Franz Ludwig Schenk von Castell (1736–1821)

Franz Ludwig Schenk von Castell

Franz Ludwig Reichsgraf Schenk von Castell (born August 25, 1736 in Oberdischingen ; † May 21, 1821 ibid) was a nobleman from the family of Schenken von Castell who, due to his work as a criminal prosecutor in Upper Swabia, was known as the "Malefizschenk" - or " Henkersgraf “called - gained fame.

Life

Franz Ludwig Graf Schenk von Castell was the son of Marquart Willibald Graf Schenk von Castell († 1764) and, as imperial count, owned the dominion of Oberdischingen . After the death of his father, Franz Ludwig Schenk von Castell became the owner of the patrimonial Gutenstein and Waal rulers in addition to Oberdischingen and called himself "Lord and Count of Schelklingen , Berg and Altbierlingen , Gutenstein , Engelswies , Ablach and Altheim , Oberdischingen , Bach , Wernau and Einsingen , Hausen in the Danube Valley and Stetten am kalten Markt , Imperial Austrian Treasurer, Elector of Mainz's Secret Council and Hereditary Marshal of the former Hochstift Eichstätt ”. He had two brothers, Anton († 1799) and Kasimir († 1810).

After he took over power in 1765, he expanded the inconspicuous Oberdischingen into a small residence. A new avenue led to a splendid castle in the middle of a park appropriate to the rank. On May 1, 1770, Count Franz Ludwig led the stage of the Marie Antoinettes bridal train from Ulm to Obermarchtal. A castle-like office building, the penitentiary known as “Fronfeste” in 1788 and a church built in 1800 were added to the structural measures.

Malefizschenk

Old postcard from Oberdischingen with a portrait of the "Malefizschenken"

What motivated the 63-year-old Count to set up the penitentiary that gave him his nickname is unclear. This may have something to do with his first case, the arch thief Elisabetha Gaßnerin , known as Schwarze Lies . Since the 1760s she has been active as a bag gripper , arch thief and vagant from the Black Forest via the Swabian Alb to Switzerland. Numerous thefts with a total loss of 5859 guilders have been proven . In her most brazen theft, she stole a purse with gold currency worth 1,700 guilders from none other than Franz Ludwig Schenk von Castell when visiting a grand duke at the Ludwigsburg court in the court chapel there. Since the count was biased, an additional report by a Württemberg lawyer led to the conviction of the Schwarzen Lies . Because she was pregnant at the time of the trial, the execution was suspended until after the child was born. She was beheaded with the sword on July 16, 1788 .

The Upper Swabian robber and gang crime of the 19th century was a particular problem of the territorial fragmentation of the region. On the one hand, this made it possible for criminals to evade access by switching to a different domain, and on the other hand, many small domains did not have the necessary resources for effective criminal prosecution. The "Jaunerlisten" (lists with the names of crooks ), which have been published since 1728, do not reflect any statistical trend on the spread of crime, as the increase in numbers also reflects the increasing degree of criminalistic coverage of the problem. The "Sulzer Jaunerliste" of the Hannikeljäger Schäffer contains 1130 entries with brief descriptions of the thieves, bag grabbers and robbers sought. A list of the Ludwigsburg orphanage pastor Schöll from 1793 contains 2726 entries and the "General Jauner List" of the Baden governor Friedrich August Roth from 1800 even 3147 people.

The Malefizschenk signed individual contracts with the state governments of Ansbach, Bavaria and Württemberg, imperial cities such as Biberach, Ulm, Pfullendorf, Schwäbisch Gmünd and Überlingen, the Swiss cantons of Zurich , Basel , Freiburg , Schaffhausen , Glarus , Graubünden , St. Gallen , Solothurn , Schwyz , Thurgau and Appenzell as well as especially with the small lords of the imperial knighthood united in the knightly canton of Danube . In total there were 139 different rulers (68 secular, 40 ecclesiastical and 31 imperial cities). The individual rulers paid for the accommodation and food of the delinquents from their area  - and the Malefizschenk, who had the highest jurisdiction from his rule in Oberdischingen, conducted the trials on behalf of his contractual partners and also had the death sentences carried out.

