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n A mystery man of a different sort lies at the heartnof the story of Kaspar Hauser, a strange boy of about sixteen years of age whonappeared in Nuremberg, Germany on the afternoon of May 26th 1828. Henwas stoutly built, if a little short, dressed like a peasant and dusty, as ifnhe had travelled a good distance, well fed and seemingly healthy, but seeminglynconfused. He approached two men standing in the Unschlittsplatz with a letternaddressed to the Captain of the 4th Squadron of the SchmolischernRegiment, Neue Thor Strasse (New Bridge Street), and one of the men, anshoemaker called Weichmann, offered to show him the way.
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| Kaspar Hauser |
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nThe Captain was not atnhome, so his servant let the boy in to wait, but when he was offered meat andnbeer he refused to eat them and only took black bread and water. When thenCaptain returned, he opened the letter and read that an unnamed peasant hadntaken the boy in on October 7th 1812, and although he had taught himnto read and write, he had kept the boy so confined that he had no idea where henlived. The boy had said he wanted to be a soldier, ‘like his father’,nand so he had been taken to Neumarkt, in the night so that he might not findnhis way back, and from there he had made his own way to Nuremberg. He had nonmoney with him and the writer asked the Captain to either take him in, or ‘knocknhim on the head, or hang him’.
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nA second letter, written in the same hand,nwas supposedly from the boy’s mother, who wrote that his name was Kaspar, bornnon April 30th 1812, and he was baptised, his father had served innthe 6th Regiment but was dead. His mother was a poor girl and couldnnot keep him. Herr von Wessenig, the Captain, was not impressed and sent thenboy to a cell in the Vestner Thurm, a prison tower where rogues and vagabondsnwere kept. Here the boy acted like a child, crying and sobbing, playing with antoy horse and a coin, and seemed to all that he was simple minded.
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| Kaspar Hauser |
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nHintel, thengaoler, took him under his wing, gave him toys and trinkets, let him play withnhis own children and invited him to the family table. Word of the strangenarrival began to spread and the mayor, Herr Binder, began to visit Kaspar andngained his confidence. Slowly, he began to tell his story. He had been kept, hensaid, in a single, small room, about 2 metres by 1 metre and about 1 ½ metresnhigh, where he slept on a straw mattress. When he awoke, he would find breadnand water in the cell, and periodically the water would taste bitter and henwould fall asleep after drinking it; when he woke up, the straw bed would havenbeen changed and he found his hair and fingernails had been cut. One day, anman, dressed in black, opened the door, took him out and taught him to speak,nhis alphabet, how to read and write and how to walk. He never saw the man’snface. One night, this man had carried him away on his back, to another place,nhad given him two letters and told him which way to go, and then gone awaynagain. Kaspar had followed the man’s instructions and had thus come to the townnwhere he was now.
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| A Feuerbach – Caspar Hauser – 1832 (Written whilst he was still alive) |
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nBinder the Burgomaster told the tale to Kaspar Hauser to thenrest of Germany, and his spread beyond, to the rest of Europe. Many peoplenquestioned this story, pointing out that the boy was hale and hearty, andnalthough childish, he was seemingly well adjusted for one who had spent sixteennyears in solitary confinement. Nevertheless, distinguished visitors began tonarrive, presents and gifts were showered on the ‘Child of Europe’, and he movednfrom his cell to the home of Professor Daumer. He took no delight in anythingnbut horses, which he rode quite well if a little clumsily, and became vain andnpampered, with a bad temper and ungrateful manner.
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nRumours began to circulatenthat he was the hereditary Prince of Baden, stolen away and replaced by a dyingnbaby, and the only male heir of Grand Duke Charles and Stephanie denBeauharnais, adopted daughter and cousin by marriage to Napoleon Bonaparte. Thenromance of the hidden aristocrat, raised in secret by peasants, appealed tonmany people, and his fame spread even wider. Lord Stanhope, the eccentric Englishnnobleman, travelled to Nuremberg and became acquainted with Hauser, becomingnhis patron and eventually his foster father, endowing him with an allowance andnspending not inconsiderable sums in attempting to discover his history.
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| Duchess of Cleveland (Stanhope’s daughter) – The True Story of Kaspar Hauser – 1893 |
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nOnnOctober 17th 1829, Hauser was found in Daumer’s cellar, covered innblood and with a cut to his forehead. The ‘Black Man’ who had looked after himnhad come, he said, had tried to stab him and had said, “You shall die beforenyou go away from Nuremberg.” No one else had seen this man come or go, butnafterwards two policemen accompanied Hauser on all his walks and he wasntransferred into the care of Johann Biberbach, who quickly began to regret thisnmove. Hauser had developed into an inveterate liar, his untruthfulness increasingnby the day, and his repeated pretended penitence merely added to the situation.nAt times, Hauser became violent when confronted with his lies and he frequentlynshouted defiance at Frau Biberbach.
