Walter Walser
Walter Leopold Walser (* 1927 in Feldkirch , Vorarlberg ; † September 23, 1978 in Linz , Upper Austria ) was an Austrian murderer and robber .
Criminal career
The trained machine fitter committed a series of break-ins and robberies to finance his luxurious lifestyle. As early as 1946 he was sentenced to prison for the first time for serious burglary. In 1950 he shot an ÖBB dispatcher while attempting a break-in in Tyrol and served a 17-year prison sentence for murder.
After his release, he broke into the central warehouse of a company for explosives in Salzburg in 1972 and stole 22 kg of dynamite , which he used to break into six safes in the Linz area between the summer of 1972 and 1973 and loot over 200,000 ATS . He also attacked the Raiffeisenbank on Linzer Bäckermühlweg in October 1973 and was responsible for a failed attempt at kidnapping a wholesale merchant from Leonding .
On February 6, 1976, he attacked a money messenger from Linz's Maximarkt on the way to the Raiffeisen central cash desk. He shot and killed the accompanying police inspector Josef Plass and escaped under the fire of another police officer with the daily motto of over 1 million ATS. Plass is the last executive officer to be killed in Linz (2016).
On April 28, 1978, Walser attacked the Allgemeine Sparkasse on the corner of Stelzhammerstrasse and Rainerstrasse in downtown Linz. After the silent alarm was triggered, Walser brought 22 customers and employees into his power, with which he committed the first hostage-taking in Linz criminal history. A money transport planned for that day with a total of ATS 27 million was already a few minutes late at the time of the attack and had now been redirected by the police. Walser negotiated with Interior Minister Erwin Lanc and released all female hostages. After 13 hours, Walser went outside with two hostages, whom he had linked together with detonatorless explosives packages and cables, and tried to reach an escape vehicle, but was shot by a police officer and arrested. He was carrying ATS 3.5 million from the bank in a backpack. For the first time in Austria, a hostage-taker was stopped by using weapons.
The policeman's projectile had penetrated Walser's right shoulder blade and injured a cervical vertebra, resulting in partial paraplegia . He died of suicide before his trial .
According to the executive, Walser was considered to be above average intelligent and had registered several patents , especially in the field of blasting technology.
Individual evidence
- ↑ The crimes of the hostage gangster in Linz: murders, bank robberies, break-ins and kidnapping (1)
- ↑ The crimes of the hostage gangster in Linz: murders, bank robberies, break-ins and kidnapping (2)
- ↑ Money theft - policeman dead
- ↑ Serial offenders shot and killed a police officer in Linz in 1976
- ↑ Bank robbers held 22 hostages in check with hand grenades
- ↑ Executive branch after hostage affair
- ↑ Hostage takers from Linz: Suicide with a razor blade
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Walser, Walter |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Walser, Walter Leopold |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Austrian murderer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1927 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Feldkirch , Vorarlberg |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 23, 1978 |
| Place of death | Linz , Upper Austria |