Leopold von Meerscheidt-Hüllessem

Leopold von Meerscheidt-Hüllessem (born June 20, 1849 in Frankfurt (Oder) , † December 21, 1900 in Berlin ) was a German detective .

biography

Personal and family

Leopold von Meerscheidt-Hüllessem came from an old Bergisch aristocratic family who originally lived in Merscheid near Solingen and got their nickname in 1440 from their knight seat Hillesheim near Much . Members of the family emigrated to Courland in the 16th century , which is why this branch of the family is also known as the "Baltic nobility".

In his first marriage, von Meerscheidt-Hüllessem was married to Katharine Duwe (* 1851), the marriage had four children and was divorced in 1899. Shortly afterwards he entered into a second marriage with Marie Zoekel (* 1855), who died on August 11, 1900 as a result of an operation in Berlin. Hüllessem was then "completely heartbroken, almost completely broken". This marriage was childless.

The gossip author Elisabeth von Wedel-Bérard , who was basically a fan of Hüllessem, described his appearance in one of her books in 1901: “Even today I shudder when I remember his gnomish appearance, his deformity. His almost lumpy feet, his stocky, squat figure, his bull neck, his bald head, his short arms and thick hands. "

Professional background

First, Leopold von Meerscheidt-Hüllessem - known as Leo Hüllessem for short - embarked on a military career and was promoted to the rank of lieutenant . In 1873 he joined the Berlin police . His first major assignment was undercover investigations into the Marpingen apparitions in Marpingen , where he was an Irish reporter for the New York Herald . Although he did not cut a good figure in the investigations and the court process, so that the events were even an issue in the Prussian state parliament , he was promoted to criminal inspector in 1885.

Despite a number of tensions with colleagues, Hüllessem developed into a "significant and far-sighted" detective. According to an article in the Leipziger Illustrierte Zeitung on May 25, 1895, Hüllessem is said to have set up a “ criminal album” on his own initiative in 1876 , which is officially mentioned in the Statistical Yearbook from 1884 onwards . He was later commissioned by the chief of the criminal police, Count Hermann Pückler , to set up the Berlin crime museum, which initially served as a collection of teaching materials for police training and advanced training. He introduced a methodical registration of evidence , advocated the carrying of firearms by police officers and the introduction of service dogs . As a result of his efforts, the murder standby service was set up after Hüllessem's assessment of murder investigations had been carried out “by chance” and “in deficit”.

At the end of 1895, Hüllessem traveled to Paris to see Alphonse Bertillon , the founder of the French identification service, to study Bertillion's body measurement method , later known as Bertillonage . As a result, on 14./15. June 1897 the identification service was founded in Berlin, subordinate to inspection B., and Hüllessem was appointed its head. In 1897 he was involved in the reorganization of the Berlin police with police chief Ludwig von Windheim and detective chief Count Pückler.

As early as the 1880s, Leopold Hüllessem is said to have taken over the management of the "Homosexual Department", which belonged to Criminal Inspection B (prosecution of commercial criminals). He took over the management of the entire inspection in 1895.

The homosexual department was involved in criminal inspection B. and did not belong to the moral police. Since Inspection B. was also responsible for extortion , this was a sensible division: Section 175 made sexual acts between persons of the male sex a punishable offense, which gave rise to numerous extortions. The sex researcher and co-founder of the first homosexual movement Magnus Hirschfeld , who was friendly to Hüllessem, praised this connection between the departments in retrospect in 1922:

"[...] which continues to this day and has proven to be extremely practical. In particular, this joint processing of both categories has proven to be extremely beneficial for the criminalistic assessment of homosexuality. As the heads of the departments and their sub-officials got to know the blackmailers and their homosexual victims professionally and with them at the same time the milieu and the circles from which they came, even the most prejudiced member of the 'pederast patrol'18 had to learn the difference between the true and impose on imaginary criminality. "

