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On December 17, 1833, Kaspar Hauser, who claimed to have grown up in the total isolation of a darkened cell, was murdered at the age of 21. Here is a short retelling of his story.
Hauser, Kaspar
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KASPAR HAUSER|| The LOST BOY of Nuremberg
Kaspar Hauser's life is a true unsolved mystery, from his birth to his death, everything is both fascinating and terrifying . #unsolved #crime #missing _ S...
Thank you my friend SGT (Join to see) for making us aware that on December 17, 1833 Kaspar Hauser, who claimed to have grown up in the total isolation of a darkened cell, was murdered at the age of 21
KASPAR HAUSER
Memorial to Hauser that stands in Nuremberg, where he first appeared.
Kaspar Hauser's life is a true unsolved mystery, from his birth to his death, everything is both fascinating and terrifying
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D7Ydo16gXY
Images
1. 1828 depiction of Kaspar Hauser when he made his first mysterious appearance.
2. pencil drawing done by Kaspar Hauser himself.
3. Faksimile_des_Spiegelschriftzettels_(gespiegelt) Hauser will be able to tell you quite precisely how I look and from where I am. To save Hauser the effort,
4. Memorial to Hauser that stands in Nuremberg, where he first appeared.
Biographies:
1. allthatsinteresting.com/kaspar-hause
2. mentalfloss.com/article/63898/mysterious-life-and-death-kaspar-hauser
1. Background from {[https://allthatsinteresting.com/kaspar-hauser]}
The tale of Kaspar Hauser seems straight from a Dickens novel.
No one paid much attention to Kaspar Hauser when he strolled into Nuremberg one morning in 1828. The young boy of about 16 was wearing pantaloons, a silk necktie, a waistcoat, a gray jacket, and a handkerchief with the initials “KH” embroidered onto it. His boots were so torn up that his feet were bursting through them and mangled from the road.
When police finally approached the apparent vagabond, they found that he could only speak a few words and was clutching a letter addressed to a cavalry captain. The missive claimed that its author had no blood relation to Hauser even though the author had raised him as a son. It also noted that since 1812, Hauser had not gone “a step from the house, in order that nobody might know where he was brought up.”
The mysterious note went on to claim that the boy could read, write, and wanted to become “a horseman like his father.” Although he did not have parents, said the letter, if he did “he would have been a learned man.” It ended ominously with the author stating that “it would cost me my neck” had he escorted Hauser to Nuremberg himself.
Police took the boy into custody, where observers reported that although he behaved as if he were a child (indeed, he walked as though he were a toddler just learning how), he was clearly not “a madman or an idiot.” He did not speak unless it was to parrot words and phrases. He had a very small vocabulary that consisted mainly of words referring to horses. Oddly, although his feet had been damaged from his journey they were “as soft as the palm of a hand,” as though he had never work shoes before he had traveled to Nuremberg.
Hauser was repulsed by all food and drink except for bread and water. When he was brought a lighted candle he stared at in amazement and tried to grab it, only to burn his hand. He was equally fascinated by his own reflection in a mirror, which he also tried to grab in vain.
Hauser was eventually made a ward of the city and went into the custody of Lord Stanhope, a British nobleman. As the “forest boy” learned to communicate effectively, he began to weave a strange tale about being brought up in a prison. He claimed to have never seen the face of the man who brought him to the outskirts of Nuremberg, saying that he had been forced to look at the ground the whole journey before being handed the letter and left alone.
Hauser also described a detailed dream in which he found himself in an enormous castle in the company of an elaborately-dressed woman and a man all in black with a sword. Professor Daumer (who had been treating and observing Hauser) theorized this could have been a faint memory of his early life before the prison.
This strange tale that seems torn from a Dickens novel enthralled all of Europe; there were rumors he was a lost prince, perhaps the son of Grand Duke Carl von Baden and his wife Stephanie de Beauharnais (who had been adopted by Napoleon). Many people, however, though he was just an impostor seeking fame and fortune.
Another strange incident further fueled the rumors: in 1829 Hauser was found in Daumer’s basement bleeding profusely from a wound in his head. He claimed that he had recognized the voice of his attacker – the same man who had brought him to Nuremberg.
Kaspar Hauser’s mysterious life concluded in an equally enigmatic manner.
One night in 1833, he burst through the door of his home in Ansbach clutching his side and babbling about how he had lured to the park by a stranger who then stabbed him in the side. His story was doubted at first, but when Hauser attempted to lead his friends back to the spot of the stabbing, he collapsed midway on the journey. He died of his wound.
The mystery of his life did not end with his death. DNA tests in 1998 using a sample from his bloodstained shirt and blood samples from two of de Beauharnais’s living descendants have shown he was not, in fact, a prince of Baden. And so true identity of Kaspar Hauser remains a mystery.
2. Background from {[https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/63898/mysterious-life-and-death-kaspar-hauser]}
The Mysterious Life and Death of Kaspar Hauser; BY STACY CONRADT;
MAY 25, 2015
On May 26, 1828, the citizens of Nürnberg (Nuremburg), Germany, received quite a surprise when they found a teenage boy wandering around town, alone and mumbling nonsense. At first, he wouldn’t say much—only that his father was once a cavalry officer, and he wished to be as well.
