Race tree

Improved shape of the racing boom, with ram head

Modern presentation

The racing tree was a very simple form of a battering ram .

Typically, it was a 4-6 m long tree trunk or beam with a diameter of 20-30 cm, which was used in particular by robber gangs of the late 18th and early 19th centuries to break through gates and doors during their violent break-ins . Several gang members repeatedly ran against the door with the racing tree until it was either broken through or fell off the hinges and lock .

The use of a racing tree, also called "drong", "drone" or "jad drone" in the crook of the time , was not only characteristic of the robber gangs of the middle and lower Rhine region of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. B. in the gang of Mathias Weber , called Fetzer , but was also used by the Vogelsberg and Wetterau robber gangs, the gangs of the Main area and in the Odenwald , in the Spessart and in Lower Saxony .

Sonja Steiner-Welz aptly described the robbery that was typical of that time using a racing tree:

When entering a village, the church door was first wedged to prevent the peasants from ringing the storm bell. If a night watchman was there, he was tied up and taken aside. Then suddenly the robbers uttered a terrible shout. They often sang French soldiers' songs to give the impression of French marauders. Then the robbers' torches and wax lights flared and the racing beam crashed against the front door. Once the entrance was cleared, the gang rushed into the house, stuck wax lights on the walls so that everything could be overlooked, tied up the residents and threw them bedclothes and towels so that they would not remember the figures of the intruders.

Footnotes

1. ^ Joseph Carl von Train: Chochemer Loschen. Dictionary of crooks and thieves - vulgo Yenish language , second edition, Regensburg, 1832, p. 72
2. ↑ Franz-Ludwig-Adolph von Grolmann: Dictionary of the rascal languages ​​common in Teutschland (etc.) ; First volume. Müller, Giessen, 1822, p. 116
3. ↑ Caspar Dietrich Christensen: Alphabetical index of a number of robbers, thieves and vagabonds. Bohnsche Buchhandlung, Hamburg, 1814, p. 15
4. ↑ Gustav Radbruch , arr. by Ulfrid Neumann : History of Criminal Law , Complete Edition, Volume 11, Müller, Heidelberg, 2001, ISBN 3-8114-2147-6 , p. 578
5. ^ Johann Nikolaus Becker: Actual history of the robber gangs on the two banks of the Rhine , Zweyter part. Cologne, 1804
6. ^ Friedrich Ludwig Adolf von Grolmann: Acting history of the Vogelsberg and Wetterau robber gangs. Giessen, 1813, p. 96
7. ↑ CF Brill: Actual news from the rabble in the Maingegenden, the Odenwald and the neighboring countries; First division. Heyer and Leske, Darmstadt, 1814, pp. 227, 364
8. ↑ Sonja Steiner-Welz: 400 Years of Mannheim: From Urzeit zur Kaiserzeit, Volume 1. Reinhard Welz Vermittler Verlag, Mannheim, 2004, ISBN 3-936041-96-2 , p. 213

literature

• Heiner Boehnke & Hans Sarkowicz: The Rhenish robber gangs. Eichborn, Frankfurt, 1993, ISBN 3-8218-1175-7
• Joachim Lehrmann : Gangs of robbers between Harz and Weser. Lehrmann-Verlag, Lehrte, 2004, ISBN 978-3-9803642-4-9
• Hermann Bettenhäuser: Robber and crook gangs in Hesse. A contribution to the attempt at a historical criminology of Hesse. In: Journal of the Association for Hessian History and Regional Studies, Volume 75/67, 1964, pp. 275–348 (pp. 332, 334)
• AF Thiele: The Jewish crooks in Germany, their tactics, their peculiarities and their language. First volume. Second edition, Berlin, 1842, pp. 239-240 (keyword “Chassne”)