Otto Benze

Johannes August Otto Benze (born December 8, 1857 in Sagan in Silesia, † March 30, 1945 in Weiler ), who called himself Otto Benze von Benzenhofen , was a German impostor and the builder of Benzenhofen Castle in Berg . He was an illustrious but also pathologically fearful personality and held various controversial titles of nobility. Therefore, around 1900 there was an extensive trial against him. From his wedding in 1894 until before the First World War , he lived an international lifestyle and until the late 1920s he owned a sizable art collection. In 1932 his property was foreclosed and he died in 1945 in an old age in the poor house.

Life

He was the son of the bricklayer and master carpenter Johannes Benze, who moved with his family to Berlin in 1861 , where Otto attended the Sophiengymnasium and from June 1876 until the autumn of the same year the Friedrichsgymnasium, which he left without a degree. In 1880 he was registered as an immaturus at the University of Halle. In the summer semester of 1881 he moved to Heidelberg , where he was first mentioned as Hans Otto Benze von Benzenhofen in a certificate issued in August 1881 . In 1882 he moved to Freiburg im Breisgau , 1883 to Stuttgart and 1884 to Bern . Documents are available from the universities of these locations that contain the addition of Benzenhofen to the name . In 1885 he was asked in Bern to present identification papers, which he was unable to do despite repeated deadlines, so that he was expelled from Bern in May 1885. Benze later stated that he also studied law and philosophy in Bologna and Paris , but there is no evidence of this and what does not seem possible in terms of time.

In August 1886 he came to Cannstatt , where he called himself Ottokar Benze von Benzenhofen and was named Dr. jur. and writers issued. When the mayor's office asked for his identification papers, he failed to do so. The name Dr. jur. he explained as the abbreviation of a doctoral student . The district court in Cannstatt issued a profile because of incorrect naming, but the matter came to nothing.

In 1887 he followed his divorced mother to Wiesbaden . There he reported on November 15 as Dr. jur. Benze von Benzenhofen , only appears in the population register from 1888 as Otto Benze .

After the death of Emperor Friedrich III. he wrote as O. Benze von Benzenhofen with Das Hohe Lied von German Kaiser Friedrich III. a patriotic poem that appeared from 1889 in numerous editions and also in English translation. It is not known who financed the work. Benze sent copies of the script to all German courts and received numerous letters of thanks, addressed to the named author's name, which he later also used to legitimize the title of nobility.

In 1894 he married the divorced Marie Luise Nötzlin on Heligoland , daughter of a Bremen consul and a French noblewoman who called herself Marie Luise Lülling du Repaire de Truffin. It was probably through this marriage that Benze came into possession of the wealth that he needed for his later ventures and his international lifestyle. The couple initially took up residence in Wiesbaden. There Benze tried again to register as Benze von Benzenhofen . After the police department requested proof of the name, the couple moved to Berlin within a few days.

In Berlin, too, Benze tried to establish himself as Dr. jur. To register Benze von Benzenhofen . When asked for evidence, he renounced the doctorate. Because of the nobility, Benze initially held off the officials, but then in June 1895 produced a myriad of documents, parish book excerpts and the like, which a connection between his ancestors and the Uckermark noble family von Bentz as well as with the Swabian family von von, which died out in the 14th century Benzenhofen should prove. However, the officials saw no connection between the families in the documents and rejected the addition of Benzenhofen to the name . In September 1895, Benze paid a fine of 3 marks for the unauthorized use of a nobility predicate. Another submission to the Herald's Office in October 1895 was rejected.

For the first half of 1896, Benze and his wife lived in Lausanne , where their daughter Johanna Henriette Friederike Ottilie Marie Louise Victoria, called Vicky , was born on March 11, 1896 . In Lausanne, Benze called himself again Benze von Benzenhofen and Docteur en droit .

In early 1897, Benze came into contact with the indebted Prince Henri-François de Valori. He offered to take over the debts of Valori's dilapidated Châteaurenard estate near Avignon in exchange for the title of princely . The prince did not give up the title of prince, but that of Baron de Chateaurenard, Iles de Barban, de Monstelle et d'Ampal and the title of Marquis de Montglat with the associated estate near Avignon. Soon, however, there were disputes between Benze and the prince, so that Benze returned the title in June 1897 and reclaimed the 20,000 francs he had paid for them. It is unknown whether the money was refunded. Benze later claimed that the waiver of the title had been lifted, while Prince Valori, who died shortly afterwards, informed the heraldry that Benze had abused the title and refused to return the purchase contract. In any case, by the First World War, Benze owned the ruinous Châteaurenard castle and an associated quarry, the material of which he had processed in a marble factory.