The Fronfeste was built in the shape of a horseshoe. The cell wing comprised several “large rooms with 16 or 18 heads”, “rooms for better crime classes”, a “room for more decent people class” and “block houses for serious criminals”. Official apartments were housed above it. A large kitchen and a church were also included. The staff included a chancellery, a registrar, two legal assessors, a chaplain, a medicus and a chyrurgus, an iron master, two disciples, two police officers and a cook and a kitchen maid. In addition, the executioner Xaver Vollmer from Bach, first a father, then a son, worked at the place of execution. Around 40 executions took place between 1789 and 1808. These executions were great spectacles for the local population. The spectators flocked to the announced executions from Ulm and Biberach, but also from the Alb. Twenty other death sentences were reduced to lesser sentences, such as lifelong imprisonment, often only on the scaffold itself, as in the case of Victoria Eisenmännin, commonly known as "Beautiful Victor". In 1788 she was only brought to the place of execution with other convicts and was pardoned at the last minute to life imprisonment, and later even released entirely. This reflects a philanthropic trait of the count, perhaps also with a Masonic mind, who always hoped to awaken the remains of good talents in people through educational measures. He had the son of the arch crook Matthäu Eggers, called "Vogelmändle", executed on August 10, 1797, educated in Oberdischingen and later made him a hunter and forester on his estate in Gutenstein. Posterity spun legends out of such philanthropic traits and made the "Schöne Victor" either the count's cook or even the concubine of the count or at least the landlady of the hunter's house in Oberdischingen.

The turn of the century at the beginning of the 19th century brought, in spite of all the acknowledged successes of the Malefizenk gift, to the end of this enterprise of "criminal law under private law". In May 1800, in the tradition of the Bastille Tower , a French department opened the prison and freed the criminals who had been painfully apprehended. In 1804 a plot to free the “Wälderlieselhannes” and “Memmingerhans” was thwarted at the last minute.

1808 came the end of the Oberdischinger penitentiary institution. After the Rhine Confederation Act of 1806 came into force , the former imperial principalities and imperial counties were mediatized . Oberdischingen and the associated areas became part of the Kingdom of Württemberg . King Friedrich I of Württemberg took over criminal jurisdiction and suppressed prosecution in Oberdischingen, since a gendarmerie had been established in the kingdom in 1807 with the Royal Württemberg Landjäger Corps . Count Schenk von Castell tried to preserve his life's work in endless, costly trials. On June 3, 1807, the Count's castle burned down to the ground. Evidence suggests an act of revenge by "old friends". A large part of the Count's archive was also destroyed by the fire. The count then moved into a wing of the Fronfeste. After its operation was finally stopped in 1808, the count died there in May 1821, impoverished and lonely as "prisoner of his own mission [...] at the place of his great triumphs and defeats".

In honor of the most famous criminal prosecutor of Upper Swabia, the local jester society Oberdischingen is divided into the groups of jesters , crooks , hangman's drummers , malefic women and castle ghosts , derived from the history of the place .

family

Franz Ludwig Reichsgraf Schenk von Castell married Maria Philippina Amalia Freiin von Hutten zu Stolzenberg on November 14, 1763 (* December 26, 1747, † January 22, 1813). They had three sons, Franz Joseph Hereditary Count Schenk von Castell (1767-1845), Philipp Anton Graf Schenk von Castell (1768-1811), who was appointed clergyman, and Casimir Graf Schenk von Castell (1781-1831), and four daughters , including Maria Ludovika Countess Schenk von Castell (1778–1850), who was married to Carl Anton Graf Fugger, Lord of Nordendorf (1776–1848) since 1798 , and Maria Josepha Countess Schenk von Castell († 1850), who was married to Johann Ignaz Baron Schenk von Stauffenberg-Rississen (1770-1807) was married.

The family showed little understanding for the count's costly and burdensome criminal activities. After taking up this activity, the Schenk von Castell family lived mostly separately from one another.