During a visit to the local police station, the boy wrote his name—Kaspar Hauser—and, over time, was able to explain a little bit about where he came from. He had been held alone in a cell for an unknown amount of time by an unknown person. The captor provided Hauser with bread, water, a wool blanket, and toys: two wooden horses and a dog. Local schoolmaster Georg Daumer took Hauser in and worked with him on various subjects, such as reading, writing, and drawing—the latter of which Hauser showed a natural talent for.
The boy had been in town for a year and a half when his story managed to get even stranger: He was supposedly attacked in Daumer’s home. He claimed the man who had once held him captive returned and slashed him with a razor, saying, “You still have to die ere you leave the city of Nuremburg.” Several months later, Hauser was shot by a pistol that he accidentally discharged. Both incidents happened to come after he had been accused of lying, leading some to believe that he was harming himself on purpose to generate sympathy.
The final incident occurred on December 14, 1833, when Kaspar returned home with a serious chest wound. He said that a stranger had given him a bag, stabbed him in the chest, and fled. The bag contained a note written in mirror writing:
Translation:
Hauser will be
able to tell you quite precisely how
I look and from where I am.
To save Hauser the effort,
I want to tell you myself from where
I come. _ _.
I come from from _ _ _
the Bavarian border _ _
On the river _ _ _ _ _
I will even
tell you the name: M. L. Ö.)
Hauser died from the stab wound three days later. As with the earlier wounds, people believed the wound may have been self-inflicted, and that Hauser had punctured deeper than he had intended. He may have also written the strange note himself—it was folded in a peculiar triangular shape Hauser was known to use, and the writing itself contained spelling and grammatical errors he commonly made in his own writing.
To this day, Kaspar Hauser’s origins remain a total mystery, though one theory has been debunked: Some speculated that Hauser was the lost hereditary prince of Baden. The real prince, son of Charles, Grand Duke of Baden and Stephanie de Beauharnais, supposedly died in 1812 when he was not quite three weeks old. The theory was that the Countess of Hochberg had the boy hidden away so her own sons could ascend to the throne instead. In 1996, a Hauser blood sample was compared to samples from Baden family descendants. The samples did not match, disproving the “lost prince” theory.
The epitaph on Kaspar’s tombstone in Ansbach, Germany, pretty much sums up his strange, short life: “Here lies Kaspar Hauser, enigma of his time … mysterious his death.”
FYI SMSgt Lawrence McCarter PO1 William "Chip" Nagel PO2 (Join to see) LTC Greg Henning CSM Charles Hayden 1SG (Join to see) MSG Felipe De Leon Brown COL Mikel J. Burroughs SGT Robert Pryor SSG Robert Mark Odom SSG Robert Mark OdomSP5 Jeannie CarleSPC Chris Bayner-CwikGySgt Thomas VickSGT Denny EspinosaSGM Bill FrazerCSM (Join to see)SSgt Marian Mitchell
KASPAR HAUSER
Memorial to Hauser that stands in Nuremberg, where he first appeared.
Kaspar Hauser's life is a true unsolved mystery, from his birth to his death, everything is both fascinating and terrifying
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D7Ydo16gXY
Images
1. 1828 depiction of Kaspar Hauser when he made his first mysterious appearance.
2. pencil drawing done by Kaspar Hauser himself.
3. Faksimile_des_Spiegelschriftzettels_(gespiegelt) Hauser will be able to tell you quite precisely how I look and from where I am. To save Hauser the effort,
4. Memorial to Hauser that stands in Nuremberg, where he first appeared.
Biographies:
1. allthatsinteresting.com/kaspar-hause
2. mentalfloss.com/article/63898/mysterious-life-and-death-kaspar-hauser
1. Background from {[https://allthatsinteresting.com/kaspar-hauser]}
The tale of Kaspar Hauser seems straight from a Dickens novel.
No one paid much attention to Kaspar Hauser when he strolled into Nuremberg one morning in 1828. The young boy of about 16 was wearing pantaloons, a silk necktie, a waistcoat, a gray jacket, and a handkerchief with the initials “KH” embroidered onto it. His boots were so torn up that his feet were bursting through them and mangled from the road.
When police finally approached the apparent vagabond, they found that he could only speak a few words and was clutching a letter addressed to a cavalry captain. The missive claimed that its author had no blood relation to Hauser even though the author had raised him as a son. It also noted that since 1812, Hauser had not gone “a step from the house, in order that nobody might know where he was brought up.”
The mysterious note went on to claim that the boy could read, write, and wanted to become “a horseman like his father.” Although he did not have parents, said the letter, if he did “he would have been a learned man.” It ended ominously with the author stating that “it would cost me my neck” had he escorted Hauser to Nuremberg himself.
Police took the boy into custody, where observers reported that although he behaved as if he were a child (indeed, he walked as though he were a toddler just learning how), he was clearly not “a madman or an idiot.” He did not speak unless it was to parrot words and phrases. He had a very small vocabulary that consisted mainly of words referring to horses. Oddly, although his feet had been damaged from his journey they were “as soft as the palm of a hand,” as though he had never work shoes before he had traveled to Nuremberg.