- Magnus Hirschfeld : From once to now, pp. 23-24

In 1891 the sex researcher Albert Moll published the book The contrary sexual sensation ; Leopold von Meerscheidt-Hüllessem and Adolf Glaser , editor-in-chief of Westermanns Monatshefte , had supported him in the research. He had a close friendship with Glaser. In 1902, Glaser reported in his obituary for Hüllessem that he had initially completely rejected homosexuality and viewed it as a sign of over-saturation and debauchery and general decay. It was only through the contact with Albert Moll and Magnus Hirschfeld and with other highly respected homosexuals that he became “puzzled” and subsequently fundamentally changed his mind. He developed into an opponent of § 175 with the result that it was less the homosexual men than their blackmailers who were persecuted. His "consistent attitude" led to conflicts with his superiors, but also with colleagues, as he obviously lacked the corps spirit and he did not refrain from prosecuting police officers.

Von Meerscheidt-Hüllessem's collaboration with Hirschfeld and the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee (WhK) he founded, the world's first homosexual organization, dates back to 1898: During a discussion in the Reichstag , August Bebel came , who also pleaded for the abolition of §175, to speak of a case where a man was blackmailed for being homosexual. Pückler then suspected Hüllessem of having passed official secrets to Bebel. At a meeting of those involved in Hirschfeld's apartment, Bebel presented an affidavit that he had received the information from the person concerned himself. The cooperation between the police and WhK mainly served to protect homosexuals from the widespread blackmailing. Otherwise, the police tolerated the homosexual scene - it is estimated that around 50,000 homosexuals lived in the capital at the time - to a large extent in Berlin.

In 2015, the American historian Robert M. Beachy described the work of Hüllessem:

“The police chief Leopold von Meerscheidt-Hüllessem believed in progress through scientific knowledge. This was widespread in Germany at the end of the 19th century. He was in contact with the leading sex researchers of the time and read the latest literature on homosexuality. He even gave tours of gay bars. His successors then continued his policy. ""

- Alexander Sarovic : Interview with Robert M. Beachy. In: Der Spiegel v. 4th July 2015

The Sternberg Trial

Leopold von Meerscheidt-Hüllessem's colleague and successor Hans von Tresckow drew the downside of his "ambivalent personality":

“He was a man of great organizational talent and considerable talent for criminology; Unfortunately, he had a very scheming character that led him astray. In addition, he was always in financial embarrassment. He had a large family to look after and as a police officer he was still struggling to pay off debts that resulted from his lieutenant's days. His income was insufficient, and he was forced to keep going into new debts with people who were not faultless and who made him feel his pecuniary addiction. "

- Hans von Tresckow : From princes and other mortals

Because of this "pecuniary dependency" called by von Tresckow, Hüllessem got into considerable difficulties in 1900, when he was promoted to police director. He was friends with the millionaire August von Sternberg, who had also granted him a mortgage on his house in Binz on Rügen . In January 1900, von Sternberg was charged with the sexual abuse of girls under the age of 14 and sentenced to two years in prison. The public prosecutor's office appealed because new cases were identified during the trial, and the trial began again in October 1900. Hüllessem is said to have tried, with the help of three other police officers, to influence the investigation, for example by relocating and dismissing the investigating officer and illegally inspecting the investigation files. One of the officers was later sentenced to three years in prison for office crimes and perjury . Disciplinary proceedings were also initiated against Hüllessem and he was suspended from duty until the end of the Sternberg trial. During the second trial, it was found that almost all of the witnesses had been bribed or attempted to bribe.

On December 21, 1900, Sternberg was sentenced to two years and six months in prison. On the same day Leopold von Meerscheidt-Hüllessem, who had also been shaken by the death of his wife in August, committed suicide by taking potassium cyanide . He had always denied being bribed or blackmailed.

His death was not reported - as is usually the case - in the official news of the Royal Police Presidium in Berlin ; Mementos of him in the Berlin police headquarters were "almost completely erased".

