Hans Jacob Rieter

Gravestone in Heidelberg

Hans Jacob Rieter , also Rieder (* 1766 in Winterthur , Switzerland ; † May 5, 1811 in Heidelberg ) was a merchant and murder victim.

Life

He came from the long-established Rieter merchant family in Winterthur and was married to Anna Katharina geb. Graff, niece of the painter Anton Graff .

Hans Jacob Rieter and his brother Bernhard traded in printed textiles. In 1796, together with Bernhard Greuter (1745–1822) , they founded the trading company "Greuter & Rieter", which Hans Jacob managed alone from 1805. It developed into the most important company in this branch in Switzerland. The company owned a textile printing plant in Islikon and a red dye works in Frauenfeld .

assassination

Persons of the Holzlipsbande. Back from left: Andreas Petry (with no. 2; pardoned), wooden lips (next with no. 4). In front from the right: Veit Krämer (sitting with No. 8), Sebastian Lutz (standing with No. 9; pardoned) and Mannefriedrich (sitting with No. 7). Front left (seated with No. 1) Johann Peter Petri, who was extradited to Mainz for old deeds.

In 1811 Hans Jacob Rieter visited the Frankfurt trade fair . On the return trip, he and his fellow traveler Rudolf Hanhart from Zurich fell victim to the so-called Hölzerlips gang on the night of May 1st . This attacked her carriage shortly after midnight on the mountain road between Laudenbach and Hemsbach . Involved in the crime were Georg Philipp Lang called "Hölzerlips", Philipp Friedrich Schütz , nickname "Mannefriedrich", Andreas Frank alias "Langer Andres", Andreas Petry, son of the " Schinderhannes " accomplice Johann Peter Petri and known as "Köhler Andres" , Veit Krämer and Sebastian Lutz from Neckargerach .

The robbers waited in the ditch for the approaching carriage, Holzlips jumped in front of the horses and stopped the vehicle. The postillon was taken from the box with strokes of the stick, he had to stand in front of the horses and hold them tight. The merchants Rieter and Hanhart, who were sleeping in it, were awakened by further beatings on the carriage. Startled, they jumped outside and immediately received several powerful blows on the head. Hanhart sank unconscious and they took away the pocket watch and the cash. Despite the beating, Hans Jacob Rieter regained consciousness and received violent pranks with a beech stick from "Tall Andres". On behalf of his six children, he pleaded for pity and for his life, and offered everything he owned. Nevertheless, the robber continued to hit him, which is why Rieter grabbed the attacker's club and held it tightly. "Tall Andres" was so furious that he took out a pistol with his left hand and hit the victim's head and forehead with the butt until the stick dropped. Groaning and bleeding, Hans Jacob Rieter lay on the ground and the criminals escaped unmolested with the looted property.

On the same night a young man from Weinheim was on the way as a mail rider between this place and Heppenheim . He had heard cries for help in the dark and believed that an accident had occurred. Then he noticed that an attack was taking place, which is why he alerted the mayor Georg Anton Wiegand in Hemsbach. He immediately moved out with a group of riders. First the completely disturbed postilion came towards them in the carriage, a little later the two seriously injured Swiss merchants. They were brought to Jakob Wolf's inn in Hemsbach. It was called "Zumgrün Baum" and was the first house in the village when you came from Laudenbach. There was a makeshift treatment of the wounds.

Epitaph

The most seriously injured Hans Jacob Rieter was placed in the Catholic rectory (Bachgasse 14), where Pastor Dr. Johann Adam Reichert took care of him. At their own request, the merchant was transferred to nearby Heidelberg for medical treatment. There he succumbed to serious head and brain injuries on Sunday, May 5, 1811. He was buried in the cemetery of the Protestant St. Peter's Church , and numerous students from Switzerland as well as traders and notables from the city attended the funeral. Soon afterwards the deceased son appeared in Heidelberg. He had rushed there to look after his father, but did not find him alive anymore. Hans Jacob Rieter received a classicist tombstone that still stands in the old cemetery near St. Peter's Church to this day (2015) and also commemorates the murder. It bears the inscription: "To the honorable merchant Hans Jacob Rieter from Winterthur in Switzerland, he died on May 5, 1811 of his wounds struck by robbers, deeply mourned by everyone who knew him."

aftermath

After a short time, all of the robbers involved were caught, with the exception of “Tall Andres”, whose exact identity has not yet been clarified. He was about 24 years old, had reddish hair and spoke Vogelsberger dialect. The man who inflicted the fatal injuries to Hans Jacob Rieter could never be caught.

After the investigation was completed, on June 2, 1812, in Mannheim , before the Baden Higher Court Court (in Mannheim Castle ), the five remaining prisoners were sentenced to death, which was carried out by beheading on July 31, 1812 in Heidelberg. However, Andreas Petry ("Köhler Andres") and Sebastian Lutz were pardoned as followers, "because of their youth and inexperience", at the place of execution to life imprisonment in the Mannheim penitentiary , from where they were released in 1830 and 1831 respectively.

The criminal case caused a sensation in the entire German-speaking area, which is why the Baden city director Ludwig Pfister in Heidelberg, who also led the investigation, initiated an extensive campaign against robbers and vagrants in the Odenwald . At the same time, the 59-year-old Johann Peter Petri (father of the pardoned Andreas Petry) was arrested. Although he had lived here as a charcoal burner under the name "Johannes Wild" for a long time and had nothing to do with the current attack, his real personal details came out in the course of the investigation. The former robbery of "Schinderhannes", who was executed in Mainz in 1803 , was then extradited to the French authorities there on November 11, 1811 for his old crimes, which sentenced him to life imprisonment.

literature

Ludwig Pfister : Record-based history of the robber gangs on the two banks of the Main, in the Spessart and in the Odenwalde: including particularly the history of the robbery and murder of the merchant Jacob Rieder von Winterthur on the Bergstrasse , Heidelberg, 1812; (Digital scan)
E. Schöll: Hans Jacob Rieter (1766-1811): From the life of a Winterthurer merchant , in: Winterthurer year book , 1971, pp. 191-195
Elisabeth Bräuer, Wilhelm Metzendorf: Legends, narratives and haunted stories from Heppenheim and the surrounding area , 1976, pp. 227–230, (detail scan)
Sara Doll, Joachim Kirsch, Wolfgang U. Eckart: When death serves life - The human being as a teaching aid: Institute for Anatomy and Cell Biology , Springer Verlag, 2017, ISBN 3662526743 , p. 26; (Digital scan)

Web links

personal data
SURNAME	Rieter, Hans Jacob
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Rieder, Hans Jacob
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Swiss entrepreneur and murder victim
DATE OF BIRTH	1766
PLACE OF BIRTH	Winterthur
DATE OF DEATH	May 5, 1811
Place of death	Heidelberg