Hauser was repulsed by all food and drink except for bread and water. When he was brought a lighted candle he stared at in amazement and tried to grab it, only to burn his hand. He was equally fascinated by his own reflection in a mirror, which he also tried to grab in vain.
Hauser was eventually made a ward of the city and went into the custody of Lord Stanhope, a British nobleman. As the “forest boy” learned to communicate effectively, he began to weave a strange tale about being brought up in a prison. He claimed to have never seen the face of the man who brought him to the outskirts of Nuremberg, saying that he had been forced to look at the ground the whole journey before being handed the letter and left alone.
Hauser also described a detailed dream in which he found himself in an enormous castle in the company of an elaborately-dressed woman and a man all in black with a sword. Professor Daumer (who had been treating and observing Hauser) theorized this could have been a faint memory of his early life before the prison.
This strange tale that seems torn from a Dickens novel enthralled all of Europe; there were rumors he was a lost prince, perhaps the son of Grand Duke Carl von Baden and his wife Stephanie de Beauharnais (who had been adopted by Napoleon). Many people, however, though he was just an impostor seeking fame and fortune.
Another strange incident further fueled the rumors: in 1829 Hauser was found in Daumer’s basement bleeding profusely from a wound in his head. He claimed that he had recognized the voice of his attacker – the same man who had brought him to Nuremberg.
Kaspar Hauser’s mysterious life concluded in an equally enigmatic manner.
One night in 1833, he burst through the door of his home in Ansbach clutching his side and babbling about how he had lured to the park by a stranger who then stabbed him in the side. His story was doubted at first, but when Hauser attempted to lead his friends back to the spot of the stabbing, he collapsed midway on the journey. He died of his wound.
The mystery of his life did not end with his death. DNA tests in 1998 using a sample from his bloodstained shirt and blood samples from two of de Beauharnais’s living descendants have shown he was not, in fact, a prince of Baden. And so true identity of Kaspar Hauser remains a mystery.
2. Background from {[https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/63898/mysterious-life-and-death-kaspar-hauser]}
The Mysterious Life and Death of Kaspar Hauser; BY STACY CONRADT;
MAY 25, 2015
On May 26, 1828, the citizens of Nürnberg (Nuremburg), Germany, received quite a surprise when they found a teenage boy wandering around town, alone and mumbling nonsense. At first, he wouldn’t say much—only that his father was once a cavalry officer, and he wished to be as well.
During a visit to the local police station, the boy wrote his name—Kaspar Hauser—and, over time, was able to explain a little bit about where he came from. He had been held alone in a cell for an unknown amount of time by an unknown person. The captor provided Hauser with bread, water, a wool blanket, and toys: two wooden horses and a dog. Local schoolmaster Georg Daumer took Hauser in and worked with him on various subjects, such as reading, writing, and drawing—the latter of which Hauser showed a natural talent for.
The boy had been in town for a year and a half when his story managed to get even stranger: He was supposedly attacked in Daumer’s home. He claimed the man who had once held him captive returned and slashed him with a razor, saying, “You still have to die ere you leave the city of Nuremburg.” Several months later, Hauser was shot by a pistol that he accidentally discharged. Both incidents happened to come after he had been accused of lying, leading some to believe that he was harming himself on purpose to generate sympathy.
The final incident occurred on December 14, 1833, when Kaspar returned home with a serious chest wound. He said that a stranger had given him a bag, stabbed him in the chest, and fled. The bag contained a note written in mirror writing:
Translation:
Hauser will be
able to tell you quite precisely how
I look and from where I am.
To save Hauser the effort,
I want to tell you myself from where
I come. _ _.
I come from from _ _ _
the Bavarian border _ _
On the river _ _ _ _ _
I will even
tell you the name: M. L. Ö.)
Hauser died from the stab wound three days later. As with the earlier wounds, people believed the wound may have been self-inflicted, and that Hauser had punctured deeper than he had intended. He may have also written the strange note himself—it was folded in a peculiar triangular shape Hauser was known to use, and the writing itself contained spelling and grammatical errors he commonly made in his own writing.
To this day, Kaspar Hauser’s origins remain a total mystery, though one theory has been debunked: Some speculated that Hauser was the lost hereditary prince of Baden. The real prince, son of Charles, Grand Duke of Baden and Stephanie de Beauharnais, supposedly died in 1812 when he was not quite three weeks old. The theory was that the Countess of Hochberg had the boy hidden away so her own sons could ascend to the throne instead. In 1996, a Hauser blood sample was compared to samples from Baden family descendants. The samples did not match, disproving the “lost prince” theory.
The epitaph on Kaspar’s tombstone in Ansbach, Germany, pretty much sums up his strange, short life: “Here lies Kaspar Hauser, enigma of his time … mysterious his death.”
FYI SMSgt Lawrence McCarter PO1 William "Chip" Nagel PO2 (Join to see) LTC Greg Henning CSM Charles Hayden 1SG (Join to see) MSG Felipe De Leon Brown COL Mikel J. Burroughs SGT Robert Pryor SSG Robert Mark Odom SSG Robert Mark OdomSP5 Jeannie CarleSPC Chris Bayner-CwikGySgt Thomas VickSGT Denny EspinosaSGM Bill FrazerCSM (Join to see)SSgt Marian Mitchell
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LTC Stephen F.