In July 1897, Benzes mother moved from Wiesbaden to Burgsinn and, according to the son's will, also registered there as Benze von Benzenhofen . She died there in March 1898.

In August 1897, Benze and his wife bought the Benzenhofen estate near Berg. There they had Benzenhofen Castle built in the historicist style from 1899 to 1901. Benzes wife wrote to Prince Valori in 1897 that the estate in Benzenhofen had been acquired primarily in order to obtain legitimation for the naming. Benze later stated that he had acquired the property because it had a historical connection with his family.

When Benze refused to follow a summons as a witness to a court case before the regional court in Ravensburg, where he had only been summoned as Benze , but not as Benze von Benzenhofen , district judge von Wider opened investigative proceedings against him in the autumn of 1899 for specifying one false name at marriage and unjustified use of a nobility title. Benze held out the court for months and moved to Brussels.

In June 1900 he visited Prince Heinrich XXII. in Greiz, with whom he had been in contact for a long time and who orally appointed him chamberlain and baron , which was possible under Reuss law. The prince knew about the trial against Benze, but was persuaded by this. As a resolute opponent of Prussia, the prince saw support for Benzes as an opportunity to bring the Prussian justice system to bear. Nevertheless, during Benze's stay in Greiz, further letters from Brussels arrived at the Ravensburg court. Benze returned from Greiz to Brussels, from where he notified the court in Ravensburg that he had been appointed chamberlain. Benze also raised baseless allegations against the examining magistrate Stern, whom he also insulted in his letter.

The court now intensified its efforts to get hold of Benzes and asked the Greiz District Court for an interrogation if Benze would be back in Greiz in October 1900. Benze initially ignored the summons in Greiz and asked Lindau (Lake Constance) for a further delay. It was not until the end of November 1900 that the district court in Greiz was questioned. The interrogation continued in January 1901 before the court in Kassel, where Benze was taking a cure. Then he was back in Greiz, from where he wanted to go to Paris for the funeral of his mother-in-law . On February 10th, he was arrested at the Erfurt train station because he had evaded the requirements for reporting any change of location. However, he had to be released the following day.

A few days later, Benzen's lawyer presented another extensive draft to the district court in Ravensburg, which was supposed to prove the descent of Benze from the Bentz family in Uckermark, but remained incomplete and therefore doubtful. The lawyer wanted to submit a connection with the von Benzenhofen family, but never did. A court-ordered report from the Prussian Herald's Office dated May 20, 1901 came to the conclusion that Benzes' noble descent could not be proven.

The main proceedings against Benze were opened on November 2, 1901 in Ravensburg; the subject matter was two offenses of forgery, one offense of insult and the unauthorized acceptance of a title of nobility. Benze did not attend the trial himself. He stated that for health reasons he had to spend the winter in Paris, where the doctor had also forbidden him to work in the light, so that he could not read the complaints sent to him. In May 1903 the court ruled that the use of the name expired until 1896 and that the use of the name from 1896 onwards was justified by the award of the chamberlain by Prince Reuss. The subject of further proceedings were then the wrong name specification during the marriage, the falsification of private documents by erasing the doctorate and the matter of insult against district judge Stern. Benze had meanwhile changed his place of residence in Paris, so that the resolutions could not be served on him until December 1903. He ignored subpoenas in 1904 or had himself excused on grounds of illness.

In the meantime, Prince Heinrich XXII. deceased. The Prince Regent who succeeded him canceled Benzes’s appointment as chamberlain by notification of July 15, 1904.

In May 1905 a court session finally took place in the presence of Benzes. District Judge Stern withdrew his lawsuit. Benze was acquitted in the course of the trial because there was no evidence of fraudulent intent and it was believed that he had been promoted to the nobility in good faith in his ancestry. By 1916, there were numerous lawsuits relating to incorrect naming, all of which were rejected on the basis of the 1905 judgment.

In 1905 Benze stayed at Benzenhofen Castle, and in the following year he moved back to Paris. From there he came back to Benzenhofen in 1909.

