Wanda Kuchwalek

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article or section needs to be revised. Details should be given on the talk page. Please help to improve it , and then remove this flag.

Wanda Kuchwalek's tomb

Wanda Gertrude Kuchwalek (born January 22, 1947 , † September 4, 2004 in Vienna ) was known in the 1970s by her nickname Wilde Wanda as “Vienna's only female pimp ”. She has remained the only well-known pimp in Vienna to this day, has made headlines again and again, is inextricably linked to the history of the Vienna underworld and is considered a cult figure in Vienna.

Life

Wanda Kuchwalek was born the daughter of a snake dancer in the circus. In 1953, at the age of six, she was traveling with traveling people . She was sent to a reformatory in Wiener Neustadt and, according to her own account, was raped by women there.

Wanda Kuchwalek has been earning her living in the red light district since the late 1960s . She later raised a circle of girls whom she let work for her. She also used some as lovers. Their territory became the 2nd district of Vienna, around the Vienna Prater . Kuchwalek was relatively tall at 1.75 meters, and contemporary witnesses describe her as “austere beauty”. As a pimp, she broke into a male domain and made competition for them. She took this into account with her Butch- like demeanor. In the 1960s / 1970s, she wore a black men's suit, white shirt with a stand-up collar, cowboy bunny , boots and a slouch hat. In the beginning it was a struggle for survival. But she gained respect among the male Strizzis , and she acted fearlessly against suitors who refused to pay. An extendable steel rod became their trademark. When drunk, she was known to be angry and irascible, and she also took pills at times. So she got her nickname "Wilde Wanda", which is well known in the city and according to press reports in Austria. In 1981, Profil magazine said: "The sadism that characterizes every relationship between pimps and prostitutes is even more blatant and unnatural here."

Two prostitutes close to her committed suicide . The second was a 22-year-old woman who rushed down from Kuchwalek's apartment on the third floor of Engerthstrasse 86 in October 1983. The official motive is lovesickness. This marked a turning point in Wanda's life and it became quieter around her. In 1991 her “man of life”, her grandmother, died.

While in prison, she wrote her memoirs for the St. Pauli-Nachrichten . The Hamburg scene was impressed by the Vienna underworld queen. During further stays she wrote on her life story. The recordings are now with the journalist Margit Hinke, who is working on a documentary film and book about her. She later found her bad reputation a burden, but the negative image stayed with her.

In the 1970s and 1980s, she made a good living on her girls' income. In the 1980s and 1990s, when the shops became less and less, she sat with her dog in the tribal coffee "Amigo" and drank.

Most recently she lived on a small social pension and died at the age of 57 on September 4, 2004. She left no children or family. The funeral took place on a small scale, but was not a poor funeral, but was paid for privately. It found its final resting place at the Stammersdorfer Zentralfriedhof in group 42, row 6 in grave 34.

Criminal proceedings

She was arrested for the first time when she was 14. After she had 8 or 10 previous convictions in 1967, she met her long-time criminal defense attorney Herbert Eichenseder, who, according to her statements, was “the only [permanent] man in her life”. In total, she came to about 25 fines. Although prostitution was often discussed in the negotiations , all proceedings were for offenses such as public violence, dangerous threats or grievous bodily harm . One charge was attempted murder, but was acquitted after a reconstruction of the course of events. Kuchwalek was imprisoned for two years for a cut in the face of one of her girls . In 1970 she stood before the judge for cutting one of her girls 'faces 14 times with a razor blade and received three years' imprisonment.

As Kuchwalek 1972 in Provincial Court in custody sat, they provided a legal scandal. She seduced two prison guards into making love with her. When this was revealed, they were sentenced to 5 years' imprisonment for abuse of office, Kuchwalek to 10 years for incitement.

In December 1981 she ordered three accomplices to demolish the women's café in Langegasse. The trigger was that she had been prevented from violent assault a few days beforehand by some women visiting the café.

After her grandmother died in 1991, she was sitting in a Floridsdorfer Beisl and there was an argument because she was drinking more and more. Wanda Kuchwalek stabbed a regular in the throat. He survived and she received the last major sentence.

In 1994, a drug dealer said that she and three other men had robbed him. She denied it. In court she told how he had offered her hashish , which she refused because she was satisfied with the drink. Kuchwalek was acquitted because of inconsistencies in the drug dealer's statements.

In March 1996 there was a little court appearance after she had an argument with her friend in January. There was only one black eye, apartment keys in the snow and the girlfriend had to spend the night in the car at minus 15 degrees.

Trivia

The Viennese pop band Wanda , founded in 2012, is named after Wanda Kuchwalek.

literature

  • Robert Geher : Wiener Blut or Die Ehre der Strizzis , Edition S, Verlag Österreich, 1993, ISBN 3-7046-0409-7
  • Walter Gerhard Piranty: Whores, Strizzis and Crooks - Three days in the Vienna underworld (novel with a real background), Milizverlag Salzburg, 2007, ISBN 978-3-9502378-9-4
  • Tatjana Weiß: Perpetrator woman - violent behavior of women in social and institutional consciousness , University of Applied Sciences Vienna, diploma thesis for social education / social work, 2006

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Andreas Brunner , Ines Rieder , Nadja Schefzig, Hannes Sulzenbacher , Niko Wahl: secretsache: Leben - Gays and Lesbians in Vienna in the 20th Century , Löcker Verlag, Vienna 2005, ISBN 3-85409-435-3 , p. 129
  2. ↑ a b c A kiss for the lawyer from the "wilden Wanda" , Kronen Zeitung, March 9, 1994, p. 18
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h TV series TAT-SACHEN , episode: Women as murderers: black widows and angel faces , first broadcast: September 15, 2006, ORF 2 ( description )
  4. ↑ Diary facsimile
  5. ↑ a b c d e f Marcus J. Oswald: Pimp "Wilde Wanda" dead (1947-2004) ( Memento from February 28, 2006 in the Internet Archive ), blue light and gray light
  6. ↑ H. Grammel: http://www.frauencafe.com:80/herstory/herstory.html ( Memento from March 13, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) 28 years Wiener Frauencafé - The Short-Herstory
  7. ↑ "Wilde Wanda" stabbed man down! , Kronen Zeitung, September 6, 1991, p. 10
  8. ↑ Der Standard, March 29, 1996, p. 8.
  9. ↑ Kurier: Wanda - The Puff-Mama-Band dusts off Austropop . Article dated October 29, 2014, accessed April 3, 2015.
personal data
SURNAME Kuchwalek, Wanda
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kuchwalek, Wanda Gertrude (full name); Wilde Wanda (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian pimp
DATE OF BIRTH January 22, 1947
DATE OF DEATH September 4, 2004
Place of death Vienna