Hans-Joachim Bohlmann

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Hans-Joachim Bohlmann (born September 20, 1937 in Breslau , † January 19, 2009 in Hamburg ) was known as the Dürer assassin in the 1980s . Overall, Bohlmann damaged over 50 works of art between 1977 and 1988. The damage it caused is estimated at around 130 million euros.

Life

Bohlmann suffered from a serious personality disorder since his youth . He was diagnosed with control obsessions and anxiety at an early age. Psychiatric treatments were unsuccessful. A neurosurgical intervention ( stereotactic lobotomy ) in 1974 worsened his condition so as 1975 as early retirees has been recognized.

The goldfish by Paul Klee

Bohlmann moved from Stuttgart to Hamburg in 1961 and married in 1968. After his wife fell out of the window while cleaning on March 11, 1977 and succumbed to her injuries on March 23, 1977, Bohlmann began working in museums, art halls, parks, churches and cemeteries Deliberately damaging paintings and other works of art. He sprayed acid on the pictures and burned both the paint layer and the canvas underneath. He carried out his first attacks on March 16, 1977 in Harburg City Park and on March 29, 1977 in the Kunsthalle Hamburg , where he damaged the painting The Goldfish (1925) by Paul Klee . Other attacks followed in Hamburg, Lübeck , Lüneburg , Essen , Dortmund and Hameln . On August 16, 1977 he poured sulfuric acid over a horse and on the same day over two pictures by Lucas Cranach the Elder , portraits of Martin Luther and his wife Katharina von Bora, in the Lower Saxony State Museum in Hanover . On August 24, 1977, he damaged the painting Archduke Albrecht by Peter Paul Rubens from the Bentinck-Thyssen collection in the Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf and on August 27, 1977 the painting Adoration of the Christ Child by Gottfried Libalt in the Hamburg main church St. Petri . After his attack on Rembrandt's paintings in Kassel Wilhelmshöhe Palace on October 7, 1977 , including the Jacob's Blessing (damage to property around 25 million D-Marks), he was arrested and reported by the Hamburg Regional Court in 17 cases for damage to property and in three cases for damage to property. in one case involving cruelty to animals , he was sentenced to a total imprisonment of five years, which he served in full until October 6, 1982.

In 1983 he committed a second series of facts by working several times at the construction site of the Hamburg-Marmstorf motorway corner connection . a. Set construction vehicles and construction machines on fire, causing damage of over 130,000 Deutschmarks. The Hamburg Regional Court sentenced him in four cases to a total imprisonment of three years for property damage, the execution of which was completed on May 5, 1986.

Mother of Sorrows by Albrecht Dürer

Because of renewed feelings of fear and hatred - the trigger was the seizure of 158.60 D-Marks of his pension per month because of the damage to property - he went to the open psychiatric department of the Hamburg-Eilbek Clinic for treatment in autumn 1987. In March 1988 he bought two liters of sulfuric acid and initially hid the two containers in a park. On April 20, 1988 he took leave of absence from the clinic and went to Munich , where on April 21, 1988 in the Alte Pinakothek he doused three world-famous works by Albrecht Dürer with the acid he had brought with him: the Paumgartner Altar , the Glimsche Lamentation , and the Sorrowful Mother (1494/97). The pictures were possibly destroyed up to 70% (and were not fully restored until 2010) and the damage caused was estimated at 100 million DM. The regional court in Munich sentenced Bohlmann to another two years imprisonment for damage to property and ordered him to be placed in a psychiatric hospital.

In 1998 he used an unaccompanied exit in the park of the Ochsenzoll Clinic to escape. Two days later he was arrested again in Ochsenzoll underground station - probably on the way back to the institution. From an exit on July 30, 2001, he returned voluntarily (only) the following morning.

After 16 years of imprisonment, the Penal Enforcement Chamber of the Hamburg Regional Court ordered his release in 2004. The complaint by the Munich public prosecutor's office was rejected by the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court by a ruling of September 21, 2004. Despite the danger that Bohlmann continues to pose and the high risk of new attacks, the judges rated his civil liberties as higher than the protection of cultural property. Lifelong placement in a psychiatric institution is disproportionate in the event of property damage .

Hans-Joachim Bohlmann was released on January 3, 2005 with registration requirements and a house ban for museums.

On Sunday, June 25, 2006, he splashed in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam lighter fluid on the painting Protect meal in celebration of the Peace of Münster (1648) by Bartholomeus van der Heist , and burnt them. Fortunately, only the top protective layer, the varnish , was damaged. For arson and property damage he was sentenced by the Gerechtshof in Amsterdam to three years in prison and to pay 17,772 euros in damages to the Rijksmuseum.

After serving two-thirds of the sentence on June 24, 2008, he was released from prison, returned to Hamburg and died there on January 19, 2009 of cancer.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ John Bailey: Cleaning up after a serial art vandal. In: The Age. February 20, 2011, accessed June 11, 2018 .
  2. ↑ File number 3 Ws 61/04, published in NStZ-RR 2005, 40-42, and https://www.judicialis.de/Oberlandesgericht-Hamburg_3-Ws-61-04_Beschluss_21.09.2004.html
personal data
SURNAME Bohlmann, Hans-Joachim
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Dürer assassin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German assassin on works of art
DATE OF BIRTH September 20, 1937
PLACE OF BIRTH Wroclaw
DATE OF DEATH January 19, 2009
Place of death Hamburg