Wilhelm Brinkhoff

Wilhelm Brinkhoff (born March 13, 1839 in Alps , † after 1860 probably in North America ) was a robber on the Bönninghardt on the left Lower Rhine .

Life

Born as the son of the day laborer Jacob Brinkhoff and his wife Anna Catharina geb. Lembken, Wilhelm Brinkhoff, baptized Catholic, began an apprenticeship as a carpenter after attending elementary school in the Alps , but soon came into conflict with the law. From 1855 until his mysterious disappearance in autumn 1860, a constant alternation of criminal offenses , arrests , convictions and escapes characterizes the life of the young and solitary robber, who is also known as " Schinderhannes des Niederrheins" or " Rinaldo Rinaldini des Niederrheins".

Start of the criminal career 1855/57

Wilhelm Brinkhoff began his criminal career on the Bönninghardter Heide, which is characterized by inhospitable conditions and the poverty of the residents, in the course of 1855. The 16-year-old initially received "lighter penalties" for double illegal logging "in connection with resistance". Brinkhoff soon developed activities outside of the Bönninghardt. He was arrested on June 1, 1856 in Camp and taken to the prison in Kleve , because he had emptied the sacrificial boxes of the Catholic parish church in Camp. In the same year he was sentenced to 18 months in prison in Kleve for new property offenses. A four-year prison sentence followed on March 13, 1857 , combined with a subsequent five-year supervision of conduct . The district court in Essen imposed another two-year prison sentence with a two-year management supervision for serious theft on July 17, 1857 , but the incarcerated Brinkhoff managed to escape from the prison in Werden in November of the same year .

Escape to North America and return in 1858/59

The fugitive Brinkhoff fled to North America via Rotterdam on January 2, 1858 , where a married sister lived in adequate circumstances. On February 28th he arrived in New York and is said to have made money in California by trading in fur . On September 1, 1859, however, he returned with his wife Caroline nee. Seriously, one of Siglingen in the Kingdom of Württemberg originating maid , which he in a hotel in Philadelphia after Germany had met and married a few days later, back. The Brinkhoff couple traveled via Hamburg , Harburg and Oberhausen first to the Lower Rhine to Alpen, then to Amsterdam and from there to Siglingen, but finally had to return to Alpen due to lack of money, which was contrary to the well-tended, lavish lifestyle.

Arrest and escape 1859/60

Brinkhoff's renewed presence in the Alps was not hidden from the authorities. On the night of December 1st to 2nd, 1859, the house of the fugitive's father was searched in the presence of Moers District Administrator Adolf Ernst von Ernsthausen and the Mayor of Alpen . Wilhelm Brinkhoff, who was present in the “fairly extensive old house complex”, injured police officer Hussmann with a shot from his revolver , but was able to evade state authority. In the course of his new arrest on December 11, 1859, in which all "mayors, gendarmes and police officers stationed in the vicinity of the Bönninghardt in community with the military" and the district administrator participated, he shot dead "ten o'clock in the morning" in the Baerlag in the area of ​​the today's city of Kamp-Lintfort "in an excited state" the 39-year-old police officer Gerhard Murmann, who had disguised himself as a camouflage. Ingenhilm, the “day laborer who was sent to help”, suffered a gunshot wound. The murder weapon , a hunting rifle , had now himself "prevented by a shot in the leg on another Escape", Brinkhoff, on December 5 at the ranger Jacob Esselborn stolen .

On December 23, Brinkhoff managed to escape from the detention center in Kleve. From January 16, 1860, he was wanted in a wanted list. The government in Dusseldorf sat on 25 January a reward of 100 thalers for those who the "arresting escaped prison convict William Brinkhoff or indicating its whereabouts so that he will be arrested." The personal description accompanying the official “Premium Promise” stated, among other things: “Height 5 feet 4 inches; Hair light brown; Forehead high; Eyebrows brown; Nose thick; Mouth small; Teeth complete; Beard brown; Complexion healthy; Stature narrow; special characteristics shotgun scars on the left leg, the middle finger on the right hand is stiff or paralyzed ”. Brinkhoff was dressed in his outburst as follows: "grautuchene cap, blaucarrirtes neckerchief, grautuchene jacket, vest and pants, gray woolen socks, blaucarrirtes handkerchief and barefooted."

