Lips Tullian
Lips Tullian , more rarely in the spelling Lips Tulian († March 8, 1715 in Dresden ), is the pseudonym of the leader of a Saxon gang of robbers in the early 18th century.
Life
Life before its notoriety
Much of the data from the earlier stages of Lips Tullian's life are unknown or at least questionable. This is due to the fact that he was still completely unknown at the time. Furthermore, the available information about him must be questioned because he was exposed to strong legends as a robber and anyway spent most of the time in hiding or in captivity.
There is initially disagreement about his actual name. According to some sources this is Elias Erasmus Schönknecht , but according to others it is Philipp Mengstein (hence the name Lips , a short form of Philipp ). His place of birth, which is often given as Strasbourg , and the year of his birth, which was probably either 1675 or 1683, are also questionable. Lips Tullian is said to have been born the son of an imperial lieutenant and to have served as a sergeant in an imperial dragoon regiment in Strasbourg or the Netherlands , which is why he was also called the sergeant in his later life . After allegedly killing a comrade in a duel in 1702 , he had to quit duty and flee and initially wandered aimlessly.
Appeared in Prague and Dresden
From this time on, the information about him becomes more reliable, as he now entered contemporary history and gained public fame. The name Lips Tullian first appeared in 1702 in Prague and the surrounding area. There he drove his mischief by breaking into churches and raiding general stores. In November of the same year he came to the Electorate of Saxony , where several bands of robbers were active at the time. During this time , Augustus the Strong showed little interest in the poor security situation on the streets of his electorate. Rather, he primarily had the Great Northern War raging at the time in view. For example, criminals like Lips Tullian were able to remain undetected for a long time.
Time as a gang leader
Lips Tullian worked his way up to become the leader of a notorious band of robbers he called the Black Guard . She had a primitive shelter in Tännichtgrund , on the Colmnitzbach near Naundorf in the southern Tharandt forest , where an approximately 450 meter high elevation still bears the name Lips-Tullian-Felsen , and later in a house in Niederbobritzsch . The gang allegedly stored their booty in the nearby cave of the thieves' chamber , which was (allegedly) connected to the forest by underground escape routes and later buried , which today happens to be exactly in the geographical center of the Free State of Saxony and is also said to have been used by Johannes Karasek . A particularly worthwhile destination for the robbers was probably the Silberstraße , which passed nearby on the way from Scharfenberg (Elbe) and Grund (Tharandter Wald) to the huts to Freiberg , but also the salt road between Naundorf and Colmnitz and the Fürsten- oder Herrenweg from Dresden via Grillenburg to Freiberg and Augustusburg near Flöha . The possibly after the eponymous Dutch mercenary regiment named Black Guard was at times 60 members strong and well operated nationwide.
However, crockery stolen by Lips Tullian in Count Wolf Dietrich von Beichlingen's house on the Altmarkt in Dresden was initially his undoing. After he was blown he was arrested in Leipzig and imprisoned in the Dresden fortress that surrounded the old town . In 1704, however, after a short imprisonment, Lips Tullian was able to flee over the ramparts and the frozen city moat together with seven other prisoners. In the period that followed, his band of robbers extended their sphere of activity to Thuringia , the Harz , Lusatia and Bohemia . Cases from Jena , Aschersleben and Prague were reported. Just a year later he was re-arrested in Leipzig and lifelong prison convicted. In the then three-class classification of offenders, the robber captain was counted among the most malicious and dangerous criminals . To prevent it from breaking out again, Lips Tullian was partly forged onto the fortress wall. After years of forced labor , he managed to escape in 1710, this time with the help of a duplicate key.
Again under their leader, the Black Guard looted many churches and houses in the Eastern Ore Mountains area from Freiberg to the Müglitztal . One of the goals was the church of Glashütte in 1710 , the inventory of which was largely stolen. According to tradition, many bystanders flocked to the crime scene for several days. An attack is also known from Possendorf . The gang often appeared without Lips Tullian. He often preferred to lead a normal bourgeois life for appearances. Together with his lover Marianne he lived mostly in Dresden, but also in other cities in Saxony. Lips Tullian appeared as a wealthy gentleman , but at the same time scouted new targets for the band of robbers, which he passed on to his captains. Nevertheless, from time to time he personally led the Black Guard on raids.
Final imprisonment and execution
After the battles near Kalisch and Poltava had gradually led to a turning point in the Northern Wars that was not unfavorable for Saxony , August the Strong turned increasingly to the problem of gang crime. There were stricter controls and prison sentences for many suspicious, but mostly innocent people. The police forces were required to be more vigilant. In 1711 Lips Tullian finally caught the attention of a guard at the Freiberg city gate. Although the robber captain was still able to stab the gatekeeper, he was finally overwhelmed and put into fortress detention.
Two years later, an attempted escape by several prison inmates, probably orchestrated by Lips Tullian, was discovered. After several days of torture under permanent handcuffs and many interrogations, he finally made a comprehensive confession, which resulted in the arrest of most of his gang and the fences involved . In October 1714 the Schöppenstuhl in Leipzig condemned Lips Tullian and his captains to the agonizing death by wheels . The sentence was later softened by a pardon for the elector in beheading , since the robber captain was able to persuade eight of his comrades-in-arms to make voluntary confessions.