The Most Mysterious Boy In History | Random Thursday
Kaspar Hauser is an enigma that has puzzled historians for nearly 200 years. From his sudden appearance in Nuremberg in 1828, his origins - and untimely deat...
The Most Mysterious Boy In History | Random Thursday
Kaspar Hauser is an enigma that has puzzled historians for nearly 200 years. From his sudden appearance in Nuremberg in 1828, his origins - and untimely death - are shrouded in mystery.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiiCvdnoPGc
Images:
1. The seventeen-year-old Kaspar Hauser arriving in the city of Nuremberg by Andrew Howat
2. 20th century depiction of Hauser’s murder.
3. epitaph on Kaspar’s tombstone in Ansbach, Germany, 'Here lies Kaspar Hauser, enigma of his time … mysterious his death.'
Biographies
1. livescience.com/44375-the-mystery-of-kaspar-hauser.html
2.
1. Background from {[https://www.livescience.com/44375-the-mystery-of-kaspar-hauser.html]}
The Mystery of Kaspar Hauser
By Benjamin Radford March 26, 2014
On May 26, 1828, a teenager was found wandering a public square in what is now Nuremberg, Germany. He wore tattered clothing and clutched an envelope containing two letters. The first was addressed to the captain of a local cavalry regiment asking him to take the young lad into his charge, apparently written by an anonymous poor laborer who found and raised the abandoned boy but who could no longer keep him. A second letter, dated 1812 and unsigned but apparently written by his mother, stated that the boy's father was no longer alive, that she could not take care of him, and he was being sent to join the military.
The boy, about 16 or 17, seemed confused and appeared unable to read or write other than his name, "Kaspar Hauser." When asked about his life, at first he could only say he didn't know who he was (other than his name) or where he had come from. Hauser acted strangely, for example preferring bread and water to meats and vegetables, and having no civilized manners. But within several weeks, much to the astonishment of everyone, he apparently learned to read and write. The following year, capitalizing on his newfound fame, his autobiography was published in which he claimed to have spent his entire life in a small, dark room, sleeping on straw and fed by unseen strangers.
Celebrity 'savant'
Hauser became famous, with hundreds of books, magazine articles, films, and even plays written about him. As one article published in the November 1874 issue of "Overland Monthly and Out West Magazine" noted, "One of the strangest stories of the century is that of Kaspar Hauser ... for a quarter of a century (1828-1853) it is doubtful if any single individual in all Europe was so much discussed, or awoke so great an interest and curiosity. The newspapers on both sides of the ocean were full of him; pamphlets and books were printed to sustain this or that theory of his birth and belongings; philanthropers, philosophers, and savants were aroused on his behalf."
Adding intrigue and tragedy to an already baffling case, there were apparently several attempts on his life, the last one coming five years after his discovery, when he was fatally stabbed in 1833.
Theories about Kaspar Hauser
So who was this mysterious boy? Some people believe that Hauser was an undiagnosed epileptic and that some of his claims and visions might be medical in origin; others believe that the poor boy must have been delusional and driven mad by the neglect and abuse he suffered for much of his life (assuming, of course, that his story of abuse was true).
One widely repeated conspiracy theory holds that Hauser was actually the rightful heir to a royal throne, secreted away for some nefarious reason. After all, many said, why would the boy have been so mistreated, and why would several assassins try to kill a teenage boy, if his existence wasn't a threat to someone powerful? Though popular, this idea has been widely discredited by scholars as unlikely. The gothic idea that a mysterious person of unknown origin may really be, through the machinations of a powerful conspiracy, the rightful heir to royalty was certainly not unique to Hauser. In fact many such stories and rumors were popular in the first half of the nineteenth century; Alexandre Dumas famously used that plot device in his book "The Man in the Iron Mask" in the mid-1800s.
The real Kaspar Hauser
Theories about Kaspar Hauser's true identity are like theories about Jack the Ripper's true identity: one proponent's argument seems very convincing — until you read another author's contradictory argument, which seems just as plausible. With so little verifiable information and so many rumors asserted as proven fact, it's likely that the real truth will never be known.
There is one fact that is fairly well established about Kaspar Hauser: that he was a liar. Over and over, a variety of sources agree that Hauser was prone to repeatedly exaggerate and tell tall tales. It is clear that Hauser lied about his upbringing when he claimed that he had spent his entire life alone as a prisoner in a small room without light. If this were true he would have been far more debilitated, both mentally and physically, than he was when he was found. If nothing else, he almost certainly would have suffered from rickets, a bone-softening disease that results from a lack of Vitamin D, which the body produces naturally through exposure to sunlight. There is no mention in the records of Hauser having deformed bones.
There were other problems with his story: for example, at least one of the letters he had when he was found was a crude forgery and could not have been written when it was claimed; this is because the man to whom the letter was addressed, an army captain, was not in Nuremberg in 1812 when the letter was written, but he was there when it (and Hauser) first appeared a decade later in 1828.