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nOn one occasion, Herr Biberbach told Hausernthat as a punishment for his lies, he would not be allowed to go and dine withnthe mayor and was to go instead to his room and remain there. Within minutes,nthe policemen assigned to guard Hauser heard a gunshot and rushed into thendrawing room, where they found the unconscious Hauser lying on the floor with anwound to his temple. It was thought that he had attempted suicide, but when henrecovered consciousness Hauser said that he had been climbing on a chair tonreach a book on a high shelf when he slipped and grabbed a pistol that had beennhanging on the wall. It had accidentally discharged and the ball had glancednoff his head. By now it was clear to all that Hauser was lying again, and wasnharming himself whenever he got into trouble, either to deflect blame or to gainnattention.
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| Kaspar Hauser |
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nLord Stanhope made arrangement for Hauser to transfer to Ansbach,ninto the care of a schoolmaster called Meyer, who also became infuriated atnHauser’s lies, deceptions and duplicity. Word reached Stanhope, who began tonrealise that he had been deceived and his plans to move Hauser to England werenquietly shelved. In 1832, it was decided that Hauser would become a copyist inna legal office, which came as something of a surprise to him, as he stillnexpected to be taken to England and live the life of a gentleman. He wrote tonStanhope, decrying his situation, and things went from bad to worse as thenrelationship unravelled between Meyer and Hauser. On December 9thn1833, Meyer confronted Hauser and threatened to expose the extent of hisningratitude to Stanhope,
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n“He already, as you well know, mistrusts you.nConsider the predicament you place me in! Even here in the town you arendiscredited. People have found you out, and there are few indeed that still seenin you the former upright, amiable, good-natured Kaspar Hauser. How must it allnend if you go on like this?”n
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nKaspar listened, withdrew into himself, and refusednMeyer’s hand when it was offered. On December 14th, he staggeredninto Meyer’s home, panting and gesturing, and dragged Meyer out into the street.nHe pulled him to the public gardens and gasped,
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n“Went – Hofgarten – man – had knife – gave bag -nstabbed – ran as hard as could – bag still lying there.”n
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nMeyer got the wounded Hauser back to his house andngot him to bed, calling doctors and the police, and a policeman was sent to thenHofgarten, where he found a silk bag. Inside, written in pencil and in mirrornwriting, was a note that read,
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n“To be delivered.n
nHauser will be able to tell you exactly how I look,nand whence I come.n
nTo save Hauser the trouble I will myself tell younwhere I come from.n
nI come from from . . .n
nThe Bavarian frontier . . .n
nOn the river . . .n
nI will even give my name as well.n
nM. L. OE.”n
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| The Mirror-written Note |
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nThere was a small, slanting cut to Hauser’s leftnbreast, which the doctor’s thought to be trifling, but he did not givenstatements to the police until the mornings of the 16th and 17th,nwhen he told how a workman had come to his office and had told him to go to thenfountain in the garden at three-thirty. When he had arrived, a tall, dark mannhad stepped forward and hand him a bag, saying, “I give you this,”nbefore stabbing him in the chest. Hauser said he had passed out, and thennstruggled back to Meyer’s house. Later in the evening of the 17th,nthe Police Commissioners were recalled as Hauser had taken a turn for thenworse, and at ten o’clock he died.
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nA post mortem revealed that the doctors hadnbeen wrong to dismiss the wound as trivial, it had, in fact, pierced both thenlung and the heart. A policeman had been sent back to the Hofgarten after thenbag had been found, but there were no footprints in the snow near the fountain,nand only one set elsewhere in the gardens. The knife was not found (althoughnmany years later, a stiletto was dug up in the garden), and in the closely-knitncommunity of Ansbach there were no witnesses to any tall, dark strangers. Itnwas generally thought at the time, as it is now, that Hauser had tried anothernof his attention-seeking, self-inflicted ‘injuries’ but had gone too far andnfatally wounded himself.
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| The Tombstone of Kaspar Hauser |
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nThe legend of Kaspar Hauser has grown and becomenembellished in the intervening years and he has been used, amongst othernthings, as a symbol for the rustic innocent thrust into an urban environment,nwho fails to assimilate into it. Some of the more outlandish theories have thenboy appearing from a parallel world, materialising from another terrestrialnlocation, or being the manifestation of some sort of anthropomorphised naturenspirit. Other more rational suppositions place him as the illegitimate child ofna cavalryman, raised on an isolated, rural farm, maybe by grandparents keen toncover the mother’s ‘shameful’ secret, who firstly responds to attention fromnstrangers by pretending to be more ‘innocent’ than he really is, and thennbecoming overwhelmed by more sophisticated interest and becoming spoiled by it.nWe are more familiar today with the self-harming behaviour of teenagers, eithernas attention-seeking or through psychological problems. The romantic tale ofnthe foundling Baden princeling was shown to be misplaced by DNA testing in then1990s, and later comparisons made in 2006 failed to provide conclusive proof inneither direction. As with all good mysteries, it looks like we will never knownthe truth.
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