Oskar Daubmann

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Oskar Daubmann alias Karl Ignaz Hummel

Oskar Daubmann , actually Karl Ignaz Hummel , (born March 9, 1898 in Oberwil BL , † January 20, 1954 in Schwäbisch Hall ) was a con man whose case in 1932 caused an international stir.

Born near Basel in Switzerland , Karl Ignaz Hummel had a difficult childhood, often suffered from hunger and preferred to lie lazily on the meadow than go to school. At the age of eleven he ran away from his poor parents. After a theft , he was sent to a reformatory and began a career as a petty criminal that earned him multiple convictions and prison terms.

In 1930 he settled in Offenburg , worked as a tailor and in 1931 married Kreszentia Allgeier. For economic reasons, he left his pregnant wife (who filed for divorce that same year ) in 1932 and tried to come to Algeria to join the French Foreign Legion . However, he had to turn back in Italy . Since he had no money for a return trip, he passed himself off as Oskar Daubmann , who was a former school friend from Endingen and who he knew had been missing since the First World War . He pretended that the French held him captive in Africa for 16 years. After attempting to escape, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison for manslaughter in 1917 and transported to an Algerian prison camp.

The Daubmann case was so exaggerated by German national and National Socialist circles that it received international attention. It was a welcome occasion for a smear campaign against "national passions" against France, which was accused of mendacity and cruelty. Joseph Goebbels, for example, even threatened a war of vengeance in the Nazi magazine “ The Attack ”. The supposedly last prisoner of the world war was ceremoniously welcomed in Freiburg on May 29, 1932 and then received by more than 15,000 people in his "home town" of Endingen am Kaiserstuhl . Amazingly, the parents of the real Oskar Daubmann recognized the impostor as their son.

The officer Anton Bumiller from Sigmaringen knew the real Daubmann who had served in his regiment and was exploiting the situation. Bumiller organized lecture tours, and the “hero Daubmann” gave numerous lectures in the following weeks, received numerous honors and was celebrated. Among other things, he spoke in Sigmaringen, for example, where he was allowed to enter himself in the city's Golden Book and received an order from Prince Friedrich von Hohenzollern . Karl Ignaz Hummel soon got stuck in a role that he didn't want, but couldn't get out of. There were autograph cards that Bumiller had printed, and the clever manager was writing an adventure novel.

From the beginning articulated doubts about Daubmann's identity and history were largely ignored in public, critical French statements were rejected as lies. The French government's doubts were communicated to the German government in a note dated September 5, 1932.

The police, who had been investigating inconsistencies in Daubmann's story for a long time, finally managed to identify “Daubmann” as Karl Ignaz Hummel with the help of fingerprints . The false Daubmann was exposed. He was then arrested on October 11, 1932. The sensational turn of history now offered opponents of the National Socialists and German Nationals the opportunity to mock them. In 1933 the Freiburg Regional Court sentenced Hummel to three and a half years in prison for serious forgery and fraud . After serving his sentence, he was under pressure from the NSDAP in preventive detention since 1938 in Schwäbisch Hall . The Americans did not liberate him until 1945.

Hummel stayed in Schwäbisch Hall, worked as a tailor and died in 1954. Although the Daubmann case is almost forgotten today, the Endingers are still occasionally given the nickname “Daubinger”, although there was early skepticism about “Daubmann " gave. Oskar Daubmann, who fell in World War I, is only reminiscent of his name carved in stone on the Endinger war memorial .

Remarks

  1. a b c Ute Korn-Amann: Reading. The Daubmann case proves it: Lies have short legs . In: Schwäbische Zeitung from September 23, 2008
  2. Wedler 2004
  3. ^ Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg - The "Daubmann Affair" - a Baden Köpenickiade. Retrieved July 13, 2018 .
  4. ^ The "Daubmann Affair" - a Baden Köpenickiade . Website of the Baden-Württemberg State Archives. Retrieved January 2, 2015.

literature

  • Clemens Rehm: Oskar Daubmann / Karl Ignaz Hummel, Schneider and Schwindler, 1898-1954 , in: Taddey, G .; Brüning, R. (Ed.): Life pictures from Baden-Württemberg; Vol. 22 , Stuttgart 2007, pp. 487-520
  • Rainer Wedler: The colors of the tailor's chalk . Casimir-Katz-Verlag 2004. ISBN 3-925825-84-3 (novel)
  • Karl Johann Hirtler: flags out! The Daubmann is coming !. The Endinger Köpenickiade . ISBN 3-7930-0369-8
    The author Hirtler was appointed mayor of Endingen by the French occupying forces in the post-war period and was a schoolmate of the real Oskar Daubmann.

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