On March 8, 1715, the sentence was carried out. After it had first been read out on Dresden's central market square , Lips confessed his deeds to Tullian and received absolution . Then he spoke briefly to the people who were present in large numbers and exhorted them to lead a virtuous way of life. Then the robber captain Lips Tullian was beheaded by the sword in front of the Black Gate in Altendresden in the presence of August the Strong and around 20,000 Saxon citizens . Four other robbers from his gang were also executed that day. In 1716, his crimes and end as a deterrent were first published. The last members of the Black Guard were not caught and sentenced until 1718. The robbery in Saxony is therefore said to have slackened significantly in the period that followed, but flared up again regularly due to famine and inflation .
Mentions in the literature
The legendary figure of Lips Tullian is mentioned in various stories. For example , the fable The Dog , written by Christian Fürchtegott Gellert around 1747, says:
(...) Phylax, the Lips Tullian, who knew how to steal, himself had to give way twice; (...)
In 1764 an incident of Lips Tullian's execution appears in Canto 6 of Moritz August von Thümmels Wilhelmine :
(...) or something like the great Lips Tullian on the place of execution, since the stick has already broken, still worried about his nose, for a pinch of Rappee bath. He still sniffs it with a sweet sensation, in that crucial, terrible minute - then craned his neck with a sigh, and found himself in the other world before he could sneeze. (...)
Wilhelm Raabe immortalized the name of Lips Tullian, which he probably knew from the Gellert fable, in 1876 in his Horacker , Chapter 7:
(...) “Just calm down, woman,” said old Eckerbusch. “There he goes after the third declension lepus, leporis, lepori! Quite Epicoenum! A grammatical gender that understands both sexes, you and me, Widow Horacker!… Yes, thank God, it was only a rabbit; calm down, Windwebel! Stay seated, Lips Tullian! ”Lips Tullian came from Pastor Winckler's Gansewinckel's Gellert, and the first time the Vice-Principal came up with the idea of taking his robber to Gansewinckel to see Pastor Krischan Winckler. Relatively relieved, he called it "a thought"; and he was right, it was one. (...)
The figure of Lips Tullian is also mentioned in Czech literature.
Trivia
- In parts of Saxony, the saying goes : If you have nothing, Lips Tullian cannot steal anything from you.
- A tower of Nossen Castle , in which there is an old dungeon, is called the Lips Tullian Tower .
- In the Czech Republic, Jaroslav Weigel and Kája Saudek have had an entire comic series called Lips Tullian since 1981 .
Web links
literature
- Roland Adloff: The gold potter. The true story of Lips Tullian, son of the main robber of the same name, and Alchemicus in Berlin. Eichborn, Frankfurt am Main 2002. ISBN 3-8218-0896-9
- Heiner Boehnecke, Hans Sarkowicz (ed.): Saxony's bad guys. Robbers, smugglers, poachers . Eichborn, Frankfurt am Main 1993. ISBN 3-8218-1174-9
- Uwe Danker: Gangs of robbers in the Old Kingdom around 1700. A contribution to the history of rule and crime in the early modern period. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1986. ISBN 3-518-28307-3
- Ernst Frei: Lips Tullian and his predators. A romantic account of the deeds of this terrible robber chief and his gang. Oeser, Neusalza 1854 ( digitized version )
- Heinz Weise (Ed.): Mark Meißen . FA Brockhaus Verlag, Leipzig 1989
- The well-known thief, murderer and robber Lips Tullian and his complications, life and evils… . Krause. Dresden 1716 (2nd edition 1719) ( digitized )
Footnotes
- ↑ Tharandt Forest: Robber Lips Tullian. In: Dresden-und-Sachsen.de. Archived from the original on February 10, 2013 ; Retrieved March 13, 2013 .
- ↑ The Lips Tullian Rock , say.at
- ^ Lips Tullian , in: Meyers Konversationslexikon , Fourth Edition, 1885-1892, Volume 10, p. 824.
- ↑ Tour hike to the center of Saxony ( Memento from September 7, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ), elblandtouren.de
- ^ Lips Tullian . In: Heinrich August Pierer , Julius Löbe (Hrsg.): Universal Lexicon of the Present and the Past . 4th edition. tape 10 . Altenburg 1860, p. 416-417 ( zeno.org ).
- ^ Ludwig Wilhelm Schrader: History of the city of Aschersleben during the Thirty Years War. Haller, Aschersleben 1852, p. 22 ( digitized in the Google book search).
- ^ Erich Viehöfer : On the development of the penal system in Saxony in the 18th century. (PDF file, 129 KB) Saxon State Ministry of Justice , p. 2 , accessed on March 13, 2013 .
- ↑ a b Lips Tullian and Nossen Castle. Archived from the original on December 28, 2013 ; Retrieved March 13, 2013 .
- ↑ Christian Fürchtegott Gellert : The dog in the Gutenberg-DE project
- ↑ literatur-live.de
- ↑ uni-stuttgart.de
- ^ Wilhelm Raabe : Horacker in the Gutenberg-DE project
- ^ Dierk Strothmann: Lips Tullian, the robber captain. In: Dierk's calendar sheet. March 8, 2010, accessed March 13, 2013 .
- ↑ komiks.cz
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Tullian, Lips |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Schönknecht, Elias Erasmus; Mengstein, Philipp |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Robber captain |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 17th century |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 8, 1715 |
| Place of death | Dresden |