The general public sensation that the manhunt for Wilhelm Brinkhoff aroused at this time also led to the fact that u. a. in Hoerstgen and Sevelen people appeared under his name and extorted "money, meat and other victims" from the population .

Arrest, conviction, and escape to North America, 1860

The reward offered by the government "worked immediately". On February 13, 1860, a dispatch from the Moers district administrator was received in Alpen , "which precisely stated the Brinkhoff's whereabouts". Brinkhoff, "feared for 10-20 hours in the vicinity", was arrested again in his lair on the Bönninghardt near Veen , transferred from Wesel to Kleve on February 18th and on March 29th by the local Assisenhof after two days of spectacular negotiations on 10 years of prison sentenced. The judgment , which also punished the robbery of December 5, 1859, and a burglary committed in Büderich at the beginning of January 1860 , was in some cases described as too mild. However , after three hours of deliberation, the jury had come to the conclusion that the defendant had not proceeded “with deliberation” in both the killing of police officer Murmann and the attempted killing of police officer Hussmann and day laborer Ingenhilm in December 1859. Brinkhoff is said to have received the judgment "with great calm".

On the night of October 6th to 7th, 1860, Brinkhoff managed to escape “from his Isolir cell” in the prison in Werden in a “rather puzzling way”, which according to contemporary judgment suggests helpers. On October 10th, another reward of 100 thalers was offered for catching the escaped convict, with the personal description given the addition that his left hand was "injured by a shot and is still stiff". Most recently the prisoner wore the following clothes: “Linen. Shirt (stamp 1860), black, short old cloth trousers, black, old cloth vest, black cloth cap, black heather stockings, leather shoes ”. Authorities believed it possible that he might have adopted his wife's maiden name. Brinkhoff fled via England , who was able to evade serving his prison sentences due to the renewed outbreak, and continued to North America. There his traces are lost.

Literary aftermath

Even during his lifetime, the loner Wilhelm Brinkhoff was considered a "hero of the common people and the horror of the authorities", who enjoyed clear sympathy among the population, as the extensive regional and national press coverage of 1859/60 shows. In October 1860, the satirical magazine Kladderadatsch wrote the following verse signed with “Brinkhoff” in the “Album of the Prison to Become”: “Do not tremble before the slave when he breaks the chain, before the free man!” 1867 appeared in the bourgeois general- interest magazine Die Gartenlaube under the heading Vogelfrei, a longer article based on the investigation files about the "son of good parents" who, "without being naturally evil or raw, became a murderer from an unmeasured drive of freedom". The democratically minded poet lawyer Jodocus Temme also addressed the life and deeds of Wilhelm Brinkhoff.

In contrast , the royal police commissioner W. Schild from Düsseldorf, who was significantly involved in Brinkhoff's arrest in 1860 , drew a distanced or official picture of the juvenile offender, which he published as a brochure in 1869 under the title The Experiences of a Police Officer . Adolf Ernst von Ernsthausen took into account the persecution of Brinkhoff in his memories of his time in the service of Prussia, which appeared in 1894, and complained about the "nonsensical legends".

In 1925, the Duisburg journalist Hermann Jung began researching his successful story Die Vogelfrei der Bönninghardt , the first edition of which appeared in 1929 and which Brinkhoff erected a transfigured literary monument that, repeatedly adapted to the prevailing zeitgeist , continues to this day. In 1992 the WDR radio broadcast a report researched and presented by Anne Gesthuysen about the popular robber von der Bönninghardt. Wilhelm Brinkhoff's eventful biography was last discussed in the regional literature in 1998/99 and 2011.