At the time many suspected that Hauser faked the attacks and "attempted assassinations" on himself. This is hardly a thing of the past; even today people sometimes fake assaults, abductions, and even their own deaths. Some people who have a disease called Munchausen's Syndrome intentionally injure themselves for sympathy and attention. Nor is it unheard of for people to sometimes fake having grown up abandoned or even raised by animals; in 2011, a mysterious teenager calling himself Ray showed up at a police station in Germany, claiming to have lived alone in a forest for at least five years. The boy, who was in good health and spoke English and German, claimed not to know his identity or where he came from. After nearly a year of investigation the police discovered that "Ray" was actually a 21-year-old Dutchman who got bored with his office job and decided to pull a massive hoax by claiming to be a semi-feral wild child.
Kaspar Hauser claimed he was attacked on three different occasions; once in October 1829 while he was alone in a cellar when an assailant no one else saw and that he could not describe inflicted a superficial cut to his forehead; once while he was alone in a room when an unseen assailant no one else saw and that he could not describe shot him (though he later admitted he shot himself); and finally in December 1833 while he was alone in public gardens when an assailant no one else saw and that he could not describe stabbed him in the stomach.
Hauser's death is widely seen as suspicious, and his claim of being attacked is contradicted by several piece of damning evidence, including what was — and wasn't — found at the scene of the attack. At Hauser's direction, after the attack a small purse was found with a note that he claimed his attacker gave to him that, amazingly, mentioned his assailant's hometown. Why an assassin would intentionally give his victim a handwritten note that would later be discovered and partially identify him strains credulity. Even more damning for Hauser's tale is what wasn't found in the gardens where he said he was attacked: a second set of footprints in the snow. It is widely believed that Hauser stabbed himself (probably for attention) and had simply injured himself more grievously than he had intended.
Since it's clear that Hauser told lies about both the beginning and ending of his life, there seems little reason to credit anything he said about his life as truth. The best evidence is that much of the mystery about Kaspar Hauser was manufactured by Hauser himself, either as a hoax or because he suffered from a mental illness. We may never know his motives, but we do know that being famous was very important to him, as he eagerly sought and enjoyed his international notoriety. Whether con artist or genuine mystery, in the end Hauser won; his true nature and identity is still debated and discussed today, nearly two centuries after his birth.
Benjamin Radford, M.Ed., is Deputy Editor of Skeptical Inquirer science magazine and author of seven books including Scientific Paranormal Investigation: How to Solve Unexplained Mysteries."
2. Background from {[https://www.lookandlearn.com/blog/31761/the-haunting-enigma-of-kaspar-hauser/]}
The haunting enigma of Kaspar Hauser
This edited article about Kaspar Hauser first appeared in Look and Learn issue number 595 published on 9 June 1973.
Kaspar Hauser staggered into the house, moaning with pain, his hand pressed hard against his left side. There, a deep red stain was already spreading out, discolouring his padded jacket.
Appalled at the sight of his pupil in this piteous state, Dr Mayer rushed over to him. Faint words gasped disjointedly from Kaspar’s lips. All Dr Mayer could make out were “garden,” “man,” “purse” and “stabbed.”
These were among the last words Kaspar spoke. But before he died three days later, on December 17, 1833, he did manage to tell Dr Mayer that his killer had lured him into the public gardens at Ansbach with the promise that he would at last learn who his parents were.
This was a puzzle which had teased people all over Germany for more than five years.
Kaspar Hauser had appeared in a Nuremberg square on May 28, 1828, when he was found leaning against a wall dazed and incoherent. He staggered about rather than walked, could not bear strong light on his eyes, and at first could eat nothing but bread and water.
The only clues about him lay in a letter he carried and the phrases he kept repeating, “I want to be a soldier like my father” and “horse, horse.” He spoke mechanically without real understanding, something which tied in with the distinctly odd upbringing that was revealed in the letter.
In October 1812, Kaspar, then six months old, was left at the house of the letter-writer, a poor labourer, who kept him confined and alone for the next sixteen years.
The only instructions the labourer received from Kaspar’s mother were to keep him until he was 17, then send him to Nuremberg to the Sixth Cavalry Regiment in which the boy’s dead father had once served.
Kaspar was hardly the most promising of recruits. When he was taken to the Nuremberg police and imprisoned by them as a vagrant, he spent his time either sleeping or sitting on the floor staring into space.
In this state he was a fascinating exhibit for the sightseers who came in their hundreds to gawp at him in his prison cell. To them Kaspar was a curiosity more compelling than any animal in the town zoo.
Certain more humane councillors of Nuremberg were offended by this, and decided in July 1828 that the boy should be properly cared for and educated: only in this way, they felt, could anything definite be learned about him.
Education under the kind and patient guidance of a Professor Daumer only compounded the mystery, though. Kaspar quickly learned to speak properly, write, draw and make paper models. But his new-found literacy helped only to elaborate a little on what had already been deduced.
Kaspar told the professor that he had spent his life sitting or sleeping in a straw-strewn cell, a fact borne out by his chronically under-developed legs. He had never eaten or drunk anything but bread and water, an obvious inference when it took him a whole year to increase this very basic diet to include meat, rice, beer, wine and other foods.
All Kaspar remembered of the time before he came to Nuremberg was that a man had taught him certain phrases, shown him how to write his name, had put on his feet the first shoes he had ever worn, and had then led him “over a hill.”
It was not until October 17, 1829, that a hint emerged which suggested Kaspar might be a person of importance. That was the day when a man dressed in sinister black tried to murder him. Shortly before Kaspar was found senseless in the cellar, a man like this had been seen lurking round Professor Daumer’s house.
