Bruno Richard Hauptmann

Bruno Richard Hauptmann (born November 26, 1899 in Kamenz , Saxony , † April 3, 1936 in Trenton , New Jersey ) was a German émigré who, because of the kidnapping and murder of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh's son Charles Lindbergh III. was sentenced to death and executed.

biography

Life in Germany and First World War

Hauptmann was born on November 26th, 1899 in Kamenz. He attended school for eight years, business school for two years and learned the trade of carpenter . During the First World War he served as a machine gunner on the Western Front and was wounded several times, including from poison gas . After 1918, like many of his war comrades, he could not find work.

He started the life of a criminal, broke into three apartments and ambushed two women from whom he took food stamps . His former comrade Fritz Petzold helped him with this. Hauptmann was caught and sentenced to five years and one week in prison in Bautzen prison. He served four years of this sentence. Shortly after his release, he was arrested again while trying to sell stolen leather belts. He escaped from custody and allegedly left his prison clothes with a note saying "Best regards to the police".

Immigration to the United States

He then tried to immigrate illegally to the United States , but was caught twice and sent back to Germany. Only the third attempt in November 1923 was successful; he was dressed up and using a fake passport.

In the USA in the spring of 1924 he met Anna Schöffler, also a German immigrant. She entered the United States legally on January 1, 1924. They married in October 1925. The two had an apartment in the Bronx . Hauptmann worked as a carpenter, his wife in a bakery.

Lindbergh kidnapping and captain's arrest

US $ 100 gold certificate note from 1922

On March 1, 1932, the 20-month-old son of aviation pioneers Anne and Charles Lindbergh , Charles Augustus Lindbergh III, was kidnapped. Negotiations were held with several alleged kidnappers. An intermediary named John Condon handed over US $ 50,000 to the alleged kidnapper (adjusted for inflation to around $ 934,000), some in gold certificate notes ( banknotes at the time , see Goldmark ), but the child was not released, rather his body was found on May 12, 1932 .

In September 1934, a $ 10 gold certificate note that came from the ransom was discovered. A gas station owner had noted Hauptmann's license plate on the now rarely used gold certificate note . When a bank clerk found the bill was registered, he alerted the police. Thereupon Hauptmann was arrested. When his home was searched, an additional $ 14,600 in gold certificate notes were discovered that came from the ransom.

process

John Condon identified Hauptmann in the Flemington trial as the man to whom he had handed the ransom. It has been proven that a wooden ladder used during the kidnapping had been made in Hauptmann's carpentry workshop. Two witnesses also testified against him.

However, Hauptmann insisted on his innocence and claimed that he had received the money from a friend and business partner, the German immigrant Isidor Fisch . Other pieces of evidence were revealed to be forgeries. It was found that the police had beaten Captain and intimidated the witnesses. The reference to Isidor Fisch, who had returned to Germany in December 1933, was also not pursued, although he had paid for his ticket with gold certificate notes. Fisch died impoverished of tuberculosis in Leipzig in March 1934 .

The press was against Hauptmann and used Hauptmann's discarded first name Bruno , as it sounded more strange. He was portrayed as an evil foreigner. A reporter confessed to having forged evidence.

The testimony of Colonel Lindbergh was essential for the later judgment. Three years after the fact, he wanted to have recognized the voice of the caller at the time in Hauptmann's voice. Lindbergh's claim was already heavily criticized in professional circles at that time; today such a memory performance can be absolutely ruled out. Despite doubts and disagreements, Hauptmann was sentenced to death.

execution

On October 16, 1935, the governor of New Jersey, Harold G. Hoffman , and the German-speaking stenographer Anna Badging visited the prisoner Hauptmann on death row . Hoffman pointed to errors in the process and tried to convince the members of the court that they too should visit Hauptmann in prison.

The execution was scheduled for January 17, 1936. After three postponements and rejection of an application for pardon , the death sentence was carried out on April 3, 1936. At around 8:45 p.m., Bruno Richard Hauptmann was executed by the electric chair in Trenton State Prison, New Jersey . The death was determined at 8:47 pm.

filming

• The mystery novel Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie deals with the issue of the abduction. An Italian-born American named Casetti aka Ratchett is behind the crime. In the film adaptation of the 1974 play Richard Widmark this figure.
• Anthony Hopkins played the role of Richard Hauptmann in the 1976 TV production Die Entführung des Lindbergh Baby ("The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case").
• In 1996 Stephen Rea took on the role for an HBO production called Crime of the Century .
• In Clint Eastwood's biography J. Edgar (2011) about the life of FBI founder J. Edgar Hoover , in which the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby plays a central role, Captain is played by Damon Herriman .

documentation

• Kamenz and the Lindbergh baby. mirror TV

literature

• Bruno Richard Hauptmann: I am innocent! A confession on death row. Ebert, Kamenz in Saxony 1936.
• Roland Dantz, Frank Oehl: Crimes of the Century. Bruno Richard Hauptmann and the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby. SAXO'Phon GmbH, Dresden 2014. ISBN 978-3-943444-09-4 .
• Odette Künstler: "Mother, I am innocent!" The story of a crime of the century. In: Sächsische Heimatblätter. Vol. 57, No. 3, 2011, ISSN  0486-8234 , pp. 316-319.
• Raffael Winkler: The History of the FBI. Baltic Sea Press, Rostock 2009; ISBN 978-3-942129-06-0 , pp. 21-23.

Web links

• Literature by and about Bruno Richard Hauptmann in the catalog of the German National Library
• www.law.umkc.edu Famous American Trials: Richard Hauptmann (Lindbergh Kidnapping) Trial court records and short biographies of the participants ... ( Engl. )
• lindberghkidnappinghoax.com (Engl.)
• Solveig Grothe: The crime of the century. In: one day from February 28, 2012