Johannes Bückler

Johannes Bückler (c.1778 – 21 November 1803) was a German outlaw who orchestrated one of the most famous crime sprees in German history. He has been nicknamed Schinderhannes and Schinnerhannes in German and John the Scorcher, John the Flayer and the Robber of the Rhine in English. He was born at Miehlen, the son of Johann and Anna Maria Bückler. He began an apprenticeship to a tanner but turned to petty theft. At 16 he was arrested for stealing some of the skins, but he escaped detention. He then turned to break-ins and armed robbery on both sides of the Rhine, which was the border between France and the Holy Roman Empire.

The legend of Schinderhannes truly emerged from his escape from a prison tower in Simmern, a market town in the Hunsrück region of the Rhineland. At the time, the west bank of the Rhine was under French occupation, and the peasantry was happy to celebrate anyone who was able to flout the law. At the end of 1798, Bückler had a criminal record that included thefts of at least 40 head of cattle and horses. He was arrested by French gendarmerie and brought before a judge, where he confessed some of his crimes. Imprisoned in a wooden tower in Simmern that most believed to be impenetrable, he used a kitchen knife, smuggled in by a sympathetic guard, and cut a hole in a small window to escape. The prison escape became widely reported, exciting the public and making Schinderhannes a folk hero.

The legend of Schinderhannes grew with every new escapade. After things began to get too dangerous for him, Schinderhannes fled across the Rhine and enlisted in the Austrian Army under the assumed name of Jakob Schweikart. He was recognized, however, by a former associate, handed over to the French authorities and imprisoned in a tower of the medieval defensive wall of Mainz (the so-called "Holzturm"). After his mistress, Juliana Blasius, was threatened with being charged as an accomplice, Schinderhannes testified against his fellow gangsters. Nineteen of his associates were sentenced to death. Despite his cooperation, Schinderhannes was sentenced to death as well. On 21 November 1803 he was guillotined before the gates of Mainz. More than 40,000 spectators witnessed his execution. He remains Germany's most famous outlaw. His legend still attracts a great deal of tourism to the region wherein his gang operated.

Origin

Johannes Bückler's oldest known ancestor was Sebastian Bickler, executioner and master tanner of Kirchberg and Koppenstein, who was engaged in the tanner's trade at the mill at Wallenbrück, which had fallen into decay after the Thirty Years' War. According to his son, Hans-Adam, he came from an old family of executioners and tanners. Hans-Adam (also Johann Adam) Bickler (1649–1720) continued both trades at the Wallenbrück after his certification on 13 November 1679. During the War of the Palatine Succession the French demanded a fee which he could not pay, so he was dismissed in 1693 and replaced by the executioner, Dillendorf, from Corray at Zell on the Moselle. In 1697, after the end of the war, Hans-Adam Bickler was able to return.

In 1673, Niclas Bickler, great-grandfather of Johannes Bückler, was born on the Wallenbrück as son of Hans-Adam Bickler and his wife Margaretha, daughter of the skinner Coller of Bernkastel. He also stayed on site for the time being, but left the family in 1703 and went to Hilscheid near Thalfang. After 1708, the Anterior County of Sponheim had been divided between Baden and Electoral Palatinate and the Wallenbrück had become the border town of Baden, more and more criminals and others sought by the courts sought refuge there. After the death of his father and serious inheritance disputes between him and his stepmother Eva Marie, Niclas Bickler succeeded in obtaining the deed of inheritance. However, one and a half years later, on 16 February 1722, the Kirchberg upper office reversed the decision; Eva Bickler now received the deed. As a result of further ruinous inheritance disputes, the Wallenbrück had to be auctioned on 31 August 1733. It went to the Naumburg executioner, Matthias Nagel, who passed it on to his son-in-law, Johann Leonard North, in 1738, who in turn let Johannes Bickler manage it.

Otto Philipp Bickler, Niclas' son, became a executioner in Wartelstein, today's Schloss Wartenstein near Kirn. In this position he succeeded Mattias Nagel, a grandson of Matthias Nagel. Bickler went to Merzweiler in 1754. Later Johannes Bückler, ''Schinderhannes'', learned the skinner's craft from Mattias Nagel. Nagel, who was also known as a wound healer, treated Bückler medically after attacks and outbreaks. Johannes Bückler's father, Johannes Bickler, was born in Merzweiler. He married Anna Maria Schmidt in Miehlen. Bückler's parents fled Miehlen in 1783 because of a forest crime and a laundry theft by his mother. In 1784, his father was recruited for six years by the Imperial Army. He served in Moravia, deserted in 1789 and returned first to his birthplace of Merzweiler.

Life

Black Peter

One of Schinderhannes' accomplices was Peter Petri, nicknamed "Black Peter", who is described as a black-haired man who was as gentle as a lamb when sober, but became violent when drunk and no longer in control of himself. Polecat Jacob (''Iltis-Jacob'') and Reidenbach had already been his accomplices in numerous raids in the Hunsrück. When Petri and Polecat were on their way home from a christening with their wife, Petri and Jacob's wife remained a little behind and crawled into the grass. The passing Jewish cattle dealer, Simon Seligmann, from Seibersbach discovered the lovers and betrayed them to the aforementioned Polecat. He came back and strangled his unfaithful wife. Petri, however, could not forgive the Jew who had caught him at his tryst and betrayed him to Polecat. A little later he was with Johannes Bückler in the Thiergarten forester's lodge at Argenthal and celebrated with him and friends where they had ordered Jewish bankers to make music. Meanwhile Seligmann passed the house with a cow and was seen by Petri. Petri asked Bückler to follow him. In pairs they attacked the Jew and stabbed him repeatedly to death before plundering his body. Whether Johannes Bückler also murdered Seligmann could not be proven. A juridical