Kaspar’s head wound was fortunately superficial, but for the sake of safety he was removed from Daumer’s house to that of a Nuremberg magistrate and was given a bodyguard of two policemen.
Kaspar never went anywhere without them, a fact which made him even more conspicuous than the unfortunate young man was already.
For despite the Council’s efforts to shield him, he was still one of the sights of Nuremberg, and was always brought out for inspection by any distinguished stranger who came to the city.
One of them was the eccentric Earl of Stanhope, who adopted Kaspar and sent him to the house of Dr Mayer in Ansbach, 25 miles from Nuremberg.
This was apparently meant as a preliminary to taking the boy to England, but Kaspar never made the journey.
After three years in Ansbach, where he worked as a low-grade copier in a government office, Kaspar was murdered by an unknown assailant.
A reward of £1,200 was offered for his capture, but the murderer was never found. The only evidence he left behind was a cryptic note in a small purse near the scene of the crime. It read: “I come from the Bavarian frontier, MLO.”
This clue was eagerly seized upon by those who maintained that Kaspar was in reality a prince of the house of Baden, a large and powerful German duchy lying on the western frontier of Bavaria.
According to persistent rumour, Kaspar was the elder son of Charles, Grand Duke of Baden, who had succeeded to this title on the death of his grandfather, Charles Frederick in 1811.
Though official records showed that this child had died within two weeks of his birth in September 1812, Kaspar’s supporters insisted that the body had been that of a peasant woman’s child: the real prince had been kidnapped and smuggled out of the ducal palace by a Major Hennenhofer.
Behind this lay the plottings of the family of Charles Frederick’s second wife, Louise. By getting rid of the baby heir, Kaspar, the descendant of Charles Frederick’s first marriage, the way was clear for Louise’s children to become Grand Dukes of Baden.
Twenty-one years later Kaspar Hauser’s murderer had merely finished what Hennenhofer had begun.
This story had all the marks of melodramatic fiction, for it was never proved true. However, in March 1830, the Foreign Minister of Baden is supposed to have told a secret council meeting that the real heir to the dukedom was alive, but unaware of his inheritance. What was more, Hennenhofer apparently declared on the same occasion that Kaspar was the ignorant heir in question.
However, to history, Kaspar is only an enigma, but an enigma vividly commemorated in the plaque set up to mark the spot where he was stabbed.
“Here,” it reads, “the Mystery was mysteriously murdered.”
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Kaspar Hauser is an enigma that has puzzled historians for nearly 200 years. From his sudden appearance in Nuremberg in 1828, his origins - and untimely death - are shrouded in mystery.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiiCvdnoPGc
Images:
1. The seventeen-year-old Kaspar Hauser arriving in the city of Nuremberg by Andrew Howat
2. 20th century depiction of Hauser’s murder.
3. epitaph on Kaspar’s tombstone in Ansbach, Germany, 'Here lies Kaspar Hauser, enigma of his time … mysterious his death.'
Biographies
1. livescience.com/44375-the-mystery-of-kaspar-hauser.html
2.
1. Background from {[https://www.livescience.com/44375-the-mystery-of-kaspar-hauser.html]}
The Mystery of Kaspar Hauser
By Benjamin Radford March 26, 2014
On May 26, 1828, a teenager was found wandering a public square in what is now Nuremberg, Germany. He wore tattered clothing and clutched an envelope containing two letters. The first was addressed to the captain of a local cavalry regiment asking him to take the young lad into his charge, apparently written by an anonymous poor laborer who found and raised the abandoned boy but who could no longer keep him. A second letter, dated 1812 and unsigned but apparently written by his mother, stated that the boy's father was no longer alive, that she could not take care of him, and he was being sent to join the military.
The boy, about 16 or 17, seemed confused and appeared unable to read or write other than his name, "Kaspar Hauser." When asked about his life, at first he could only say he didn't know who he was (other than his name) or where he had come from. Hauser acted strangely, for example preferring bread and water to meats and vegetables, and having no civilized manners. But within several weeks, much to the astonishment of everyone, he apparently learned to read and write. The following year, capitalizing on his newfound fame, his autobiography was published in which he claimed to have spent his entire life in a small, dark room, sleeping on straw and fed by unseen strangers.
Celebrity 'savant'
Hauser became famous, with hundreds of books, magazine articles, films, and even plays written about him. As one article published in the November 1874 issue of "Overland Monthly and Out West Magazine" noted, "One of the strangest stories of the century is that of Kaspar Hauser ... for a quarter of a century (1828-1853) it is doubtful if any single individual in all Europe was so much discussed, or awoke so great an interest and curiosity. The newspapers on both sides of the ocean were full of him; pamphlets and books were printed to sustain this or that theory of his birth and belongings; philanthropers, philosophers, and savants were aroused on his behalf."
Adding intrigue and tragedy to an already baffling case, there were apparently several attempts on his life, the last one coming five years after his discovery, when he was fatally stabbed in 1833.
Theories about Kaspar Hauser
So who was this mysterious boy? Some people believe that Hauser was an undiagnosed epileptic and that some of his claims and visions might be medical in origin; others believe that the poor boy must have been delusional and driven mad by the neglect and abuse he suffered for much of his life (assuming, of course, that his story of abuse was true).