literature

• Eberhardt's Allgemeine Polizei-Anzeiger , ed. by Robert Pikart. Liepsch & Reichardt, Dresden, Vol. 50, No. 6 from January 20, 1860 ( books.google.de ), Vol. 51, No. 31 from October 17, 1860 ( books.google.de ), accessed on 16. August 2012
• Kladderadatsch. Humorous-satirical weekly paper. Verlag von A. Hoffmann, Berlin, No. 47 of October 14, 1860, p. 187 ( digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de ), accessed on August 25, 2012
• Bird free. Narrated according to the investigation files. In: The Gazebo. Illustrated family sheet. No. 4/1867, Verlag von Ernst Keil, Leipzig 1867, pp. 54–56 ( de.wikisource.org ), accessed on August 16, 2012
• W. Schild: Experiences of a police officer. 2nd issue, Gestewitz / Loewenstein & Co., Düsseldorf / Elberfeld 1869; Reprint: Karl Bröcheler (Ed.): Wilhelm Brinkhoff and his henchmen. The experiences of the police officer W. Schild in 1860 ; Self-published, Alpen 2004
• Adolf Ernst von Ernsthausen: Memories of a Prussian official. Verlag von Velhagen & Klasing, Bielefeld / Leipzig 1894, pp. 162 ff. ( Archive.org ), accessed on September 2, 2012
• Jodocus Temme: The robber Wilhelm Brinkhoff. E. Bartels, Neuweißensee 1906
• Hermann Jung: The outlaws of the Bönninghardt. Carl-Lange-Verlag, Duisburg 1929; 7th edition, Mercator-Verlag, Duisburg 1999; ISBN 3-87463-283-0
• Wilhelm Suckow: Wilhelm Brinkhoff was his guest. Wilhelm Holsard, the oldest of the Bönninghardt, died on October 11, 1950. In: Heimatkalender Kreis Moers 1951, p. 103 f.
• Hans Opgenorth: Brinkhoff, the robber from the Lower Rhine. In: Heimatkalender Kreis Moers 1953, p. 129 ff.
• Heribert Teggers: Wilhelm Brinkhoff. The Rinaldini from the Lower Rhine. In: Heimatkalender Kreis Moers 1957, p. 120 ff.
• Hermann Jung: The age of the "bird-free" on the Bönninghardt. In: Hans-Georg Schmitz (Ed.): Alps. Festival book for the 900th anniversary celebration. Büderich 1974; P. 54 ff.
• Hartmut Friesen: gangs of robbers. Thieves, crooks and buck riders. Mercator-Verlag, Duisburg 1992
• Karl Bröcheler: Wilhelm Brinkhoff and no end. In: Yearbook District Wesel 1998; ISBN 3-87463-259-8 ; P. 67 ff.
• Karl Bröcheler: Wilhelm Brinkhoff and no end (part II). In: Yearbook District Wesel 1999; ISBN 3-87463-273-3 ; P. 174 ff.
• Karl Bröcheler: A bestseller from Bönninghardt. Hermann Jung and his "Vogelfrei der Bönninghardt". In: Yearbook District Wesel 2011; ISBN 3-87463-477-9 ; P. 55 ff.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Registry office in the Alps: birth certificate 16/1839. March 15, 1839, which is occasionally given as Brinkhoff's birthday, is incorrect according to the clear text of the civil birth certificate. In later sources the father's profession is also given as a chessmaster .
2. ↑ According to another representation, Wilhelm Brinkhoff is said to have learned the profession of roofer . The official profiles from 1860, however, describe him exclusively as a carpenter or carpenter.
3. ↑ Stadtarchiv Kamp-Lintfort, inventory 1, No. 711: Chronicle of the school in Camp, vol. 1, p. 41.
4. ↑ registry office Kamp (now: Kamp-Lintfort): death certificate 18/1859.
5. ^ Official Journal of the Government of Düsseldorf 1860, p. 45.
6. ↑ ^{a b} Kamp-Lintfort City Archives, Inventory 1, No. 711: Chronicle of the School in Camp, Vol. 1, p. 46.
7. ↑ Free of birds. Narrated according to the investigation files. In: The Gazebo. Illustrirtes Familienblatt, Leipzig 1867, p. 56.
8. ^ Official Journal of the Government of Düsseldorf 1860, p. 583.