The estate

Meerscheidt-Hüllessem left an estate letter, consisting of a private part, one for the emperor and a third part for the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee (WhK), the world's first organization that aims to allow sexual acts between men decriminalize. On December 21, 1900 he wrote: “The voice of the living will achieve nothing, that of the dead will strike like a clap of thunder and everything, from the emperor, will become what has been presented, with which the public opinion of all circles will then deal, position and so force the government to act. ”The content of the second part never reached the emperor. The third part consisted of a manuscript by Meerscheidt-Hüllessem against § 175, which he wanted to have printed. The curator of the estate handed the document over to the Berlin police chief Ludwig von Windheim , who refused to hand it over on the grounds that it contained official material. The manuscript is considered lost.

Honors

• Order of the Sun and Lions (Persia)
• North Star Order (Sweden / Norway)
• Country Order (Venezuela)
• Red Eagle Order 4th class

literature

• Jens Dobler : “Between tolerance policy and the fight against crime. Persecution of homosexuals by the Berlin police from 1848 to 1933 ”. Series of publications of the German Society for Police History eV Volume 6. Publishing house for police science. Frankfurt 2008.

Individual evidence

1. ^ EH Kneschke: New General German Adels Lexicon. Рипол Классик, ISBN 978-1-147-52039-2 , p. 510 ( limited preview in Google Book Search). He himself was born in Frankfurt (Oder) as the son of the royal Prussian major Wilhelm Ferdinand von Meerscheidt-Hüllessem (1806-1896) and his wife Leopoldine, née Baroness von Malzahn . He had a younger sister, Katharine.
2. ^ Dobler, Between Toleration Policy and Combating Crime , p. 221 f.
3. ^ Dobler, Between Toleration Policy and Combating Crime , p. 223 f.
4. ^ Wilhelmine Emilie Elisabeth von Wedel-Bérard: From the catacombs !!! Historical love events of my ancestors . Zurich 1901, p. 59 . Quoted from: Dobler, Between Toleration Policy and Combating Crime , p. 219
5. ^ Dobler, Between Toleration Policy and Combating Crime , p. 224 f.
6. ↑ Dobler, Between Toleration Policy and Combating Crime , p. 233.
7. ↑ Dobler, Between Toleration Policy and Combating Crime , p. 161.
8. ^ Dobler, Between Toleration Policy and Combating Crime , p. 234.
9. ↑ Dobler, Between Toleration Policy and Combating Crime , p. 235.
10. ↑ Dobler, Between Toleration Policy and Combating Crime , p. 157.
11. ↑ Dobler, Between Toleration Policy and Combating Crime , pp. 205 f.
12. ↑ Dobler, Between Toleration Policy and Combating Crime , p. 220
13. ↑ Erhard Köllner : Homosexuality as an anthropological challenge. Julius Klinkhardt, 2001, ISBN 978-3-7815-1138-5 , p. 112 ( limited preview in Google book search).
14. ↑ Dobler, Between Toleration Policy and Combating Crime , p. 247 f.
15. ↑ Magnus Hirschfeld: The homosexuality of man and woman. Walter de Gruyter, 2001, ISBN 978-3-11-086780-0 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
16. ↑ Alexander Sarovic: Equal Rights: " Gay marriage is only a matter of time". In: Interview with Robert Beachy. In: Spiegel Online . July 4, 2015, accessed December 31, 2015 . 
17. ↑ Dobler, Between Toleration Policy and Combating Crime , p. 221
18. ↑ Hans von Tresckow: From princes and other mortals. Memories of a detective inspector . Berlin 1922, p. 115 . Quoted from: Dobler, Between Toleration Policy and Combat Criminal Law , p. 220.
19. ↑ Dobler, Between Toleration Policy and Combating Crime , p. 249 f.
20. ↑ Dobler, Between Toleration Policy and Combating Crime , p. 253 f.
21. ↑ Dobler, Between Toleration Policy and Combating Crime , p. 220.
22. ↑ Dobler, Between Toleration Policy and Combating Crime , p. 253 f.