Theo Maximilian Berger (25 January 1941 – 20 November 2003) was a notorious
Bavaria
Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...
n criminal, best known for his numerous escapes from prison.
[Servus Theo, alles Gute]
''Der Spiegel
''Der Spiegel'' (, lit. ''"The Mirror"'') is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of 695,100 copies, it was the largest such publication in Europe in 2011. It was founded in 1947 by John Seymour Chaloner ...
'' - ''Good bye, Theo, all the best'', published: 9 October 1989, accessed: 3 March 2011 Despite escaping four times, Berger spent 39 years in jail and eventually committed suicide there.
[Nachruf auf Theo Berger II]
'' Sueddeutsche Zeitung'' - Obituary, published: 23 November 2003, accessed: 3 March 2011 Berger had been sentenced to a collective 137 years in jail.
In 1986, he became the subject of a documentary titled ''Der Al Capone vom
Donaumoos'' (English: ''The Bavarian Al Capone'') and later wrote his memoirs, which were smuggled out of Straubing prison.
In 2006, he also became the subject of a theatre play in
Neuburg an der Donau
Neuburg an der Donau (Central Bavarian: ''Neiburg an da Donau'') is a town which is the capital of the Neuburg-Schrobenhausen district in the state of Bavaria in Germany.
Divisions
The municipality has 16 divisions:
* Altmannstetten
* Bergen, Neu ...
titled ''Bruchstücke'' ( en, Shards).
[''Bruchstücke'']
Website on the Theo Berger theatre play, accessed: 3 March 2011
In his time, Berger received a number of nicknames, among them ''Al Capone vom Donaumoos'', ''König der Ausbrecher'' (English:''King of the jail breakers'') or ''Der schöne Theo'' (English:''The beautiful Theo'').
He was at times compared to some of the other legendary Bavarian criminals and robbers, the
Räuber Kneißl and the
Bayerische Hiasl.
[Ein Ausbrecherkönig erzählt aus seinem Leben]
''Die Zeit
''Die Zeit'' (, "The Time") is a German national weekly newspaper published in Hamburg in Germany. The newspaper is generally considered to be among the German newspapers of record and is known for its long and extensive articles.
History
The ...
'', published: 13 October 1989, accessed: 3 March 2011
Biography
Berger was born in 1941 in Ludwigsmoos, a small village near
Schrobenhausen
Schrobenhausen (; Central Bavarian: ''Schrobenhausn'') is a town in the district of Neuburg-Schrobenhausen in Bavaria, Germany. It is situated on the River Paar approx. south-west of Ingolstadt and north-east of Augsburg.
The town hosts notable ...
in what is now the district of
Neuburg-Schrobenhausen
Neuburg-Schrobenhausen is a ''Landkreis'' (district) in Bavaria, Germany. It is bounded by (from the east and clockwise) the districts of Pfaffenhofen, Aichach-Friedberg, Donau-Ries and Eichstätt, and by the city of Ingolstadt.
History
The dis ...
. He was the son of a farmer.
He was the second of nine sons.
One of his brothers was later shot by the police.
Berger was described as of a rebellious nature in school, hitting back at the local village
priest
A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particu ...
when he tried to discipline him. Shortly after turning 18, Berger was sentenced to three years in jail for minor offences, in the belief that it would break him.
Berger's punishment, in retrospect, was seen as far too harsh for his early crimes and resulted in him developing a hatred for the authorities.
After his release he was re-arrested within four months, this time for car theft. Later attempts to start a non-criminal life failed, being accused of theft when he was innocent, lacking a drivers' licence to carry out his job and finding his wages confiscated to pay for his illegitimate children.
In 1965, Berger escaped from the local police station in
Schrobenhausen
Schrobenhausen (; Central Bavarian: ''Schrobenhausn'') is a town in the district of Neuburg-Schrobenhausen in Bavaria, Germany. It is situated on the River Paar approx. south-west of Ingolstadt and north-east of Augsburg.
The town hosts notable ...
after having been arrested for a fight by jumping out of a window on the first floor, stealing a bicycle and cycling to Ludwigsmoos, where friends cut off his handcuffs.
In 1968, Berger was sentenced to 15 years in prison for bank robbery, which he was to spend in the high-security jail at Straubing. He quickly came to realise that Straubing was not as secure as its reputation, as he himself was able to carry a hacksaw in his suitcase on arrival. He used this hacksaw for his first escape, when on transfer in
Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...
