Franz Laubler

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Franz Laubler, contemporary engraving

Franz Laubler (* 1684 in Oberhausen near Augsburg; † July 18, 1726 in Dresden ) was a trained butcher and later a mercenary who murdered the archdeacon of the Kreuzkirche Hermann Joachim Hahn in Dresden in 1726 . After the fact, his personality became the subject of interest-guided self-portrayal and external representation and is difficult to reconstruct.

Past life and assassination attempt

Contemporary representation of Hahn's murder by Laubler. This says (banner, upside down): "You seducer of the soul must die now". Hahn calls out: "Jesus, help me". The tetragram is in the sun at the top of the picture .

Laubler led an unsteady life with changing occupations and the like. a. in Italy. In 1720 he was in Vienna , where, according to his self-portrayal after the deed, he received communion through the Archbishop of Valencia ; the host was then permanently stuck in his throat. From 1722 he stayed in Dresden. Catholic by origin and upbringing , he became, through the mediation of his later victim, the Lutheran preacher Hahn, a riding Trabant in the elector's bodyguard . Hahn taught him the faith and accepted him into the Lutheran Church. However Laubler did not come with the religious question to rest and approached, according to his own desired discharge from military service, in the since the conversion of Augustus the Strong religiously divided city back to the Catholicism. How great the influence of the Jesuits under the leadership of Franz Sebastian Nonhardt was, whether his unstable spirit was consciously fanatical , whether he was formally re-admitted to the Catholic Church, all of this became the subject of passionate arguments after the fact.

On Tuesday, May 21, 1726, he entered Hahn's rectory at 1 p.m. and asked for an interview. When Hahn showed up, he tried to tie him up with a rope and strangle him, which he couldn't because of Hahn's resistance, and then inflicted five fatal stabs in his chest and back with a long knife. He dragged the dying man to the stairs, which resulted in further injuries. Allegedly, three large nails were later found at the crime scene, with which Laubler wanted to crucify his victim. At first he escaped the rushing housemaid and the family. He ran to the castle , where he told his fellow guards the fact and was arrested by them.

The preacher's murder resulted in days of unrest with violence against Catholic people and symbols.

Laubler was publicly executed on July 18 . He was on the Old Market Square in front of the town hall "condescendingly of" whacked and before the Black Gate broken on the wheel.

literature

  • Mathis Leibetseder: The host in the throat. A "terrible bloody act" and the Dresden tumult of 1726 . Constance 2009
  • Anonymus: Memories from the Reformation history of the residence city of Dresden, with reference to May 21, 1726 there . Meißen 1826, pp. 75–86 ( digitized version )

novel

In Ina Seidel's novel Lennacker (1938), the murder of Hermann Joachim Hahn in the chapter The Seventh Night is the climax of the plot. Franz Laubler appears several times and is impressively portrayed.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ DNB
  2. ↑ Leibetseder ; the memorabilia (see lit.) quote him with the words: "Cut off my head and you will still find the host in my throat!" (p. 81)
personal data
SURNAME Laubler, Franz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Laubler, Frantz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German butcher and mercenary; Murderer of the Lutheran pastor Hermann Joachim Hahn from Dresden
DATE OF BIRTH 1684
PLACE OF BIRTH Augsburg-Oberhausen
DATE OF DEATH July 18, 1726
Place of death Dresden