Johann Georg Zimmermann (Post Commissioner)

JG carpenter

Johann Georg Zimmermann (born June 18, 1680 in Wittenberg , Electorate of Saxony , † August 16, 1734 ibid) was a Saxon-German post commissioner. He went down in history as the husband of the Wittenberg poisoner.

Life

Johann Georg Zimmermann was born on June 18, 1680 in Wittenberg as the son of the escort administrator Johann Balthasar Zimmermann and his wife Magdalene Sybille (née Leiste). Since his father had died, he received free training at the University of Wittenberg , where he was accepted on October 19, 1685. After studying law at this university, he went to Dresden as a candidate for both rights in 1710 and came to Wittenberg in 1714 , where he took on a civil servant position as clerk and as representative of the deceased brother-in-law as head of the rent office. On April 26, 1715 he took over the postmaster's office in Wittenberg and was appointed post commissioner by royal decree in 1717. On March 15, 1721, he was appointed Royal Elector Escort and Accise Commissioner and appointed as a road builder in the spa district of Saxony. In October 1721 he took over the tax administration of the spa district. Although his own development holds sufficient potential for personality, his familial imponderables were often viewed in literary terms. This matter was already being discussed nationwide during his lifetime and ultimately went down in history as “The tragedy in the Zimmermann family”.

The tragedy

Memorial plaque on Markt 18 in Lutherstadt Wittenberg

On September 23, 1717 Zimmermann married the rich widow Sophie Elisabeth Wolff (née Conradi) from Leipzig , who brought a step-daughter Wilhelmine Elisabeth Wolff into the marriage. This marriage resulted in 3 sons: Johann August (July 21, 1718), Karl Ludwig (December 16, 1719) and Johann Balthasar Gottlieb (May 30, 1722).

When his first wife died on May 23, 1724, Zimmermann was looking for a new mother for his children. He married the widow Christiane Rosine Blechschmidt in his second marriage on February 13, 1725. She also died early in childbirth on May 4, 1726, so that Zimmermann had to go looking for a new mother for his children again. Through the mediation of his mother-in-law, he met Susanne Hoyer, the widow of Rittmeister Johann Bergmann from Pegau. She was born in Waldkirchen in the Erzgebirge as the daughter of the miller Caspar Hoyer and was also widowed twice. They married on February 18, 1727 in Wittenberg .

When Zimmermann went on a business trip eight days after the wedding, he found his youngest son, Balthasar, lying in bed with vomiting and abdominal pain. After two days he developed cramps, and on March 4th he was dead. When his wife Susanne Hoyer brought Maultaschen from a visiting trip, she gave one of them to the eldest son. He did not eat these, however, but gave them to the nanny, who died after consuming them. Next, symptoms of poisoning, caused by Purganz, appeared in Zimmermann's stepdaughter, who died of the effects of poisoning after being sick for 17 days. The next victim was the eldest son August. On July 24, 1727 she administered a poison ("Mercurium sublimatum") with tea, from which the boy died by noon. Now the family doctor was becoming suspicious. However, Susanne Hoyer was able to prevent any examinations on the boy's corpse by her activities.

On August 12th, symptoms of poisoning appeared in the last remaining son, Carl Ludwig. Zimmermann now brought in his brother-in-law Abraham father . After a few discussions, the woman's belongings were searched on the advice of the family doctor and a powder containing arsenic was found. Although it was obvious that the woman was in possession of poisonous substances, the clarification of the cause was not taken seriously. The last remaining child of Zimmermann got worse and worse, so that on September 5th, after three weeks in bed, he was relieved of his torments by death. In the subsequent dissection by Abraham the father, death from poisoning was confirmed without any problem. When a judicial investigation was initiated, it was found that Zimmermann's third wife, Susanne Hoyer, had also killed her first two husbands and the sister-in-law of her brother, the royal Polish court painter David Hoyer , and intended to get Johann Georg Zimmermann out of the way. In the court judgment of January 5, 1728 of the Schöppenstuhl in Leipzig , she was sentenced to be dragged and beaten . On October 26, 1728 the judgment was carried out in front of the Wittenberg town hall . The hand of the poisoner, which fell off during the execution, is still in the municipal collections of Lutherstadt Wittenberg.

Aftermath

Inwardly becoming a lonely man, whose life seemed forfeited by the shame his wife had brought on the house, he wrote his will on January 30, 1733 in Belzig . In it he stipulated that his entire fortune should be used for the upbringing and care of poor orphans and commissioned the city of Wittenberg with the implementation. The city invested the foundation's money in land and was able to use the income from Zimmermannsche Breite to meet the needs of caring for poor orphans beyond what is legally required for many years. Zimmermannstrasse in Wittenberg was laid out in the former area of ​​Zimmermannsche Breite. Johann Georg Zimmermann died as a broken man on August 16, 1734 in Wittenberg. The city of Wittenberg erected a tombstone in his memory on the cemetery to the left of Dresdner Strasse. There are still two oil paintings by him in the municipal collections of Lutherstadt Wittenberg.

literature

• Description of the execution So in Wittenberg to Susannen Hoyerin the last married carpenter, because of child murders committed by Gifft on October 26th. 1728. completed ... ( digitized version )
• Continuation of the carpenter who was last married to a good friend Susannen Hoyerin Anno 1727. threefold child murders and punishment for half completed mails or true and act-like relation How the Susannen Hoyerin awarded punishment of the grinding to Feimstadt, and the wheel ( Digitized )
• “The tragedy in the Zimmermann house” in: Blätter für Heimatgeschichte, supplement to the Wittenberger Zeitung from October 1928
• "The atonement of Susanne Hoyerin" in: Our home country, supplement to the Wittenberger Tageblatt of October 13, 1928
• Gottfried Krüger : The tragedy in the Zimmermann house. Wittenberg 2009, ISBN 3942005093
• "Legends and Stories from the Wittenberg District Part II" Series of publications by the Wittenberg City History Museum 1980 Part 3
• "Famous personalities and their connection to Wittenberg" by Heinrich Kühne and Heinz Motel in Verlag Göttinger Tageblatt 1990 ISBN 3-924781-17-6
• "Famous Wittenberg Guests", Rotary Club Wittenberg 2nd edition