Karl Otto von Salzdahlum

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Karl Otto von Salzdahlum (* 1704 ; † December 17, 1799 in Bruchmachtersen ) also called Karl Otto the Bloody , according to an article in the lexicon on the past and present of the Herzog August Library Wolfenbüttel, an illegitimate son of Duke Anton Ulrichs von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel and the Pastor's daughter Anna Crusius.

life and work

After learning to be a carpenter , he is said to have been a skipper on the Volga for a few years . Back at home again, he gathered a gang that he called "the bloody of the Oker meadows " around him. This gang is said to have carried out attacks on the streets of the Principality of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel between 1735 and 1745 . Although it never succeeded his gang to even a single ship on the Oker hijack , Karl Otto to life itself as "of Salzdahlum pirate who called."

The rotunda of the Herzog August Library, in which Karl Otto von Salzdahlum is said to have been imprisoned for many years and in which he is said to have written the 1500-page treatise “Peter as a pirate”.

After his capture in 1746, all gang members, including their leader, are said to have been sentenced to death and, apart from Karl Otto, also executed. Karl Otto, on the other hand, is said to have been pardoned by his own father . As a punishment, however, he was incarcerated in a room in the rotunda of the Herzog August Bibliothek (HAB) in Wolfenbüttel . During this detention, Karl Otto is said to have written the 1,500-page tract "Peter as a pirate", which has now been lost .

After his release from prison in 1769 he is said to have tried to get the vacant position of librarian at the HAB. But instead of him got this Gotthold Ephraim Lessing , whereupon Karl Otto is said to have been a bitter opponent of the Enlightenment Lessing until his death .

Later, Karl Otto von Salzdahlum is said to have married Brigitte Schwarz, daughter of a goldsmith from Wolfenbüttel, had 14 children with her and, until his death, devoted himself to theological and maritime studies on his estate in Bruchmachtersen, acquired through a win in the Braunschweig lottery .

The lexicon article is provided with the abbreviation "GR" of the then deputy director of the HAB Georg Ruppelt . Ruppelt himself wrote the article as a nihil article for the lexicon on history and present that he co-edited .

reception

After the writer Hardy Crueger had read the lexicon article and was convinced of its authenticity, he processed the life story of Karl Otto von Salzdahlum in his 2014 novel The Duke, the Robber and the Goldsmith's Daughter . It was only after several months of research that he discovered that the lexicon article and thus the protagonist of his novel were pure fiction .

In 2015 Robert A. Bautske discovered a partial estate in the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Library . In his article he announced an edition together with Georg Ruppelt of the writings of Karl Otto.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ GR: Karl Otto von Salzdahlum. P. 90.
  2. ↑ Martin Jasper: The Pirate's Blood Trail. In: Braunschweiger Zeitung from January 15, 2015.
  3. ↑ Interview with regional storyteller Hardy Crueger ( Memento from January 15, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) on blog.oeffigte.de
  4. ↑ The Duke, the Robber and the Goldsmith's Daughter. Edition Narrenflug, Kiel 2014, ISBN 978-3-945242-03-2 .
  5. ↑ Bautske, Robert A .: how this (...) can be carried out bloody and succinctly as a craft without heartache on the part of the operator. The newly discovered estate of Karl Otto von Salzdahlum in the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Library . Hanover 2015.