Isidore fish

Isidor Srul Fisch (born July 26, 1905 in Leipzig , German Empire ; died March 29, 1934 in Leipzig) was a German emigrant in the USA . He became famous posthumously by the internationally acclaimed circumstantial evidence against Richard Hauptmann , of the for the kidnapping and murder of the son aviation pioneers Anne and Charles Lindbergh was sentenced to death. Hauptmann protested his innocence and stated that he had received the part of the ransom found on him from his friend and business partner Isidor Fisch. Because of this admission , Fisch is part of the controversy that continues to this day about the background to the crime of the century about the Lindbergh baby.

biography

Isidor Fisch was born on July 26, 1905 in the Leipzig district of Mockau to a Jewish family as the son of the trader Salman Fisch. In 1925 he emigrated to New York City in the USA . He lived in rented apartments in the Bronx together with other German emigrants, worked in the fur trade as a fur cutter and was involved in small stolen goods .

On May 12, 1932, the day the Lindbergh baby was found dead, Fisch applied for a passport. 19 months later, on December 9, 1933, he returned to Germany on the Manhattan liner with 600 Reichsmarks to visit his parents. He never returned because he died of tuberculosis on March 29, 1934 in Leipzig . Isidor Fisch was 28 years old, and his grave is in the New Israelite Cemetery in Leipzig.

The "fish story"

A gold certificate gave the right to be exchanged for gold coins

On September 19, 1934, Bruno Hauptmann was arrested after paying at a gas station with a $ 10 gold certificate that was proven to have come from the Lindbergh kidnapping ransom. During the subsequent house search, another $ 14,000 (according to other sources almost $ 12,000) from the ransom was found in a hiding place in Hauptmann's garage. He claimed to have received this money from Isidor Fisch.

Hauptmann testified that he first met Fisch in March or April 1932 on Hunters Island . Since they were both German, they had a conversation with each other and soon afterwards agreed to share the risks and profits from Fisch's fur trade and Hauptmann's stock market investments . On December 8, 1933, the day before Fisch left for Germany, a farewell party had taken place in Hauptmann's house at his request. Fisch had given his business friend two suitcases with seal skins and a shoebox for safekeeping, while Fisch had stated that there were “papers” in them. Without knowing the actual contents, Hauptmann put the box on a shelf in the kitchen and ignored it. In mid-August 1934, when checking for water damage, he damaged the soaked box and discovered banknotes worth a total of $ 14,600 in it. Since Fisch had died in the meantime and owed him $ 7,000 (according to other sources: because he found out that Fisch had "cheated on him and exempted"), he decided to keep the money and spend it without his wife receiving any of it to tell.

This admission, connoted as untrustworthy by the term Fish-Story in contemporary reporting and parts of the literature , was invalidated in court by witnesses who swore that the accused had given them a month before Fisch left (around 8 months before Hauptmann received the money According to information discovered and began to spend), was noticed by payments with the now rare gold certificates. In addition, four of Fisch's relatives - his brother, sister, sister-in-law, and nurse - traveled to the United States in January 1935 to testify in court and to dispute Hauptmann's version. They said Fisch was too poor to be able to afford the medicines he needed because of his illness.

reception

On January 30, 1935, the California daily newspaper The Lodi News, which reported almost daily on the course of the trial , judged Fisch's role as follows: “Fisch might as well be a witness to the history they have built around him. It does not show the image of a man strutting through life with $ 50,000 ransom, but that of one struck by fate, who is doomed by his poverty to live in a dirty bedroom and ultimately to die in poverty of tuberculosis. "

In 1976, the book Scapegoat: The Lonesome Death of Bruno Richard Hauptmann by the American journalist Anthony Scaduto caused a sensation, who saw Hauptmann as the victim of "one of the most scandalous perversions of justice". According to his account, a number of evidence exonerating Hauptmann was suppressed : For example, Isidor Fisch was targeted by the investigators over a year before Hauptmann himself was arrested, as he offered banknotes from the ransom shortly after it was handed over in the Bronx and also his crossing to Germany paid with it. Although these facts were on file, according to Scaduto, they were not taken into account in the court hearing against Hauptmann.

Jim Fisher, a former FBI -Agent and lecturer in criminal investigation ( Criminal Investigation ), criminal law and forensic science at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania , has the Fish Story and other Captain relieving approaches back as invalid. In his publications he refers to Hauptmann as the lone perpetrator of whom he was convicted.

Remarks

1. ↑ In American publications often Isador, Isadore or Isidore.
2. ↑ Gold certificates are banknotes that were used as a means of payment in the USA until 1933 and were withdrawn from circulation in the course of the departure from the gold standard . From May 1, 1933, private ownership of gold (including certificates) above an exemption limit of $ 100 was prohibited in the United States due to Executive Order 6102 of US President Roosevelt . From this point onwards, the recovery of the Lindbergh ransom, which consisted of gold certificates, was considerably more difficult, especially since retailers were called upon to report customers who still had such funds.
3. ↑ Like Fisch, Hauptmann came from Saxony .
4. ↑ That these gold certificates actually came from the ransom was admittedly not proven by this, but appeared plausible in connection with other evidence. Hauptmann had not appeared at his place of work since the ransom was handed over and since then, in the midst of the Great Depression , had spent an amount that, together with the banknotes found on him, corresponded to the total amount of the ransom of $ 50,000. Hauptmann stated that this money came from his savings and stock market profits.

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b c} Solveig Grothe: Lindbergh kidnapping. The crime of the century. In: Spiegel Online . February 28, 2012, accessed October 10, 2017 . 
2. ^ ^{A b} Jim Fisher: The Lindbergh Case: A Look Back to the Future. In: Jim Fisher. The Official Web Site . January 9, 2008, accessed on October 10, 2017 (English, presentation to the members of the American Society of Questioned Document Examiners at its annual meeting on August 24, 2003 in Baltimore , Maryland ). 
3. ↑ Isidor Fisch's birth certificate. In: The Lindbergh Kidnapping Hoax. February 7, 1922. Retrieved October 11, 2017 . 
4. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Gea de Jong-Lendle: The criminal trial of the century. The story of a pilot, a German immigrant, a skeptical scientist and the beginning of forensic phonetics. In: Literaturkritik.de . August 8, 2016, accessed October 11, 2017 . 
5. ↑ Siglinde Rach: Photograph of Isidor Fisch's tombstone. In: The Lindbergh Kidnapping Hoax. 2001, accessed on October 10, 2017 . 
6. ↑ Jim Fisher: The Lindbergh Case: Overview. In: Jim Fisher. The Official Web Site. January 9, 2008, accessed October 11, 2017 . 
7. ↑ ^{a b c d} Hauptmann denies all kidnaping charges. In: The Spartanburg Herald. January 26, 1935, accessed on October 11, 2017 (the text of an interrogation of Hauptmann in court is printed in English). 
8. ↑ ^{a b} Jim Fisher: The Lindbergh Case: How Can Such a Guilty Kidnapper Be So Innocent? In: Jim Fisher. The Official Web Site. January 9, 2008, accessed on October 11, 2017 (English, first published in The Chief of Police magazine (Nov./Dec., 1988), pp. 99, 101, 102, 105, 106, 107, 109, editor : National Association of Chiefs of Police ). 
9. ↑ Jürgen S. Holm: News in the case of the Lindbergh kidnapping: The wrong person on the electric chair? In: Zeit Online . April 15, 1977. Retrieved October 10, 2017 . 
10. ↑ ^{a b} Hauptmann had ransom coin while Fisch was still here, swears Theater Ticket Seller. In: The Lodi News. January 22, 1935, accessed October 14, 2017 . 
11. ↑ Suspect perjury defense in captain. In: Lewiston Evening Journal. February 8, 1935, accessed October 12, 2017 . 
12. ↑ Jim Fisher: The ghosts of Hopewell: Setting the record straight in the Lindbergh case . Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale (Illinois) 1999, ISBN 0-8093-2285-4 (English).
13. ↑ ^{a b} USA: Imaginary knot. In: Der Spiegel . December 13, 1976. Retrieved October 10, 2017 . 
14. ↑ Come From Germany to Testify in Hauptmann Case. Historical newspaper clipping about the visit of Fisch's relatives to the USA. In: The Lindbergh Kidnapping Hoax. Retrieved October 11, 2017 (English, undated, approx. 1935). 
15. ↑ Fish kin to testify for state. In: The Lodi News. January 16, 1935. Retrieved October 7, 2017.
16. ↑ Bruno is trapped in Fischtale. Isidore's Life Story is Laid Before Jury in Lindbergh Case. In: The Lodi News. January 30, 1935, accessed on October 12, 2017 (English, original text: “Fisch might as well have been a witness today for the story they built around him pictured him, not as a man swaggering through life with 50,000 $ ransom, but as one beaten by fate, doomed by his poverty to live in a frowsy bedroom and finally die in poverty from tuberculosis. "). 
17. ↑ Jim Fisher - Biography. In: Jim Fisher. The Official Web Site. January 10, 2008, accessed October 11, 2017 . 
18. ↑ Jim Fisher: The Lindbergh Case - FAQ. In: Jim Fisher. The Official Web Site. January 9, 2008, accessed October 11, 2017 .