Gold fountain pen

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The gold fountain pen king , bourgeois Ernst Heinrich Winkler (born January 15, 1886 in Ternitz , Lower Austria , † June 21, 1974 in Vienna ), was a well-known Viennese businessman, impostor and an original who was addicted to recognition .

Winkler caused a sensation through publicity campaigns such as simulated suicides and false confessional letters in sensational criminal cases and used the popularity gained through his “mystifications” for advertising purposes. In the displays of his stationery and fountain pen shop at Kohlmarkt 3, which he later expanded to include a branch on Hohen Markt, he posted newspaper articles that reported about his pranks. Winkler usually committed his mystifications under a noble pseudonym. In 1928 Winkler was brought briefly to Professor Julius Wagner-Jauregg in the mental hospital at Steinhof .

Some "mystifications"

In 1911 Winkler drove up to a court jeweler in Dresden in elegant clothes, identified himself as a nobleman with a business card and stated that he wanted to buy jewelry for his daughter. He ordered the jeweler to use his supposed lock. Without causing any damage, however, Winkler was arrested a little later in the station building and sentenced in 1912 to six years in prison and ten years of loss of honor for serious forgery of documents . In 1914 he was pardoned by the King of Saxony and returned to Vienna.

In 1928 a small suitcase with the business card of a "Count Henckel von Donnersmarck" was found near the so-called Hussar Temple in the Vienna Woods . Thereupon the message that he had killed himself in the forest and that the person who found the body received 100,000 gold marks. This mobilized numerous people to search - in vain.

In the sensational case of insurance fraud against the couple Emil and Martha Marek (1927), Winkler anonymously accused himself of being an accomplice in the separation of Emil Marek's leg. The couple was acquitted, however.

Deeds

Winkler became known politically after the Justice Palace fire of July 15, 1927. The unrest claimed numerous lives, and the behavior of the executive was in some cases sharply criticized. In September 1927, Karl Kraus had posters posted with the following text:

To the police chief of Vienna Johann Schober
I urge them to,
cede.
Karl Kraus
Editor of the Torch.

As a result, Winkler had very similarly designed posters with slightly different text attached:

To the police chief of Vienna
Johann Schober
I urge them to,
Not
cede.
Given at Vienna on September 22, 1927
Gold fountain pen

In 1929 Winkler faked the suicide of a right-wing radical “idealist” in Königssee .

In September 1930 Winkler had to appear in court because he had named a craftsman "Polish Saujud" on an open postcard. Winkler defended himself in a letter with the argument that the word "Saujud" was not an insult at all in Vienna, but only a "joke word [...] in daily, commercial, social and political dealings". Thus, writes Winkler, recently in a large parliamentary session the deputy engineer Julius Raab told the retired State Secretary. D. Otto Bauer even shouted “Cheeky Saujud” in the fully occupied state hall without the State Secretary feeling offended.

In 1931, Winkler announced that he would run for the office of Federal President in the upcoming popular election. The monarchists would have a king - the gold fountain pen king; He promised the socialists that they would carry out their Linz program in full . The popular election was finally suspended.

During the time of National Socialism , Winkler was dedicated to black market business . He was arrested on April 6, 1944, and sentenced to six years in prison and a fine of 300,000 Reichsmarks on January 22, 1945 as a public pest for violating the Foreign Exchange and Customs Act. On April 6, 1945, Winkler was released from prison, alleged to be politically persecuted and submitted confirmations of his membership in a resistance movement that allegedly called itself the "Ring of Free Austrians".

In 1946 and 1947, Winkler stood trial on charges of theft. He was found guilty in one case. There was also a 1947 conviction for the sexual abuse of children . A psychiatric report confirmed that he was “a hereditary psychopath with a need for approval”.

When Rosemarie Nitribitt was murdered, he wrote a letter to the German public prosecutor in February 1958, accusing himself of the murder of her and another prostitute . It was the last time that he made headlines at short notice. Winkler died penniless in the Hietzing hospital .

literature

  • Friederike Kraus: Viennese originals of the interwar period. Diploma thesis, University of Vienna, 2008 ( PDF; 14.9 MB ).
  • Dietmar Grieser : Hidden fame: Austria's secret genius. Vienna 2004.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Baptismal register Sankt Johann am Steinfeld, vol. 4, fol. 176
  2. ↑ 90 Vienna City and State Archives, LG f. Strfs. I, act 2aEVr5620 / 46, criminal record LG Dresden February 15, 1912, 5A 38/12, quoted by Friederike Kraus: Viennese originals of the interwar period. Diploma thesis, University of Vienna , 2008, p. 90.
  3. ^ The evening of October 4, 1928
  4. ^ Friederike Kraus: Viennese originals of the interwar period. Diploma thesis, University of Vienna, 2008, p. 98.
  5. ↑ Arbeiter-Zeitung of September 21, 1929
  6. ^ Friederike Kraus: Viennese originals of the interwar period. Diploma thesis, University of Vienna, 2008, p. 103.
  7. ^ Friederike Kraus: Viennese originals of the interwar period. Diploma thesis, University of Vienna, 2008, p. 109.
personal data
SURNAME Gold fountain pen
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Winkler, Ernst (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Viennese impostor and city original
DATE OF BIRTH January 15, 1886
PLACE OF BIRTH Ternitz , Lower Austria
DATE OF DEATH June 21, 1974
Place of death Vienna