One widely repeated conspiracy theory holds that Hauser was actually the rightful heir to a royal throne, secreted away for some nefarious reason. After all, many said, why would the boy have been so mistreated, and why would several assassins try to kill a teenage boy, if his existence wasn't a threat to someone powerful? Though popular, this idea has been widely discredited by scholars as unlikely. The gothic idea that a mysterious person of unknown origin may really be, through the machinations of a powerful conspiracy, the rightful heir to royalty was certainly not unique to Hauser. In fact many such stories and rumors were popular in the first half of the nineteenth century; Alexandre Dumas famously used that plot device in his book "The Man in the Iron Mask" in the mid-1800s.
The real Kaspar Hauser
Theories about Kaspar Hauser's true identity are like theories about Jack the Ripper's true identity: one proponent's argument seems very convincing — until you read another author's contradictory argument, which seems just as plausible. With so little verifiable information and so many rumors asserted as proven fact, it's likely that the real truth will never be known.
There is one fact that is fairly well established about Kaspar Hauser: that he was a liar. Over and over, a variety of sources agree that Hauser was prone to repeatedly exaggerate and tell tall tales. It is clear that Hauser lied about his upbringing when he claimed that he had spent his entire life alone as a prisoner in a small room without light. If this were true he would have been far more debilitated, both mentally and physically, than he was when he was found. If nothing else, he almost certainly would have suffered from rickets, a bone-softening disease that results from a lack of Vitamin D, which the body produces naturally through exposure to sunlight. There is no mention in the records of Hauser having deformed bones.
There were other problems with his story: for example, at least one of the letters he had when he was found was a crude forgery and could not have been written when it was claimed; this is because the man to whom the letter was addressed, an army captain, was not in Nuremberg in 1812 when the letter was written, but he was there when it (and Hauser) first appeared a decade later in 1828.
At the time many suspected that Hauser faked the attacks and "attempted assassinations" on himself. This is hardly a thing of the past; even today people sometimes fake assaults, abductions, and even their own deaths. Some people who have a disease called Munchausen's Syndrome intentionally injure themselves for sympathy and attention. Nor is it unheard of for people to sometimes fake having grown up abandoned or even raised by animals; in 2011, a mysterious teenager calling himself Ray showed up at a police station in Germany, claiming to have lived alone in a forest for at least five years. The boy, who was in good health and spoke English and German, claimed not to know his identity or where he came from. After nearly a year of investigation the police discovered that "Ray" was actually a 21-year-old Dutchman who got bored with his office job and decided to pull a massive hoax by claiming to be a semi-feral wild child.
Kaspar Hauser claimed he was attacked on three different occasions; once in October 1829 while he was alone in a cellar when an assailant no one else saw and that he could not describe inflicted a superficial cut to his forehead; once while he was alone in a room when an unseen assailant no one else saw and that he could not describe shot him (though he later admitted he shot himself); and finally in December 1833 while he was alone in public gardens when an assailant no one else saw and that he could not describe stabbed him in the stomach.
Hauser's death is widely seen as suspicious, and his claim of being attacked is contradicted by several piece of damning evidence, including what was — and wasn't — found at the scene of the attack. At Hauser's direction, after the attack a small purse was found with a note that he claimed his attacker gave to him that, amazingly, mentioned his assailant's hometown. Why an assassin would intentionally give his victim a handwritten note that would later be discovered and partially identify him strains credulity. Even more damning for Hauser's tale is what wasn't found in the gardens where he said he was attacked: a second set of footprints in the snow. It is widely believed that Hauser stabbed himself (probably for attention) and had simply injured himself more grievously than he had intended.
Since it's clear that Hauser told lies about both the beginning and ending of his life, there seems little reason to credit anything he said about his life as truth. The best evidence is that much of the mystery about Kaspar Hauser was manufactured by Hauser himself, either as a hoax or because he suffered from a mental illness. We may never know his motives, but we do know that being famous was very important to him, as he eagerly sought and enjoyed his international notoriety. Whether con artist or genuine mystery, in the end Hauser won; his true nature and identity is still debated and discussed today, nearly two centuries after his birth.
Benjamin Radford, M.Ed., is Deputy Editor of Skeptical Inquirer science magazine and author of seven books including Scientific Paranormal Investigation: How to Solve Unexplained Mysteries."
2. Background from {[https://www.lookandlearn.com/blog/31761/the-haunting-enigma-of-kaspar-hauser/]}
The haunting enigma of Kaspar Hauser
This edited article about Kaspar Hauser first appeared in Look and Learn issue number 595 published on 9 June 1973.
Kaspar Hauser staggered into the house, moaning with pain, his hand pressed hard against his left side. There, a deep red stain was already spreading out, discolouring his padded jacket.
Appalled at the sight of his pupil in this piteous state, Dr Mayer rushed over to him. Faint words gasped disjointedly from Kaspar’s lips. All Dr Mayer could make out were “garden,” “man,” “purse” and “stabbed.”
These were among the last words Kaspar spoke. But before he died three days later, on December 17, 1833, he did manage to tell Dr Mayer that his killer had lured him into the public gardens at Ansbach with the promise that he would at last learn who his parents were.