The second-born son Philipp Anton became a clergyman, the third-born Casimir remained childless. The first-born son, Hereditary Count Franz Joseph, married Maximiliana Johanna von Waldburg-Zeil-Wurzach (1776–1836) in Gutenstein on October 27, 1794; the marriage was divorced in 1813. They had two children, the daughter Philippine and the son Ludwig Anton Reichsgraf Schenk von Castell (1802–1876), who married on September 18, 1833, also in Gutenstein, Maria von Potocka (1816–1857). They had two children, Countess Josephine Schenk von Castell (1831–1908), later married von Poth, and Count Ludwig Anton Schenk von Castell (1860–1902). With his death on May 31, 1902, the male line of Schenk von Castell des "Malefizschenk" became extinct. The last name of the family was the only daughter from this marriage, Maria Blühdorn née Countess Schenk von Castell (1901-2004).

Archival material

• In the main state archive of Stuttgart there is a collection of 10 running meters (1310–1859) under B 82 for the "Count Schenk von Castell" and a collection of 4.4 running meters for the "Kriminalarchiv des Count Franz Ludwig Schenk von Castell" ( 1654–1813) under B 83.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Casimir Bumiller: History of the Swabian Alb. From the ice age to the present . Casimir Katz Verlag, Gernsbach 2008, ISBN 978-3-938047-41-5 , p. 269 .
2. ↑ B 82
3. ↑ B 83

literature

• Ernst Arnold: The Malefizschenk and his Jauner. Historically presented based on files and writings . Stuttgart: Franckh'sche Verlagshandlung, 1911. Reprint of the 1911 edition and expanded to include the "Oberdischinger Thief List of 1799", edited by Werner Kreitmeier; ed. from the community of Oberdischingen. Oberdischingen 1993. ISBN 3-927003-08-5 .
• Margarethe Bitter: The breeding and workhouse as well as the Criminal Institute of Count Franz Ludwig Schenk von Castell zu Oberdischingen in the Swabian district, from 1789-1808 . Murnau am Staffelsee: Verlag Fürst 1930 (legal and political dissertation; Halle / Saale from October 4, 1930).
• Casimir Bumiller: History of the Swabian Alb. From the ice age to the present . Casimir Katz Verlag, Gernsbach 2008, ISBN 978-3-938047-41-5 . (Including especially the chapters Robber Time , p. 263ff and ... a new period of time: The Napoleonic Age , p. 281f.)
• Peter Dörfler : The son of Malefizschenk. A novel . Munich & Kempten: Verlag Josef Kösel, 1947. 2nd edition 1953.
• Stefan Ott: Oberdischingen. Home book of a community on the upper Danube . Weißenhorn: Anton H. Konrad Verlag, 1977. ISBN 3-87437-144-1 .
• Johann Baptist Pflug : From the robber and French times of Swabia. The memories of the Swabian painter from the years 1780-1840 . Re-edited by Max Zengerle. Weißenhorn: Anton H. Konrad Verlag, 1974 (3rd edition). ISBN 3-87437-113-1 .
• Martin Schlecker: The Malefizschenk von Dischingen. Historical drama in 4 acts . Hayingen: Self-published, 1960. First performance in 1962 by the "Burgspielschar" in Friedrichsdorf- Burgholzhausen , directed by Karl Krappel.
• Franz Schrode: The Malefizschenk: Life and work of the so-called "executioner count" of Oberdischingen . Stuttgart: Kepplerhaus, 1932.
• Franz Schrode: The Malefizschenk and the beautiful Viktor (illustrations by Fritz Bonson). Ulm: Aegis-Verlag, 1956.
• Harald Siebenmorgen (ed.): Rogue or hero? Historical robbers and bands of robbers . Catalog for the exhibition of the same name at the Badisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe. Sigmaringen: Jan Thorbecke Verlag, 1995. ISBN 3-7995-0303-X .
• Paul Beck :  Schenk v. Castel, Franz Ludwig . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 36, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1893, pp. 766-771.

Web links

Commons : Franz Ludwig Schenk von Castell  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Main State Archives Stuttgart Holdings: New Württemberg rulers before 1803 / 1806–1810. Other secular dominions including B 82: Castell, Schenk von; Counts; 1310–1859 and B 83: Castell, Schenk von, Kriminalarchiv 1654–1813.