200 Year Old Mystery: Kaspar Hauser
Kaspar was a German youth who claimed to have grown up in the total isolation of a darkened cell. Let's dive in to this old mystery...
On May 26th, 1828 a teenage boy appeared in the streets of Nuremberg, Germany. He carried a letter with him addressed to the captain of the 4th squadron of the 6th cavalry regiment, Captain von Wessenig.
The letter read: "From the Bavarian border. The place is unnamed. 1828."
The anonymous author said that the boy was given into his custody as an infant on October 7th, 1812 and that he instructed him in reading, writing and the Christian religion, but never let him "take a single step out of my house." The letter stated that the boy would now like to be a cavalryman "as his father was" and invited the captain either to take him in or to hang him.
There was another short letter enclosed purporting to be from his mother to his prior caretaker. It stated that his name was Kaspar, that he was born on April 30th, 1812 and that his father, a cavalryman of the 6th regiment, was dead.
He spent the following two months in Luginsland Tower in Nuremberg Castle. Despite what many later accounts would say he was in good physical condition and could walk well.
He was of a "healthy facial complexion" and approximately 16 years old but appeared to be intellectually impaired. Mayor Binder claimed that the boy had an excellent memory and was learning quickly. Various curious people visited him to his apparent delight. He refused all food except bread and water.
New Life
On October 17th, 1829 Hauser was found in the cellar of Daumer's house bleeding from a newly cut wound on the forehead. He asserted that while sitting he had been attacked and hurt by a hooded man who also threatened him with the words: "You still have to die before you leave the city of Nuremberg."
Hauser related he recognised the speaker as the man who had brought him to Nuremberg. As was obvious from his blood trail, Hauser at first fled to the first floor where his room was, but then, rather than moving on to find his caretakers, had gone downstairs and climbed through a trap door into the cellar.
Alarmed officials called for a police escort and transferred him to the care of Johann Biberbach, a municipal authority. The alleged attack on Hauser also fueled rumours about his possible ancestry from Hungary, England or the House of Baden.
Doubters of Hauser's story believe that he had self-inflicted the wound with a razor, which he then took back to his room before going to the cellar. He might have done so to get pity and escape punishment for a recent fight with Daumer, who had come to believe that the boy had a tendency to lie.
On April 3rd,1830 a pistol shot went off in Hauser's room at the Biberbachs' house. His escort entered the room and found him bleeding from a wound to the right side of his head. Hauser soon revived and stated that he climbed on a chair to get some books, the chair had fallen, and then, while trying to find a handhold, he had by mistake torn down the pistol hanging on the wall and caused the shot to go off.
There are doubts whether the superficial wound was actually caused by the shot. Some authors associate the incident with a prior fight in which Hauser had been reproached for lying.
Whatever the case the occurrence led the authorities to come to another decision on Hauser, whose initially good relationship with the Biberbach family had soured. In May 1830 he was transferred to the house of Baron von Tucher. The baron also would later complain about Hauser's lies. Mrs. Biberbach commented on his "horrendous mendacity" and "art of dissimulation" and called him "full of vanity and spite".
I sense a pattern.
On December 9th, 1833 Hauser had a serious argument with Meyer. Lord Stanhope was expected to visit Ansbach at Christmas and Meyer stated that he did not know how he would face him.
Five days later on December 14th, 1833 Hauser came home with a deep wound in his left breast. By his story he had been lured to the Ansbach Court Garden, where a stranger stabbed him while giving him a bag.
Hauser died of the wound on 17 December 1833.
Inconsistencies in Hauser's account led the Ansbach court of enquiry to suspect that he had stabbed himself and then invented a tale about being attacked. The note in the purse that was found in the Court Garden contained a spelling error and a grammatical error, both of which were typical for Hauser, who, on his deathbed, muttered incoherently about "writing with pencil".
Although Hauser was eager that the purse be found he did not ask for its contents. The note itself was folded into a specific triangular form in the way in which Hauser would fold his letters. Forensic examiners agreed that the wound might indeed be self-inflicted. Many authors believe that he had wounded himself in a bid to revive public interest in his story and to persuade Stanhope to fulfill his promise to take him to England but that he had injured himself more deeply than planned.
What do medical experts say?
Dr. Friedrich Wilhelm Heidenreich, a physician present at the autopsy, claimed that the brain of Kaspar Hauser was notable for small cortical size and its few non-distinct cortical gyri, indicative to some that he suffered from cortical atrophy or, as G. Hesse argued, from epilepsy.
Heidenreich may have been influenced by his phrenological ideas when examining Hauser's brain. Dr. Albert, who conducted the autopsy and wrote the official report, found no anomalies in Hauser's brain.
A 1928 medical study supported the view that Hauser had self-inflicted the wound and accidentally stabbed himself too deeply. A 2005 forensic analysis argued that it seems "unlikely that the stab to the chest was inflicted exclusively for the purpose of self-damage, but both a suicidal stab and a homicidal act cannot be definitely ruled out."
Hauser's various accounts of the story of his incarceration include several contradictions. In 1970, psychiatrist Karl Leonhard stated that "If he had been living since childhood under the conditions he describes, he would not have developed beyond the condition of an idiot.
Indeed he would not have remained alive long. His tale is so full of absurdities that it is astonishing that it was ever believed and is even today still believed by many people."
Karl Leonhard rejected the views of both Heidenreich and Hesse. He contended that "Kaspar Hauser was, as other authors already opined, a pathological swindler. In addition to his hysterical make-up he probably had the persistence of a paranoid personality since he was able to play his role so imperturbably. From many reports on his behavior one can recognize the hysterical as well as the paranoid trend of his personality."
Rumors
According to rumors Kaspar Hauser was the hereditary prince of Baden, who was born on September 29th, 1812. According to history the prince died on October 16th, 1812. It was alleged that he had been switched with a dying infant, only to surface 16 years later as Hauser.
In that case Hauser's parents would have been Charles, Grand Duke of Baden and Stéphanie de Beauharnais, cousin by marriage and adopted daughter of Napoleon. As Charles had no surviving male his successor was his uncle Louis.
The Countess was supposed to have disguised herself as a ghost, the "White Lady", when kidnapping the prince. Her motive, evidently, would have been to secure the succession for her sons.
Following Hauser's death it was further claimed that he was murdered to hide his supposed true identity.
In 2024 a new study claims corroboration of previous analysis ruling out royal descent by demonstrating that the mitochondrial DNA haplotypes in all samples attributed to Kaspar Hauser including the previous disputed blood sample were identical and different from the mitochondrial lineage of the House of Baden.
This mystery seems pretty clear to me.
I don’t think Hauser was a prince or royal blood.
I don’t think he was kept in a dark dungeon for most of his life.
It seems he was a pathological liar.
A rare occurrence when one of our cases can be solved!
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