Xanten ritual murder charge
The Xanten ritual murder charge of 1891/92, which many editors at the time also referred to as the Buschhoff trial , was one of the politically most important ritual murder accusations in the German Empire . Similar to the ritual murder accusations of Skurz 1884/85 (a male teenager was killed and dismembered by a knowledgeable hand) and Konitz 1900/04 instrumentalized anti-Semitic politicians also Xanten blood libel to the traditional of medieval blood libel solidify and excessive in their eyes To denounce the power of Judaism . Liberal politicians countered this nationalistic and anti-Semitic agitation and demagogy with enlightening writings in which they sought to banish the Xanten ritual murder accusation into the realm of superstition and a long time passed.
timeline
On the evening of June 29, 1891, the body of five-year-old Johann Hegmann was found in Xanten in the barn of the innkeeper Küppers. His throat had been cut with a knife.
The autopsy of the body by the district physician Bauer and the district doctor Nünnighoff revealed that there was little blood in the boy's internal organs. The question of whether the location was also the crime scene could not initially be clarified. The doctor Steiner, who had inspected the body at the place where it was found, suspected that the boy could not have been killed in the barn. The amount of blood he saw at the crime scene, in his opinion, resulted from secondary bleeding. Therefore, the majority of the Xanten population and the police soon assumed that the location of the body could not have been the scene of the crime. In addition, the residents believed that only a skilled butcher or butcher could have committed the murder. The cut on the boy's throat had been done professionally. Due to the possible difference between the place of discovery and the scene of the crime and the professionally carried out cut, many Xanten citizens suspected that it could be a ritual murder committed by Jews. The former Jewish butcher von Xanten, Adolf Buschhoff, came under suspicion.
Many witnesses reported to the police who seriously accused Adolf Buschhoff. Hermann Mölders stated that he had seen the murder victim dragged into the Buschhoff's house on the day of the murder. Another witness reported that the Jewish slaughter's wife had carried a sack into the barn that afternoon, suggesting that Johann Hegmann's body had got into the barn in this way. The population asked the public prosecutor to arrest Buschhoff. However, this refused on the grounds that there was no urgent suspicion. While it was becoming more and more difficult for the police to take evidence due to the numerous testimonies, there were riots in Xanten against the family of the Jewish butcher and the entire Jewish population. The riots culminated in the fact that the Buschhoffs' house was demolished on July 24, 1891. In order to put a stop to the riots, Buschhoff asked to be arrested. The authorities refused.
The Jewish community asked the Prussian state to send an experienced commissioner to the city on the Lower Rhine to investigate the case. Thereupon the Berlin detective commissioner Wolff was sent, who had to be financed by the Jewish community. His investigations revealed that Adolf Buschhoff was to be arrested on the basis of testimony from witnesses. The Jewish slaughterer was arrested on October 14, 1891. However, the responsible examining magistrate, District Judge Brixius, released Adolf Buschhoff two months later, on December 23, 1891, for lack of evidence. After examining the testimony of witnesses, he came to the conclusion that an indictment could not be upheld. In order not to aggravate the situation any further, Buschhoff did not return to Xanten after his release, but stayed with relatives in Cologne. At the beginning of the following year, district physician Dr. Bauer in a new report that a knife from Adolf Buschhoff's inventory was the murder weapon. After it soon became public that the defender of the Buschhoffs was the son-in-law of the judge Brixius, the conflict over the question of the guilt of Adolf Buschhoff escalated again in early February 1892. As a result, District Judge Brixius was replaced by his deputy Birk, who ordered the Buschhoff family to be arrested again.
From July 4 to July 14, 1892, the Klever District Court negotiated the murder charge. In particular, the question of whether there was ritual murder committed by Jews was discussed. Over 160 witnesses were heard. The process ended with Adolf Buschhoff's acquittal. He had been able to prove a complete alibi for the day of the murder. The first public prosecutor commented that “in my many years of criminal activity I have never seen a single case in which such clear, coherent evidence was provided that the accused could not have committed the crime.” Adolf Buschoff's existence was in Xanten nevertheless destroyed. He moved with his family to Neuss , where he died in 1912.
The actual murderer (s) of Johann Hegmann (1886–1891) could never be identified.
Mockery song
In connection with the crime, the following text was circulated in the streets as a song of hate and mockery : "Jews, these are sinners, butcher Christian children, cut off their necks, the damned Jewish pack."
Debates in the Prussian House of Representatives
After the re-imprisonment of Buschhoff by the Prussian Minister of Justice Hermann von Schelling on February 8, 1892, due to new evidence and increased public pressure, controversial debates also arose in the Prussian House of Representatives about the "Xanten ritual murder charge". Buschhoff had von Schelling arrested, although there was no sufficient suspicion.