Benze must have led a bizarre life in Benzenhofen. He and his wife were paranoid about being mugged or poisoned. The couple were armed and on various occasions shot at alleged burglars and dismissed maids who were suspected of being poisonous. Benze got some of the food only from the Hotel Hildebrand in Ravensburg, it was delivered in a locked box, to which only Benze and the innkeeper had a key. Above all, Benze was very worried about his collection of paintings, which were temporarily kept in the Stuttgart State Gallery during Benzes' long journey . While only a low value was estimated there, Benze believed that the paintings could have a value of up to 7 million marks. Benze had established relationships with Isny through the businessman Karl Pfeilsticker . Pfeilsticker and the Isny ​​medical councilor Ehrler, who thought Benze was wrong in his head , were in Benzenhofen several times. Arrow stickers were equipped with firearms for the night by Benze to defend themselves against possible intruders. Benze made promises to the Isnyers for the construction of a new shooting hall, for the foundation of a new shooting medal and the development of a healing spring. However, Benze soon thought Pfeilsticker was a poisoner and broke off contact.

The conditions in the Benze house particularly affected the daughter Vicky, who moved into the School Nurse Institute in Ravensburg in February 1910. She looked neglected and had insufficient knowledge of school. When the father wanted to bring the daughter back to Benzenhofen in May 1910, the daughter refused and stayed at the institute. At a hearing, she stated that the mother was completely insane and two years ago had already shot the father, who was believed to be a burglar, with a revolver. The doctor Zengerle, who was called in for confirmation, described both parents as anxious, with the marquise suffering from a paranoia- like paranoia . Since the servants and tutors in the house soon ran away, the nutrition and upbringing in the Benze house was only very irregular. Vicky then stayed at the School Nurse Institute and received an officially appointed nurse, the lawyer Max Grasselli. In August 1910, Benze tried again to take the daughter with him from the institute, but was stopped by Zengerle and Grasselli. In the period that followed, Grasselli questioned the paternity of Benzes, which resulted in a lengthy legal dispute. Vicky lived temporarily in the Grasselli house and from 1915 with her mother, who had since divorced Benze, in Geneva. There, too, Benze tried to initiate incapacitation proceedings against his wife through the Geneva lawyer Lachenal. He could not pay the lawyer, instead he pawned a painting that Lachenal offered for sale in 1918. Vicky quit her apartment in Geneva in 1916 and was in Munich in 1917, where she was also investigated for wrongly using a nobility predicate. She called herself Freifäulein von Benzenhofen, Comtesse von Montglat . In 1918 she married an unknown Mr. Gegauff, but quickly divorced and after a second marriage to Peter Muir later lived in New York. The mother died on December 8, 1921 in Geneva.

Benze married Elisabeth Rotty, 32 years his junior, in Ulm in 1922 , and she had four children until 1928. Meanwhile, around 1927, daughter Vicky was still having a legal dispute with her father about the publication of a valuable tapestry picture, about which no files have survived. Benze himself also carried out numerous lawsuits in which, among other things, a. about neighborhood disputes in Benzenhofen and about the reconstruction of the farm building of Benzenhofen Castle that burned down in 1928. However, since the French had confiscated Benzes' French property with an estimated value of around 3 million RM after the World War in 1922, for which Benze received only 12,500 RM in compensation, against which he also sued, he soon lacked the money to pay the lawyers. The first paintings from his collection were seized to cover claims from lost lawsuits and legal fees. He had one of the paintings restored in 1928/29, but the restorer also had to sue for his claims.

He had entrusted the management of Gut Benzenhofen to tenants, most recently to his brother-in-law Max Rotty. However, the estate was no longer economical during the First World War and the new buildings after the fire of 1928 completely overwhelmed Benze financially. Soon the estate was under compulsory administration and in 1932 the compulsory auction was finally ordered.

It is no longer known where Benze lived in the following years. Most recently he lived in the poor house in Weiler, where he died on March 30, 1945. He was buried in Ravensburg.

As it turned out later, Benze owned a valuable painting by Peter Paul Rubens since 1904 , an equestrian image of the Infante Don Ferdinand of Spain in the battle of Nördlingen. His widow did not sell it until 1947. Why Benze did not sell this painting when he was about to go bankrupt and thus averted the loss of his property is unknown.

literature

• Hans Ulrich Frhr. v. Ruepprecht: Benzenhofen Castle and its builder . In: Genealogy , Issue 7–8 / 1996, pp. 226–235 and Issue 9–10 / 1996, pp. 257–272 as well as addendum in issue 11–12 / 1996, pp. 366–368.
• Hans Ulrich Rudolf : The would-be baron of Benzenhofen. Benzenhofen Castle and its client. In: Im Oberland , issue 2/2014, pp. 28–36.