Wenceslaus Babinsky

Contemporary photography by Václav Babinský after his release from prison in 1861

Wenzel Babinsky (also Josef Schmid, Anton Müller , Czech Václav Babinský ) (born August 20, 1796 in Pokratitz near Leitmeritz as Wenzl Babinsky ; † August 1, 1879 in Řepy near Prague ) was a Bohemian robber . His life and deeds have been described in many popular Czech and German-Bohemian novels and songs of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Life

His parents were the day laborer Wenzl Babisky and Katharina nee Hermann. It is unclear whether he had a school education. In 1816 he entered the military, but was admitted to the military psychiatric hospital in Prague because of a (feigned) mental illness and threats to other soldiers. After his release in 1824, he traveled through northern Bohemia as a tramp and thief . He was arrested in 1825 and 1829, but charges of theft were dropped.

In 1830 he organized a small gang of highwaymen , whose members included his lover Apolena Hoffmann.

On January 19, 1832 there was another arrest due to a breakdown. During an inspection in the village Hühnerwasser the local fell village mayor of fake passport of the robber chief on, also fell his beloved two loaded pistols from the rock. Apolena Hoffmann managed to escape while Babinský was imprisoned. Four months later he escaped from prison in Prague. After escaping, he settled in the Oberkamnitz area. Here he committed his greatest proven crime when he murdered the weaving factor Johann Gottfried Blumberg from Hirschfelde in a robbery in the forest near Hasel on July 4, 1833 . Before the manhunt was initiated, he fled to Łódź in Congress Poland .

In 1835 Babinský carelessly visited his hometown Leitmeritz under the pseudonym Anton Müller. He was captured and, along with his lover and four other gang members, charged with twelve crimes, including three robbery murders, before the criminal court in Prague. Since he mostly remained in the background as the organizer of the raids and was therefore not always identified by the witnesses and also always denied his actions, only six could be proven of him. On 1 December 1840, he was 20 years harsh imprisonment convicted. Apolena Hoffmann was also imprisoned for 12 years, but died of hemorrhage 15 days after the verdict was pronounced . She was 41 years old.

Babinský was admitted on June 10, 1841 as prisoner number 1042 to the fortress Spielberg near Brno , whose casemates were intended for the most dangerous criminals of the Habsburg monarchy . He was known as a quiet prisoner who always carried a rosary and prayed. This won him the trust of the chaplain and later the prison administration. He was allowed to look after the sick and thus received numerous benefits. In 1855 the prison in Spielberg was closed and the prisoner moved to Kartouze near Jičín . Here he won the trust of the Merciful Sisters of the Borromean Order , who dedicated themselves to the care of the prisoners. After his release in 1861, they employed the 65-year-old as a gardener in the women's prison in Řepy, where he stayed until his death in 1879.

Proven crimes

Babinský's grave in Řepy near Prague

• On March 24, 1830, Babinský and four cronies raided the house of the miller Anton Heine. The robbers tied up him and his housekeeper and stole 500 Prussian thalers . Heine then died of a heart attack.
• On the night of May 1, 1830, he and a gang of seven entered the house of Jan Paul in Lysá nad Labem . Paul's wife was knocked down, Paul himself should be tied to the bed. However, due to a draft, the robbers went out of light, Paul was able to flee and get help in the village, but it came too late. The low yield from the raid consisted of clothing worth 15 gold pieces.
• On the night of January 15, 1831, the gang broke into the house of the ferryman Jan Krejza in Brozany to steal his savings to buy an inn. They stole 2,500 gold pieces and ticket coupons worth 380 gold pieces.
• When he was imprisoned in Hühnerwasser on January 19, 1832, Babinský used a forged passport in the name of Josef Schmid, issued by a corrupt clerk from the city of Vrchnov. He was also convicted of resisting state power, as he bit the village shoulders on the thumb when he was arrested and injured two assistants.
• On the night of July 4, 1833, Babinský fatally injured Johann Gottfried Blumberg in the forest near Oberkamnitz with eight knife wounds and stole 200 thalers and a few yards of cloth and coffee from him.

reception

Although his deeds were comparatively less sensational, the robber captain became a celebrity in Czech late romanticism and, contrary to the results of the court investigations, was stylized as a protector of the poor against the authorities, who never committed a murder. The "posthumous fame" began during his lifetime: as early as 1860–61, the Prague carnival singer František Hais wrote a popular bench song entitled "Babinský žije" (Babinsky lives), and in 1862, one year after his release from prison, the booklet was published “Babinský, vůdce loupežníků v českých zemích” (Babinsky, leader of the robbers in the Czech lands). In the period that followed, numerous other songs, romantic stories and sensational novels were written. In 1915 Gustav Meyrink used the character (as Babinski) in his novel The Golem . In 1926, Babinský became the main character in a silent film of the same name by V. Chinkulov (Vladimir Chinkulov) Vladimírov. 1927 Babinský is one of the main characters in the opera Schwanda, the bagpiper (Švanda dudák), by Jaromír Weinberger ; Text by Miloš Kareš. In 1931 Egon Erwin Kisch took Babinský into his criminal collection Käsebier and Fridericus Rex, From the Prague Pitaval .

On the rocky cliff called Pustý zámek between Česká Kamenice and Líska , a memorial commemorates the murder of the Blumberg weaving factor in 1833. The memorial stone, overturned after 1946, was restored in 1998.

literature

• Babinský, vůdce loupežníků v českých zemích , booklets, 110 pages, Hradec Králové 1862
• Dagmar Stětinová: Babinský - strašlivý lesů pán. Legenda a skutečnost . Fontána 2005, ISBN 80-7336-224-4
• Jaromír Jermář: Pověsti a vyprávění o Václavu Babinskému na Mladoboleslavsku . In: Středočeský vlastivědný sborník, Středočeské muzeum v Roztokách u Prahy, 1996
• Adam Votruba: Václav Babinský - život loupežníka a loupežnická legenda . Libri 2009

Web links

Commons : Václav Babinský  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Literature and other media by and about Wenzel Babinsky in the catalog of the National Library of the Czech Republic
• Biography (czech)
• Blumberg Monument at Pustý zámek (please scroll down)
• Monuments along the way
• Silent film from 1926

credentials

1. ↑ Church records Leitmeritz, signature 98/20, baptisms 1795-1800, p. 153
2. ↑ Vladimir Chinkulov Vladimírov in the Czech-Slovak film database ČSFD.cz ( Czech )