Josef Weinwurm
Josef Weinwurm (born September 16, 1930 in Haugsdorf , Austria ; † August 22, 2004 in Krems an der Donau ) went down in Viennese criminal history in 1963 as the "opera murderer" .
On March 12, 1963, Weinwurm murdered Dagmar Fuhrich, an eleven-year-old ballet student who was about to attend a rehearsal, with 34 stab wounds in the Vienna State Opera . He had sneaked into the opera with the knife, met the girl in the corridor, posed as a doctor and lured her into a shower compartment, where he murdered her. When the body was discovered, the evening performance with Wagner's Walküre had already begun. In the course of the investigation, around 14,000 people were checked and Weinwurm was arrested on August 6, 1963. By then he had attacked three other young women with the knife - in a cinema, in the city park and in a church in the city center . These crimes aroused great public interest, not least because Weinwurm had sent a postcard to a newspaper in which he described himself as "the murderer of the opera".
At the trial, two psychiatrists declared Weinwurm to be sane, even if Weinwurm presented himself as a misogynist. On April 10, 1964, he was sentenced to "lifelong heavy dungeon " for murder and triple attempted murder , "aggravated by one fast day and one hard camp per month, and furthermore on the anniversaries of his crimes in the dark with bread and water".
Weinwurm died on August 22, 2004 in the Krems-Stein prison, presumably of a heart attack . An application for early conditional release (possible after 15 years) was allegedly denied several times. Due to the fact that Weinwurm's criminal record (WStLa, LG f. Criminal matters, A11 - Vr criminal files: Vr 1885/63) was stolen from the holdings of the Vienna City and State Archives , many details of the course of events and the course of the process are no longer closed today clarify.
Artistic reception
Weinwurm's crimes inspired the Austrian songwriter Georg Danzer to write the song “Die Moritat vom Frauenmörder Wurm”.
The Austrian Psychobilly band Bloodsucking Zombies from Outer Space dedicated the song "Frauenmörder Weinwurm" to him.
The case of the opera killer was documented in the 1973 radio play The Murder in the Opera House .
Web links
- Georg Markus: 50 years ago today: The “opera murder” shook all of Austria. In: kurier.at .
- WS: Blind hatred. Association of Austrian Criminologists, April 2014, accessed on May 29, 2020 (mainly about the time up to the arrest).
- Marcus J. Oswald: The eternal prison life of Josef Weinwurm. In: Court and Detention (haftwien.wordpress.com). September 18, 2004, accessed on December 18, 2014 (mainly about the prison term).
Individual evidence
- ^ Marcus J. Oswald: Josef Weinwurm dead (1930-2004). In: haftwien.wordpress.com. September 2004, accessed May 29, 2020 .
- ↑ a b "Opera Murderer" Josef Weinwurm died in Stein. In: Wiener Zeitung. August 24, 2004, accessed May 29, 2020 .
- ↑ “If I am released from prison, I will do it again. So it is the fault of those who let me out. ”- zit. According to VF Collector: Murder: The most spectacular criminal cases in Austria. Graz 2005, ISBN 3-85365-215-8 .
- ↑ The end of the "Opera Murderer": Josef Weinwurm (74) died in Stein! In: news.at. August 23, 2004, accessed May 29, 2020 .
- ^ Karl Bogner: The murder in the opera house. In: oe1.orf.at. Retrieved May 29, 2020 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Weinwurm, Josef |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Austrian "murderer of the opera" |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 16, 1930 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Haugsdorf |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 22, 2004 |
| Place of death | Krems at the Donau |