.
He was confronted by the police in March 1969 and arrested after firing and injuring a police officer. Berger later claimed in his memoirs that the hate with which he was prosecuted by the police made him fire at the officers.
He returned to his home area, the ''
Donaumoos'', after this escape despite this being the most searched place by the police. Berger's life, by his own admission, was always moving between the ''Moos'' and prison.
Berger was cleverly able to evade the police and earned secret admiration and support for this. The home of his family in Ludwigsmoos became a tourist attraction.
However, after his shots at a police officer in 1969, Berger did lose a lot of support in the region.
His admirers saw in him somebody that took from the rich and never actually killed anyone.
Berger was often purposely playing cat-and-mouse with the police. He would call up the local police station and inform them that he had just stolen a car, was going to refuel it and then was ready to be chased.
After each escape, Berger was caught eventually and his court cases, held in
Augsburg
Augsburg (; bar , Augschburg , links=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swabian_German , label=Swabian German, , ) is a city in Swabia, Bavaria, Germany, around west of Bavarian capital Munich. It is a university town and regional seat of the ' ...
, became pilgrimages for the local population from the ''Donaumoos''. By his own admission in his memoirs, Berger was always able to receive keys for his cell in Straubing and a gun when he wanted. He even once toyed with the idea of passing a gun to the
Red Army Faction
The Red Army Faction (RAF, ; , ),See the section "Name" also known as the Baader–Meinhof Group or Baader–Meinhof Gang (, , active 1970–1998), was a West German far-left Marxist-Leninist urban guerrilla group founded in 1970.
The ...
terrorists
Knut Folkerts
Knut Detlef Folkerts (born 1 January 1952 in Singen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany) is a former member of the terrorist group, the Red Army Faction (RAF).
In 1977 he was sentenced to 20 years in prison in the Netherlands for murder. Later he was c ...
and
Bernd Rößner after seeing them in the courtyard of the Straubing jail. He eventually handed in his guns to the Bavarian justice department in the hope of being allowed to receive medical treatment outside of jail; he was refused.
He made his fourth escape in September 1983, when he escaped through a toilet window as part of a group of inmates who visited the Straubing Zoo. His escape lasted for only eleven days; he was arrested without resisting on a bridge over the
Danube
The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , pa ...
in
Ingolstadt
Ingolstadt (, Austro-Bavarian: ) is an independent city on the Danube in Upper Bavaria with 139,553 inhabitants (as of June 30, 2022). Around half a million people live in the metropolitan area. Ingolstadt is the second largest city in Upper Bav ...
, afraid the police would shoot him otherwise.
Berger, in his later life in prison, suffered from a rare form of
blood cancer
Tumors of the hematopoietic and lymphoid tissues (American English) or tumours of the haematopoietic and lymphoid tissues (British English) are tumors that affect the blood, bone marrow, lymph, and lymphatic system. Because these tissues are all ...
. By 1989, his weight had dropped to 60 kg and he suffered from speech impediments because of long periods of isolation. He was released from prison in 1985 because of his illness, but Berger and accomplices Otto Hinterlechner were the main suspects in a bank robbery in March 1986. The two were eventually confronted by the police and arrested after a shootout with the police.
While Berger could not be convicted of this bank robbery, the fact that shots were fired at the police resulted in him being charged with attempt of murder. He was sentenced to another 12 years in prison despite not having fired a shot from his gun. Hinterlechner, who originally stated that Berger told him to fire, later withdrew this statement. A psychological assessment of Berger at the time found that he suffered from excessive
masculinity
Masculinity (also called manhood or manliness) is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles associated with men and boys. Masculinity can be theoretically understood as socially constructed, and there is also evidence that some behaviors con ...
, a lack of scruple when it came to aggression and a complete absence of fear for retribution by others.
On top of his 12-year sentence, it was decided that Berger should remain in
preventive detention
Preventive detention is an imprisonment that is putatively justified for non-punitive purposes, most often to prevent (further) criminal acts.
Types of preventive detention
There is no universally agreed definition of preventive detention, and mu ...
for the rest of his life.
In 1989, when his father died, Berger was allowed to attend the funeral, but he was guarded by 20 police officers and a police helicopter.
When Berger's wife died in 2001,
he was allowed to attend the funeral but was escorted by three police officers and was not allowed to spend time with his family. In his later days in jail, