Johann Georg Grasel

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Johann Georg Grasel (excerpt from a lithograph by Adolph Friedrich Kunikes )

Johann Georg Grasel (original spelling Graßl , also Grasl , Czech Jan Jiří Grázl ; born April 4, 1790 in Neuserowitz , Czech Nové Syrovice, near Mährisch Budwitz, today Moravské Budějovice ; † January 31, 1818 in Vienna ) was a Bohemian / Moravian / Austrian robber .

The son of a knacker made a living from theft, robbery, fraud and stolen goods and gathered a gang of around 60 members around him, which earned him the reputation of a dreaded “robber captain” in Lower Austria and South Moravia . In 1815 he was captured in Mörtersdorf bei Horn and later executed in Vienna. In popular tradition, he was stylized posthumously without any real basis as a noble robber who - like Robin Hood - stole from the rich and gave presents to the poor. This is how the modern tourism marketing of Grasel feeds.

The name Grasel is the origin of the Czech expression grázl (for crook).

Childhood and youth

The Grasels family was a widespread family of knackers. The family was poor, grandfather Laurenz was often punished for theft, the other grandfather was a beggar . Grasel's mother Regina was arrested during her pregnancy in 1790 for stealing fish and vagrancy , but was released for lack of evidence. In 1792 his father Thomas Grasel was sentenced to ten years in heavy dungeon for burglary . In 1799 he managed to escape, he took the name Josef Haller and traveled through the country as a picture dealer, breaking into the streets along the way.

The family kept their heads above water by begging. Hans Jörgel, as the young Grasel was called, was imprisoned for the first time at the age of nine. He was arrested in Drosendorf for theft and in Frain for attempted theft of flour, which he had committed together with his cousin Franz. In 1801, mother and children were arrested in Mautern . After a while, as was customary at the time, everyone was deported to their place of birth. Nothing changed for Hans Jörgel, he now went begging with his aunt and uncle. The landlord who would have had guardianship did not care about him.

Grasel's father had meanwhile committed other burglaries, including a farmer's house on Christmas Eve 1801, where he even committed a murder on the Dobersberg flayer. Most of Grasel's father's gang were arrested as a result, only old Grasel himself escaped.

The family then moved to Veszprém in Hungary . When she got there, she bought a merchant's shop . In 1804 they moved again, this time to Neusiedl am See and sold the Wasenmeisterei again. After the father had committed a major theft from a grocer in 1804 , he was arrested in 1806 and had to serve the last three years of his ten-year prison sentence.

Since the father was imprisoned, the family was in great distress. The mother begged again and met Johann Georg Berger. He called himself Piringer because he was wanted under the name Berger. When his mother complained about her suffering, he told her that he was planning a break-in in Raabs an der Thaya . The mother urged her son Johann Georg to go with them. The young Grasel and the eldest son of Piringer were at Schmiere when the break-in on March 17, 1806 . Grasel received two sheets and a bed sheet from the booty.

Grasel's real apprenticeship began with his father's dismissal in 1809. From then on, he and his father committed numerous break-ins.

relationship

Laurenz Grasel, bailiff, father of Thomas Grasel (* 1763 † after 1833) and grandfather of Johann Georg Grasel.

N. Fleischmann, father of Regina (* 1763), the mother of Johann Georg Grasel, his sister Anna Maria Grasel (* 1792) and father of Anna Maria.

Anna Maria, Regina's sister, married to Georg Grasel. Parents of Franz Grasel (* before 1790, † 1815 in prison).

Crime by Johann Georg Grasel

Places of crime
  • 1806 .... 1
  • 1807 .... 6
  • 1810 ... 12
  • 1811 ... 22
  • 1812 ... 32
  • 1813 ... 46
  • 1814 ... 71
  • 1815 ... 15

In the beginning it was theft and minor break-ins, followed by serious robbery and murder . Since Grasel drank more and more alcohol, there were often bar fights. In Vitis he got in December 1811 armed with a tobacco Supervisors (tobacco police) and hurt them as well as a counter to help butcher with a knife heavy. When he was on the run, he usually hid with other knackers. The court later found the most serious crime to be the "predatory manslaughter of Anna Marie Schindlerin" on May 18, 1814.

The extensive interrogation protocols of the Viennese criminal court and the court martial in Vienna von Grasel were published in 2013 as volume 53 in the series of publications of the Waldviertler Heimatbund by Winfried Platzgummer and Christian Zolles.

Grasel's Capture, Trial, and Death

The robbers Grasel, Faehding and Stangel in chains, lithograph by Adolph Friedrich Kunike

After a robbery on April 3, 1813, Grasel and Stangel were arrested at the inn the following day in Mallebarn , although they resisted violently. Before the regional court in Schönborn , Stangel confessed to being a deserter . Grasel claimed to be Franz Schönauer from Neusiedl am See, a bricklayer and picture dealer as well as a deserter. Although he had never been in the military, Grasel called himself a deserter because it was said that breaking out of military arrest was easier. In any case, both were transferred to Vienna and sent to prison. The military court was therefore responsible and no longer the Schönborn Regional Court. Grasel was believed to be a deserter and not a robber who had already been wanted, and so Grasel fled the Rennweg barracks on the night of July 6th to 7th, 1813 , where he should have undergone an interrogation.

As the misdeeds of the population of Grasel became too much, they demanded action from the authorities. So she decided to smuggle Therese Penkhart, a former thief who has meanwhile become honest, into the Drosendorf prison, where Grasel's friend Therese Hamberger was locked up, as an informant. Hamberger told Penkhart, with whom she shared the cell, that she was expecting her to be liberated by Grasel in order to flee with him. In a staged outbreak, Penkhart and her friend Michael Meyer helped Hamberger to escape. Afterwards they all met with Grasel on November 18, 1815 in an inn in Mörtersdorf near Horn , ostensibly to concoct a new raid. They mixed opium into his wine, but did not trust this sleep. Meyer had decided to look for helpers in the inn, which was lavishly frequented that evening, who would help him catch grasses. But when Grasel came into the inn and Meyer called the agreed sign, nobody came. Meyer then tried to attack the robber alone, and only then did the farmers dare to help. His cronies were taken prisoner near Lettowitz . Grasel was brought to Vienna overnight. The trial before the military court in Vienna lasted over two years. Grasel confessed to a total of 205 crimes with two deaths. In the files, Grasel's justification regarding his dreary childhood was recorded as follows:

“Inquisit can see that he made himself extremely criminal and would have to confess freely, and to apologize that his parents, especially his father, are to blame for his present misfortune and everything that has happened to him, and that he is to blame for it too Face, which not only did not give him a good upbringing, but encouraged him to steal and robbery from his childhood, even treated him with blows, if he did not do richly as such demanded it or did not do it at a certain time in what was to be stolen Places was when he himself ordered. Inquisit still has a visible burl or scar on the left arm from a stitch received by his father - the evil behavior of his father is the seduction of his bad comrades are the cause of inquisites' crimes; If he had received a decent upbringing and if he had not gotten into such bad company, he would certainly also be a different person and not find himself in the present sad situation, by the way, he could not offer anything else to excuse him. "

On January 28, 1818 Grasel was sentenced to death. The main reason for the death sentence was a robbery carried out by Grasel and three accomplices in Zwettl in 1814 , in which the 66-year-old Anna Maria Schindlerin died. Three days after the verdict was announced, Grasel was hanged in public on January 31, 1818, together with Jakob Fähding and Ignaz Stangel . The execution was carried out on the Rabenstein at Rossauer Glacis (today: Türkenstrasse 25) in front of around 60,000 people. According to tradition, Grasel's last words were said to have been: "Jessas, so vül Leit!"

marketing

In parts of the Waldviertel , Johann Georg Grasel is a targeted tourist attraction. Poems, stories, novels and plays about him and even grassy taverns or inns are part of everyday life here. In Obermallebarn ( Weinviertel ) you can see the sculpture " Grasel in Mallebarn ", which commemorates his first arrest.

The Graselturm belongs to the Höbarthmuseum of the town of Horn . This contains a recreated grass cave on the ground floor . Since the late 19th century, several natural caves have also been named this way for tourist reasons and declared as Grasel's hiding place, for example in the pilgrimage site of Maria Dreieichen and at the Gypsy Wall natural monument in St. Thomas on the bladder stone .

In 1969 the material was filmed under the title Die Moritat by robber chief Johann Georg Grasel . Peter Vogel played the grass, Guido Wieland the father and Kurt Sowinetz the informer Mayer.

literature

  • Robert Bartsch, Ludwig Altmann (ed.): Johann Georg Grasel and his comrades. Rikola, Vienna 1924.
  • Richard Bletschacher: Der Grasel: Chronicle of a robber's life . Deuticke, Vienna 1995, ISBN 3-216-30190-7 .
  • Harald Hitz, Bohuslav Beneš: Johann Georg Grasel. Robbers without borders. (= Series of publications of the Waldviertler Heimatbund , Volume 34). 3. Edition. 1999, Waldviertler Heimatbund, Horn / Waidhofen an der Thaya, ISBN 3-900708-08-8 .
  • Josef Pauser, Robert Bartsch and the research into the history of the "robber captain Grasel", in: The Waldviertel. Journal for local and regional studies of the Waldviertel and the Wachau 64 (2015) Heft 3, pp. 367 - ?? 384.
  • Winfried Platzgummer, Christian Zolles (Ed.): Johann Georg Grasel in front of the court. The interrogation protocols of the Viennese criminal court and the court martial in Vienna. (= Publication series of WHB 53). Horn-Waidhofen an der Thaya 2013, ISBN 978-3-900708-27-6 .
  • Elisabeth Schöffl-Pöll, Wolfgang Rieder (illustrations): Wia da Raübahauptmaunn Grasel vo his Vodan's Haundwerk glernt hot. Dichtermühle, Hollabrunn 1998, ISBN 3-9500930-0-1 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Information from: Johann Georg Grasel. Robbers without borders. (Ed. Harald Hitz)
  2. ↑ Hitz, Harald. Johann Georg Grasel - Robbers Without Borders. Horn - Waidhofen ad Th .: Waldviertel Heimatbund, 1992. ISBN 3-900708-08-8 , p. 54.
  3. ^ Extract from the judgment: https://www.digital.wienbibliothek.at/wbrobv/content/pageview/790073 (accessed on February 14, 2018).
  4. ↑ Sabitzer, Werner: "'Schinder' and Räuberhautpmann". In: Public Security 9-10 / 15. http://www.bmi.gv.at/magazinfiles/2015/09_10/files/kriminalgeschichte.pdf (accessed on February 12, 2018).
  5. ↑ Kulturvernetzung northeast Viertelfestival Lower Austria: Grasel in MALLEBARN. March 8, 2013, accessed January 23, 2020 .

Web links

Commons : Johann Georg Grasel  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Grasel, Johann Georg
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian robber
DATE OF BIRTH April 4, 1790
PLACE OF BIRTH Neuserowitz
DATE OF DEATH January 31, 1818
Place of death Vienna