Christian Reinhard

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Christian Reinhard (* 1774 in Cologne ; † November 21, 1803 in Mainz ), popularly known as Black Jonas , was a robber and accomplice of the Schinderhannes .

Life

family

The black Jonas came from the Yenish population group , who in the 18th century were mainly traveling merchants . It is very likely that he is closely related to the robber captain Hannikel , whose real name is Jakob Reinhard, who was executed in Sulz am Neckar in 1787 . His stepbrother was the robber Heinrich Blum.

At the age of 18, Jonas separated from his mother and entered the service of various armies. He married Margarethe Eberhardt in Södel . Christian Reinhard's father-in-law was the Hessian hunter Johann Adolph Eberhardt. Around 1792 he married the sulfur wood dealer Anna Elisabeth Schabrack from Lorraine in Södel. The name saddle cloth is actually a dirty word for an ugly old woman. According to his own statements, Reinhard married 17-year-old Margareta Eberhardt in Södel around 1793. Margarethe later stated that she was born in Lorraine, but does not know where. The mother traded in matches. Margarethe ran a junk trade with Reinhard between Westerwald in the north and Odenwald in the south. She bore him two children.

Robber life

Jonas was connected to the notorious Dutch gang from an early age. During the years of the French Revolution, this had created a criminal network in Central Europe, in which the most notorious criminals of the time, such as Picard, Heckmann, Weyer or Mathias Weber , known as the Fetzer, could be found.

At the age of 25, the black Jonas had such an important reputation as a professional criminal that he was invited as an individual to the national "robber congress" held in Schupbach / Lahn in 1799 , in which major attacks in western Germany were planned for several years in advance.

In November 1799 he was visited by the then 20-year-old cattle thief Johannes Bückler, known as Schinderhannes, on the Breitwieser Hof near Groß-Umstadt . Apparently Schinderhannes saw in the nationally known black Jonas a mentor whom he wanted to join in order to get in contact with the Dutch gang. Schinderhannes persuaded Jonas to accompany him on a robbery near Asslar . The attack failed, whereupon Jonas broke the Schinderhannes' arm in an argument.

It wasn't until a year and a half later that they both came together again. At this point, Schinderhannes had already turned away from cattle theft and turned to robbery for the most part. Since then, Jonas and Schinderhannes have been moving on together with their shopkeepers. A burglary, two extortions and six robberies can now be proven in crimes committed together.

Johannes Bückler and Christian Reinhard carried out an attack in Södel in January / February 1802, in which Johann Martin Rinkert from Schloßborn, Black Peter alias Johann Peter Petri and two other journeymen were also involved. On June 14, 1802, Bückler confessed to Frankfurter Kriminalrat Siegler: "He took part in a burglary and theft that ... happened to a Jew in Seel (Södel), a place in the Wetterau behind Friedberg ." The booty consisted of cotton, silk cloths and money, among other things.

Capture, Trial and End

After Schinderhannes was captured on May 31, 1802 on a patrol by the Electorate of Trier Fuchs near Wolfenhausen and then committed to military service with the Austrian troops in Limburg an der Lahn , Jonas also found himself there. Both were transported to Frankfurt and from there delivered to Mainz. Jonas made only partial confessions before the judges of the Mainz special criminal court and revoked his statements at the end of the main hearing. His precise involvement in the crime is therefore no longer reliably traceable today.

Becker, "security officer of the Simmern district " names the charges of the court in Mainz:

  • "X. Christian Reinhard, called Jonas or black Jonas, 28 years old, bench player, born in Berlin, accused:

1) The vagrancy ,

2) Participation in ... “seven crimes.

  • "XI. Margreth Eberhard, wife of Christian Reinhard, 25 years old, from the former Lorraine , accused:

1) The vagrancy since her earliest childhood, where she wanted to leave her place of birth, whose name she did not even know how to give.

2) Knowing to have received the things resulting from her husband's thefts for free. "

An attempt to break out on the last day of the trial failed. While still under the guillotine, he was heavily drunk and cursed all those standing by. The Mainz court president described him in 1802 as follows: "His face announced discontent and black bile."

"The black Jonas woman was accused of vagrancy ... Margarethe Eberhard, was banished."

