Gisela Werler

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Gisela Werler (born August 18, 1934 in Altona ; † November 2003 in Hamburg) was Germany's first female bank robber .

Life

Gisela Werler was born in Altona as the oldest of three daughters of a building fitter. She grew up in poor conditions and had to contribute to the family household after graduating from elementary school . At the age of 30 she was still living with her parents. At that time she was working as an unskilled worker in a wallpaper factory.

She was later married to her former accomplice Hermann Wittorff alias Peter Werler for 31 years. Gisela Werler died in Hamburg in 2003, where she lived in simple circumstances until the end. Wittorff died at the end of 2009.

Bank robberies

Gisela Werler (left) and Hermann Wittorf (right)

A friend of Gisela's, Hugo Warncke , needed a hiding place for the booty of a bank robbery that he carried out with the taxi entrepreneur Hermann Wittorff - this was supposed to be the young woman's bedroom closet.

On July 29, 1965, she finally attacked the Elbgaustraße branch of the Hamburger Volksbank alone . She stole 3,100 DM , but made headlines nationwide as the first female bank robber and became known as the bank lady . Together with her future husband Hermann Wittorff, she carried out a total of 19 bank robberies .

On December 15, 1967, she and her accomplices were caught by the police after trying to rob a bank in Bad Segeberg . The four employees who were in the branch at the time resisted unexpectedly and pursued the fugitive perpetrators. All four of Hermann Wittorff's employees were shot at.

On December 27, 1968 the trial of the bank lady gang began. While her accomplice Hermann Wittorff was sentenced to thirteen and a half years imprisonment, in the case of Gisela Werler it was only nine and a half years because she was able to demonstrate that she only acted out of love for her boyfriend. In prison she married Hermann Wittorff.

After his release from prison in December 1985, Hermann Wittorff again attacked a bank, the Elmshorner Bank für Gemeinwirtschaft. He testified in court that he wanted to secure his pension in this way. His wife Gisela Werler could never be proven to be involved in the crime.

Film adaptations and exhibitions

In the documentary Die Banklady-Story (Author: Martin Niggeschmidt / Süddeutsche TV) the forgotten story of Germany's first female bank robber was rediscovered in 1999. For this half-hour film, Gisela Werler gave her first and only television interview four years before her death.

Gisela Werler's diary was filmed in 2007 by Manfred Uhlig . As part of the documentary series “Geld her!”, This film was broadcast on ARD as an episode of Die Banklady .

Also in 2007 was the animation film "Gisela" by Katja Baumann. The stage on which the criminal case took place was the surface of an image processing program on which image layers were animated. Katja Baumann won an award from the Art Directors Club (ADC) for her film in 2008.

The evidence from the “Banklady” crime case has been part of the collection of the Folklore Museum of the Schleswig-Holstein State Museums Foundation at Gottorf Castle since 2006 . From 2007 to 2010 the museum presented the special exhibition The Bank Lady - Robbery! Would you pack all the money, please? , in which the original weapons, masks and items of equipment of the bank robbers as well as interviews with contemporary witnesses were presented.

In 2013, another film adaptation was made under the direction of Christian Alvart, entitled Banklady , which was filmed in Helmstedt , Offleben , Schöningen , Hamburg-Hamm and Lauenburg / Elbe , among others . "We don't want to make a documentary, we want to make a popcorn cinema, a real action-love drama," says Sabine Wildemann, the film's producer. The film was released on March 27, 2014.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hamburger Abendblatt, June 18, 2007
  2. ↑ a b c Katja Iken: Bank Lady Gisela Werler - With umbrella, charm and pistol . In: Spiegel Online one day . December 14, 2007.
  3. ↑ The caricaturist and election candidate Karl-Heinz Schoenfeld made the "Bank Lady" known. Potsdam Latest News, March 14, 2014.
  4. ↑ Gisela Werler in the Internet Movie Database (English)
  5. ^ Carsten Fleischhauer: Die Banklady , in: Yearbook of the Schleswig-Holstein State Museums Foundation, Schloss Gottorf NF 11 (2007/2008), pp. 92–93
  6. ↑ Florian Arnold: Gisela Werler made headlines with 19 bank robberies in the 1960s. Extras are still being sought for the filming of their story. - Braunschweiger Zeitung, May 11, 2012
  7. ↑ Banklady at filmstarts.de
personal data
SURNAME Werler, Gisela
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bank lady
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German criminals, Germany's first female bank robber
DATE OF BIRTH August 18, 1934
PLACE OF BIRTH Altona
DATE OF DEATH November 2003
Place of death Hamburg