26-year-old Achim Benick suffered paraplegia from an explosive device set off by Kimmel , and 31-year-old Hubert Rupprecht was hit in the head from a few meters away by a bullet from Kimmel's pistol; he died a few days later.

The court came to the conclusion that Kimmel's act should be classified as murder. The perpetrator, who was himself shot in the confrontation, was sentenced to life imprisonment, from which he had to serve 22 years. Most of the time he was imprisoned in the high-security wing of the Schwalmstadt correctional facility in North Hesse .

reception

As early as 1960, Kimmel had sought press contacts under the name "Al Capone", with which he alluded to the notorious US gang boss, and had also received appropriate attention, especially among the rainbow press , which kept picking up on the term. A television film shot in 1969 about events in the Palatinate Forest also had the nickname in the title: Al Capone in the German Forest . Directed by Franz Peter Wirth and based on the script by Peter Adler , Will Danin ("Kalle Damm" alias Bernhard Kimmel), Angelika Bender ("Hanni" alias Mathilde Dohn), Christof Wackernagel , Rainer Werner Fassbinder a . a.

About the same events, the Chawwerusch Theater from Herxheim near Landau staged a dramatic play in Palatinate dialect with the title coal in de Milchkann (Palatinate for "money in the milk can") and the subtitle A robber story from the Palatinate Forest . Directed by Ben Hergl, co-authors were Walter Menzlaw and Peter Schraß. The performance was until 2004 on the Schedule .

While creating a film documentary in the 1970s, Kimmel met the writer Martin Walser , who unsuccessfully campaigned for the rehabilitation of the prisoner. During the second period of imprisonment, Kimmel began modeling sculptures that were presented in exhibitions, for example in 1993 in Ludwigshafen.

Also in 2003, as an old man after his second release from prison, Kimmel was in demand with the media and beyond his 70th birthday still presented himself as a “noble robber” of the type of the legendary Schinderhannes . In 2006, for example, in a 45-minute documentary by Südwestrundfunk, he once again expressed how much he sees himself as a victim of society and adverse circumstances. B. Failure to understand that he had been prosecuted for murdering a police officer with a shot in the head , although he had "aimed over the head". Also in 2006, director Peter Fleischmann made a documentary about Kimmel, whom he had used in his 1970 film Das Unheil , entitled My friend, the murderer . It was released in theaters on July 21, and it was broadcast on TV on September 18, 2006.

literature

  • Thomas B. Hutter: "I wanted to be a noble robber" . The Kimmel gang, a Palatinate myth. In: Klaus Schönberger (Ed.): Va Banque: Bank robbery - theory, practice, history . Verlag Libertäre Assoziation, Hamburg 2001, ISBN 3-922611-83-4 , p. 78-91 .
  • Michail Krausnick : Al Capone in the German forest . Edition Durchblick, Neckargemünd 1999, ISBN 3-89811-146-6 .
  • Rainer Thielen: Al Capone Bernhard Kimmel . A Palatinate Schinderhannes? Höma Verlag, Offenbach an der Queich 2008, ISBN 978-3-937329-34-5 .
  • Wolfgang Wegner: Al Capone from the Palatinate - Bernhard Kimmel . Biographical detective novel. Gmeiner-Verlag, Meßkirch 2017, ISBN 978-3-8392-2071-9 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Roswitha Kexel: "Al Capone von der Pfalz" is dead . In: Rhein-Zeitung . Issue E. Koblenz April 6, 2020, p. 18 .
  2. ^ Rainer Thielen: Al Capone Bernhard Kimmel . 2008, p. 12 .
  3. ↑ a b c d e police. Major manhunt. Kimmel Turks . In: Der Spiegel . No.  9 , 1961, pp. 23 f . ( Online - Feb. 22, 1961 ).
  4. ↑ a b c d e Torsten Hampel: Gunshot wounds in the Palatinate Forest . In: Der Tagesspiegel . Berlin May 22, 2004 ( online ).
  5. ↑ a b The Al Capone from the Palatinate. (PDF; 248 kB) (No longer available online.) In: Magazin G / Geschichte. 2008, archived from the original on September 24, 2015 ; Retrieved on September 6, 2010 (Internet additional article for the print edition of Issue 9).
  6. ↑ a b c d e f g h Andreas Attinger, Stefan Heimerl: The Kimmel case. In: The Rhine Palatinate . http://storys.rheinpfalz.de , March 5, 2018, accessed on May 8, 2020 .
  7. ↑ Dragged away the safe in the night . In: The Rhine Palatinate . Ludwigshafen October 25, 1957.
  8. ↑ a b c d “Injured people are killed!” The Al Capone gang adopted drastic laws. (No longer available online.) In: Hamburger Abendblatt . October 12, 1962, archived from the original on May 3, 2014 ; Retrieved December 28, 2011 .
  9. ↑ Theft of money on a grand scale . The break-in in the Weickert department store. In: The Rhine Palatinate . Ludwigshafen April 1, 1960.
  10. ^ "Al Capones" fatal shots in the Palatinate Forest . In: The Rhine Palatinate . Ludwigshafen January 3, 1961.
  11. ↑ a b The fatal shot came from his 9 mm pistol. (No longer available online.) In: Hamburger Abendblatt . February 1, 1963, formerly in the original ; Retrieved on May 10, 2012 (Note: Presumably when the newspaper article was digitized, the P38 pistol became the later developed P88 ).  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) @1@ 2Template: Toter Link / suche.abendblatt.de
  12. ↑ Semolina pudding for Al Capone . In: Nürnberger Nachrichten . February 12, 1961 ( online ).
  13. ↑ a b The trial of the Al Capone gang. (No longer available online.) In: Hamburger Abendblatt . February 7, 1963, archived from the original on May 3, 2014 ; Retrieved July 11, 2011 .
  14. ↑ hü (author's abbreviation): Kimmel pardoned . In: The Rhine Palatinate . Ludwigshafen June 26, 1970.
  15. ↑ hr (author abbreviation): Lutz Cetto died in prison cell . In: Die Rheinpfalz , complete edition . No. 4 . Ludwigshafen January 6, 1964 ( online [PDF]).
  16. ↑ Life sentence for Cetto . (PDF; 2.1 MB) In: Hamburger Abendblatt , February 9, 1963.
  17. ↑ mhü (author's abbreviation): death by 7.65 mm projectile . In: The Rhine Palatinate . Ludwigshafen December 23, 1981.
  18. ↑ Al Capone in the German Forest (1969) in the Internet Movie Database (English).
  19. ↑ Al Capone in the German forest. filmdienst.de, accessed on June 18, 2020 (broadcast on October 23, 1969 by ARD).
  20. ^ Coal in the milk can. (No longer available online.) Theaterportal.de, archived from the original on September 27, 2007 ; Retrieved July 12, 2011 .
  21. ^ Film by Roland May and Dirk Laabs ( Südwestrundfunk ): Bernhard Kimmel - the "Al Capone" from the Palatinate . Broadcast by ARD , March 20, 2006, 9 p.m.
  22. ↑ Eberhard Dersch: Film recordings for "Kriminalfall Kimmel". polizeioldtimer.de, March 16, 2006, accessed November 25, 2010 .
  23. ↑ Film by Peter Fleischmann: My friend, the murderer . Broadcast by arte , September 18, 2006, 10:30 p.m.
personal data
SURNAME Kimmel, Bernhard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Al Capone von der Pfalz (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German criminal
DATE OF BIRTH May 21, 1936
PLACE OF BIRTH Liestal (Switzerland)
DATE OF DEATH December 6, 2019
Place of death Landau in the Palatinate