This was a puzzle which had teased people all over Germany for more than five years.
Kaspar Hauser had appeared in a Nuremberg square on May 28, 1828, when he was found leaning against a wall dazed and incoherent. He staggered about rather than walked, could not bear strong light on his eyes, and at first could eat nothing but bread and water.
The only clues about him lay in a letter he carried and the phrases he kept repeating, “I want to be a soldier like my father” and “horse, horse.” He spoke mechanically without real understanding, something which tied in with the distinctly odd upbringing that was revealed in the letter.
In October 1812, Kaspar, then six months old, was left at the house of the letter-writer, a poor labourer, who kept him confined and alone for the next sixteen years.
The only instructions the labourer received from Kaspar’s mother were to keep him until he was 17, then send him to Nuremberg to the Sixth Cavalry Regiment in which the boy’s dead father had once served.
Kaspar was hardly the most promising of recruits. When he was taken to the Nuremberg police and imprisoned by them as a vagrant, he spent his time either sleeping or sitting on the floor staring into space.
In this state he was a fascinating exhibit for the sightseers who came in their hundreds to gawp at him in his prison cell. To them Kaspar was a curiosity more compelling than any animal in the town zoo.
Certain more humane councillors of Nuremberg were offended by this, and decided in July 1828 that the boy should be properly cared for and educated: only in this way, they felt, could anything definite be learned about him.
Education under the kind and patient guidance of a Professor Daumer only compounded the mystery, though. Kaspar quickly learned to speak properly, write, draw and make paper models. But his new-found literacy helped only to elaborate a little on what had already been deduced.
Kaspar told the professor that he had spent his life sitting or sleeping in a straw-strewn cell, a fact borne out by his chronically under-developed legs. He had never eaten or drunk anything but bread and water, an obvious inference when it took him a whole year to increase this very basic diet to include meat, rice, beer, wine and other foods.
All Kaspar remembered of the time before he came to Nuremberg was that a man had taught him certain phrases, shown him how to write his name, had put on his feet the first shoes he had ever worn, and had then led him “over a hill.”
It was not until October 17, 1829, that a hint emerged which suggested Kaspar might be a person of importance. That was the day when a man dressed in sinister black tried to murder him. Shortly before Kaspar was found senseless in the cellar, a man like this had been seen lurking round Professor Daumer’s house.
Kaspar’s head wound was fortunately superficial, but for the sake of safety he was removed from Daumer’s house to that of a Nuremberg magistrate and was given a bodyguard of two policemen.
Kaspar never went anywhere without them, a fact which made him even more conspicuous than the unfortunate young man was already.
For despite the Council’s efforts to shield him, he was still one of the sights of Nuremberg, and was always brought out for inspection by any distinguished stranger who came to the city.
One of them was the eccentric Earl of Stanhope, who adopted Kaspar and sent him to the house of Dr Mayer in Ansbach, 25 miles from Nuremberg.
This was apparently meant as a preliminary to taking the boy to England, but Kaspar never made the journey.
After three years in Ansbach, where he worked as a low-grade copier in a government office, Kaspar was murdered by an unknown assailant.
A reward of £1,200 was offered for his capture, but the murderer was never found. The only evidence he left behind was a cryptic note in a small purse near the scene of the crime. It read: “I come from the Bavarian frontier, MLO.”
This clue was eagerly seized upon by those who maintained that Kaspar was in reality a prince of the house of Baden, a large and powerful German duchy lying on the western frontier of Bavaria.
According to persistent rumour, Kaspar was the elder son of Charles, Grand Duke of Baden, who had succeeded to this title on the death of his grandfather, Charles Frederick in 1811.
Though official records showed that this child had died within two weeks of his birth in September 1812, Kaspar’s supporters insisted that the body had been that of a peasant woman’s child: the real prince had been kidnapped and smuggled out of the ducal palace by a Major Hennenhofer.
Behind this lay the plottings of the family of Charles Frederick’s second wife, Louise. By getting rid of the baby heir, Kaspar, the descendant of Charles Frederick’s first marriage, the way was clear for Louise’s children to become Grand Dukes of Baden.
Twenty-one years later Kaspar Hauser’s murderer had merely finished what Hennenhofer had begun.
This story had all the marks of melodramatic fiction, for it was never proved true. However, in March 1830, the Foreign Minister of Baden is supposed to have told a secret council meeting that the real heir to the dukedom was alive, but unaware of his inheritance. What was more, Hennenhofer apparently declared on the same occasion that Kaspar was the ignorant heir in question.
However, to history, Kaspar is only an enigma, but an enigma vividly commemorated in the plaque set up to mark the spot where he was stabbed.
“Here,” it reads, “the Mystery was mysteriously murdered.”
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Werner Herzog film collection: The Enigma of Kasper Hauser - Trailer
Herzog's film is based upon the true and mysterious story of Kaspar Hauser, a young man who suddenly appeared in Nuremberg in 1828, barely able to speak or w...
Col Carl Whicker Lt Col John (Jack) Christensen I had a German professor at Kent State who was fascinated by this story. I think many now believe it was a hoax. There was an excellent film by Werner Herzog that came out in 1974.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=urKcTYUWUl0
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=urKcTYUWUl0
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