Johann Wilhelm Hannitz

Johann Wilhelm Hannitz (* around 1713 ; † 1792 in Hinterweidenthal ) was a Hochstift Speyer chief forester . In addition, he ran a profitable forger's workshop and produced forged documents to prove ownership claims. A number of forged documents relating to the history of the Palatinate are attributed to him. These forged pieces, which were forged around 1750 to 1775, are often dated to around 1600 and pretend to be the product of a notary Alhardus Mollerus (also Erhard Möller ) or a clerk Johann Michel Sartorius .

Life

His origins and training are in the dark. He married the daughter of a Landau master butcher in Queichheim near Landau in 1750 and at that time was sergent major (clerk's office) of a French regiment stationed in Landau. After retiring from military service, in 1759 he was employed as the Hochstift-Speyerischer forester in Hinterweidenthal, a town that was triple-ruled at that time, the Hochstift-Speyerische portion of which belonged to the Hochstift-Speyerischen Amt Dahn . The appointment was approved by the Prince-Bishop “for special reasons”. It showed itself to be recognizable for the procurement of important legal titles for the claims of the bishopric on the forests of the Dahn community. Eight years later he was promoted to chief forester. Hannitz died in 1792 as a wealthy man. One daughter married the pastor in Annweiler , one son became a trader in Hornbach .

Before the French Revolution, the principle of old law breaks new law was in effect , so in legal disputes about ownership claims it was advantageous to be able to document ownership claims using documents that were as old as possible. Since legal development and legal tradition in the region were severely impaired by the Thirty Years' War and the Reunion Wars of the 17th century, property rights were often disputed. In such cases, Hannitz officially provided assistance by conducting a semi-legal trade in documents that he allegedly found in the Dahn archive or other closed archives and from which the legal claims his clients could derive from. His clients included fewer private individuals than communities and wealthy princely lords.

Fakes

Manufacture

Hannitz had his clients explain their legal claims to him in detail, supposedly in order to search for suitable titles. Most of his clients should have realized that such titles would hardly appear by themselves. Hannitz then forged suitable documents that could substantiate the claims of his clients. The pieces are on paper that has been artificially aged in the smoke and often date to around 1600 and, with a few exceptions, are written in German. The name of an alleged notary in Weißenburg , who appears in Latinized as Alhardus Mollerus or in German as Erhard Möller , and the name of an alleged court clerk Johann Michel Sartorius served as the issuer of the documents for Hannitz . The forgeries of Hannitz are therefore also referred to in the literature as forgeries of an Alhardus Mollerus. Hannitz was named after a real notary named Alhardus Mollerus , who between 1655 and 1688 had published several works, including a four-volume work on the writing of letters and documents, from which Hannitz took general passages for his forgery of documents. Hannitz put together an imperial charter from 1086 in Latin from various texts from previously published documents and forged the imperial charter as a certified copy from the 16th century.

Hannitz's forgeries do not stand up to modern critical investigations: He did not succeed in forging paper, sealing and writing one hundred percent. In addition, the legal relationships, the titles of the alleged exhibitors, the names of the places and the witnesses are often inappropriate. Without a critical examination, however, the forgeries are often not detectable, especially in cases when the forged document by Hannitz is no longer available, but only copies or extracts from it.

Exposure

Contemporaries who were already informed knew that Hannitz traded in forged documents or produced forged documents himself. The St. Ingbert by the community in St. Ingbert forest dispute in 1772 the Imperial Court presented alleged "St. Ingberter Weistum von 1601 “was not admitted as evidence by the examiners of the Reich Chamber of Commerce because of incorrect sealing. A Palatinate official reported in 1775 that a forged forest certificate from the "fameusen Ertzfalsario and Teufelsbänner the tit. Oberförster NN zu Weidenthal ”. In 1790, it is said that a piece "has been inserted and comes from the famous document dealer Heintz von Weidenthal, who with this surreptitious trade has already instigated so many countless quarrels in Churpfalz, in the Speyer monastery and in other neighboring states." once a whole box of forged documents had been confiscated, on the other hand he apparently enjoyed a high degree of protection, because nothing was known of any indictment or conviction during his lifetime. In the intelligence sheet of the Rhine district of 1823, 15 forgeries are listed. The Archives Councilor Dr. Anton Müller († 1930) planned to write a paper about the forgeries, but it did not materialize. Through the dissertation of the later Speyer archive director Dr. Anton Doll from 1948, numerous forgeries by Hannitz and his way of working became known to the specialist audience. Extensive studies have been published on individual forgeries by Hannitz (see literature). In the popular literature, information continues to circulate that can be traced back to forgeries by Hannitz (e.g. the alleged first mention of Annweiler in the imperial certificate of 1086 forged by Hannitz).

literature

• Alhardus Mollerus . In: Intellektivenblatt des Rheinkreis , Vol. 6, Speyer 1823, pp. 1258–1262. Online .
• Ludwig Anton Doll: Alhardus Mollerus: The falsifications of wisdom of Johann Wilhelm Hannitz at the end of the 18th century. A contribution to the Palatinate wisdom research . Typewritten dissertation University of Mainz, Philosophical Faculty 1948.
• Karl Kreuter: Forester Hannitz gives away foreign forests: One of the greatest forgers of all time . In: Pälzer Feierowend . - 2 (1950), No. 18. Catalog
• Wolfgang Krämer: History of the city of St. Ingbert. From the beginning to the end of the Second World War. A local history based on archival sources , second, completely revised and significantly expanded edition in two volumes, self-published by the city of St. Ingbert, St. Ingbert 1955. For "St. Ingbert" forged by Hannitz. Ingberter Weistum von 1601 “: first volume, p. 197–202, with endnote 361 on p. 59 * –60 * of the annotation part and with illustration of the forged wisdom on panel IX after p. 192.
• Renate Engels: Der Donnersberg: Excavations, Research, History , Volume 3, 1981, Chapter: The forgery of documents by JW Hannitz , p. 55 ff.
• Martin Dolch: Annweiler's first mention of 1086 - a forgery from the 18th century . In: Pfälzer Heimat , Vol. 39, Issue 4, Speyer 1988, pp. 151–155. PDF .
• Review of Martin Dolch: Annweiler's first mention of 1086 - a forgery from the 18th century : German Archive for Research into the Middle Ages / magazine volume (1993) / review p. 245 f. online .

supporting documents

1. ↑ Dolch 1988, p. 53
2. ↑ Krämer 1955, p. 59 * of the note section
3. ^ Intelligence Gazette 1823, p. 1262