In the “heated” climate, the anti-Semites used a debate about the judicial budget and the opening of the judicial career for Jews to address the “Xanten murder case” in the sessions of the House of Representatives on February 9, 1892 and March 19, 1892. Two camps faced each other in this dispute. On one side were the left-wing liberals, represented by Heinrich Rickert , as well as the government, represented by Justice Minister Hermann von Schelling, and the national liberals, for whom Paul von Krause spoke. On the other side were the conservative parties around Adolf Stoecker and the Freiherr von Wackerbarth as well as some members of the Center Party .
Only the numerically weak faction of the left-wing liberals vigorously condemned the anti-Semites' ritual murder propaganda and relegated the alleged ritual murder to the realm of superstition. The National Liberals and the government simply emphasized how correctly the Prussian judicial and investigative authorities would work. In contrast, the conservatives not only propagated the legend of the ritual murder, but also used the debate to discredit the Prussian judiciary. In their statements, they accused the investigative authorities of being influenced by Jewish interests. In the course of the investigation into the "Hegmann murder case", under whose name the investigation was running, the Ministry of Justice suspended a central principle of the rule of law at the time, the principle of bringing charges only in the event of sufficient suspicion. The “anti-Semites” made a decisive contribution to this with their political pressure.
The Xanten ritual murder accusation as a press and media event
The "Xanten ritual murder accusation" advanced to one of the central topics of conversation in the German Empire in 1891/92. The party newspaper “Das Volk”, whose editor was Adolf Stoecker , reported in detail on the development of the murder case. It stirred similar to the conservative " cross newspaper " anti-Semitic "New German newspaper" and the Catholic Center newspaper " Germania " the "ritual murder suspicion" against Adolf Busch Hoff, the negligent investigating in her eyes judicial authorities and the overpowering for them Judaism. In contrast to the liberal and socialist newspapers, which reported cautiously, the anti-Semitic newspapers fueled the fear of excessive power of Judaism in broad sections of the population.
The anti-Semitic agitation was not limited to demagogic reporting in newspapers. In addition, a large number of pamphlets appeared in which they spread their propaganda. Among them is the pamphlet “The Buschoff Case: The Investigation of the Xanten Boy Murder ” published by Heinrich Oberwinder in the Christian-social “Vaterländische Verlags-Anstalt” . From an initiate ” . This pamphlet appeared in January 1892, while the murder investigation was ongoing. The demand was made to charge the suspect Adolf Buschhoff with "ritual murder of Johann Hegmann". He should be handed over to a “people's court”, i.e. a pure jury. The fact is that Adolf Buschhoff was indicted before a Klever jury court in July 1892 . The investigating public prosecutor Baumgard and the examining magistrate Brixius filed a criminal complaint against the publisher Theodor Oberwinter for defamation. A decision was made in their favor. This shows how intensively the “ritual murder charge” was used for agitational purposes in the anti-Semitic press.
The enlightenment countermeasures received a comparatively low public response. The anti-Semitic propaganda writings, on the other hand, generated public pressure, which gave the "ritual murder legend" validity with its unrealistic ideas and pseudoscientific arguments.
literature
- Hugo Friedländer : The boy murder in Xanten before the jury in Cleve from July 4th to 14th, 1892 . Startz, Cleve 1892 digitized
- Trial Buschhof. The Xanten boy murder before the jury court in Cleve from July 4th to 14th, 1892; with situation plans and according to shorthand notes . Wrietzner, Hagen i. W. 1892 digitized
- The Xanten boy murder before the jury court in Cleve July 4-14, 1892. Complete shorthand report . Cronbach, Berlin 1893
- Johannes T. Groß: Accusations of ritual murder against Jews in the German Empire (1871-1914) . Metropol, Berlin 2002. ISBN 3-932482-84-0
- Julius H. Schoeps : ritual murder accusation and blood superstition. The Buschoff affair in Xanten, Lower Rhine . Published in: Jutta Bohnke-Kollwitz (Ed.): Cologne and the Rhenish Judaism. Festschrift Germania Judaica 1959–1984 . Bachem, Cologne 1984. ISBN 3-7616-0719-9 , pp. 286-299.
- Holger Schmenk: Xanten in the 19th century was a small town on the Rhine between tradition and modernity . Böhlau, Cologne 2007 (Zugl .: Duisburg, Essen, Univ., Diss., 2007) ISBN 978-3-412-20151-7 , pp. 310–367
- fiction
- Willi Fährmann : It happened in the neighboring house. (1968) Arena, Würzburg 1996, ISBN 3-401-02500-7 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Ralph Trost: A city completely destroyed as a note under 17 on p. 234 , accessed on May 6, 2013.