Aftermath

Jonas' skull ended up in the anatomical collection of the physician Soemmering and was destroyed during a bomb attack on Frankfurt in 1944.

In July 2009 in the Anatomical Institute of Heidelberg University, a numbering on the skeleton on the pelvic bone that had previously been attributed to the robber Holzlips was discovered, which corresponds to a historical source according to which this bone belonged to the Black Jonas.

Historical literature

  • B. Becker: Actual history of the robber gangs on both banks of the Rhine. First part, Cologne 1804.
  • Mark Scheibe (ed.): Schinderhannes and his gang or Johann Bückler and his journeymen strange story, crimes, condemnation and execution. Pulled from the criminal files and told the truth. 1804. (Reprint: Historical Commission for the Rhineland 1789–1815, Kelkheim 2006, ISBN 3-00-019732-X .)

Note: The contemporary novel by Th. FK Arnold The Black Jonas - Kapuziner, Mordbrenner (...), Erfurt 1805, is based entirely on fiction and does not contain any historical facts about the black Jonas. The novel was created at the same time as several other robber novels to meet the growing need of readers for supposedly authentic crime stories.

literature

  • Mark Scheibe: The criminal justice system in Mainz and Frankfurt am Main 1796–1803, with special consideration of the proceedings against serial offender Johannes Bückler, called Schinderhannes, 1802/03. Historical Commission for the Rhineland 1789–1815, Kelkheim 2009, ISBN 978-3-9813188-0-7 . (initial legal processing of the case)
  • Mark Scheibe: Schinderhannes. No good, horse thief, robber captain? 4th edition. Historical Commission for the Rhineland 1789–1815, Kelkheim 2008, ISBN 978-3-00-024299-1 . (with initial processing of all 130 verifiable crimes committed by the robber)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ His statement made in the Mainz investigation that he was born in Berlin is probably due to the fact that he was afraid of extradition to the Cologne special criminal court. The local public prosecutor Anton Keil worked as a French secret agent to track down professional criminals operating across borders and as a headhunter commissioned by the state. His superiors described him as "bloodthirsty", see M. Scheibe: Schinderhannes. No good, horse thief, robber captain? 2008.
  2. ↑ on his person and his involvement in the criminal offenses of Schinderhannes see M. Scheibe: Schinderhannes. No good, horse thief, robber captain ?. 2008 and M. Scheibe: The criminal justice system in Mainz and Frankfurt am Main 1796–1803. 2009.
  3. ↑ Hannikel was described as "the horror of his time and the admiration of all Jauner and Gypsies", see E. Viehöfer in: Schurke oder Held. Exhibition catalog of the Badisches Landesmuseum, Karlsruhe 1996, ISBN 3-923132-47-6 , pp. 67–74.
  4. ↑ Udo Fleck: Thieves - Robbers - Murderers. Study on the collective deliques of Rhenish robber gangs at the turn of the 18th to the 19th century. Dissertation . Trier 2003, p. 193.
  5. ↑ Herbert Meyer: The families. (= 1200 years of Södel. Volume 2). Rockenberg 2001, ISBN 3-923907-07-9 , No. 128.
  6. ↑ Eugen Rieß: The story. (= 1200 years of Södel. Volume 1). Rockenberg 2001, ISBN 3-923907-06-0 , p. 97.
  7. ↑ B. Becker: Actual history of the robber gangs on both banks of the Rhine. First Part, Cologne 1804, p. 61 f and p. 148 f.
  8. ↑ Christian Vogel: War in the Wetterau . In: Wetterauer Zeitung . March 13, 2001.
  9. ↑ Mark Scheibe: Schinderhannes. 5th edition. Kelkheim 2010, p. 233, on Södel cf. in total p. 231 ff.
  10. ↑ Mark Scheibe: Schinderhannes. 5th edition. Kelkheim 2010, p. 269 and p. 406.
  11. ↑ B. Becker: Acting history. 1804, p. 61 f.
  12. ↑ B. Becker: Acting history. 1804, p. 148 f.
personal data
SURNAME Reinhard, Christian
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Black Jonas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German accomplice of the Schinderhannes
DATE OF BIRTH 1774
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH November 21, 1803
Place of death Mainz