Rasso robbers

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The Rasso robbers were a band of robbers active in the Bavarian region of Lechrain in the 1860s, which became known nationwide through the stealing of the relics of St. Rasso von Andechs .

The gang

Newspaper report on the start of the trial against the Rasso robbers at the Augsburg jury court (Augsburger Postzeitung, March 20, 1869)

The band of robbers who undertook 29 raids in Lechrain between 1864 and 1867 was popularly referred to as the "Rasso robbers". Its name goes back to the spectacular robbery of the remains of St. Rasso from the pilgrimage church of St. Rasso . The gang was after the jewelry and the presumed valuable setting of the bones, as well as other sacred objects. The bones of St. Rasso were later found again in the forest and taken to the Grafrath pilgrimage church.

In March 1869, 19 women and men had to answer for their offenses before the Augsburg jury . The Augsburg Post newspaper reported from 20 March 1869 in great detail over the course of the trial and found such a "Monstreverhandlung" have not there yet taken place since the establishment of the Assize. 157 witnesses were heard. Fourteen members of the gang were sentenced to prison terms of between four and seventeen years for theft . Another four members were sentenced to prison terms of two months to one and a half years for stolen goods .

The leader

Georg Müller, born on April 18, 1830 as the guardian's son in Ried bei Mering , was the leader of the Rasso robbers. He lived with his family as a Gütler in Hörbach am Finsterbach . However, he was the only one who did not stand trial in March 1869. He had managed to evade the authority of the authorities in a spectacular way by escaping from pre- trial detention in the Fronfeste of the former monastery on the Lilienberg (Au) in the night of May 12th to 13th, 1868 . Since then, the gang leader has never reappeared - at least for the authorities. In absentia he was sentenced to 16 years in prison on June 21, 1869 for ten crimes of theft and one crime of manslaughter.

In September 1869 Georg Müller embarked from Hamburg for New York . From there he organized the sale of his property, house no. 11 in Hörbach, as well as the move of his wife together with their four children. With the approval of the royal district office of Fürstenfeldbruck , his wife, Maria Müller, and her four children left for North America on September 17, 1869. She sent the first signs of life from the New World from Milwaukee , where she apparently met her husband.

In search of work, the family eventually reached the town of La Crosse , Wisconsin. In the US census of 1870, Georg Müller appears as worker John Betzinger, as he now called himself, with his family members. How the gang leader came up with the new name can only be guessed at. In Dasing , near his place of birth, Ried, there was a Johann Pätzinger whose passport he may have used. After 1870 the traces of the gang leader are lost. His children reappear in Menominee , Michigan.

Web links

literature

  • Toni Drexler: The Rasso robbers: From Finsterbach to Mississippi . via verbis, Taufkirchen 2007, ISBN 978-3-935115-23-0 .
  • Hans Kratzer: In the forest, there are the robbers . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . October 5, 2002.
  • Gerd Bamberg, Thomas Wunder: robber captain fled from Finsterbach to the Mississippi . In: Augsburger Allgemeine . December 28, 2007 ( online ).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Rasso von Andechs in the Ecumenical Lexicon of Saints
  2. ↑ A gang of thieves before the jury . In: Augsburger Postzeitung . Haas & Grabherr, March 20, 1869 ( online ).
  3. ↑ a b Original documents viewed on ancestry.de on March 3, 2019.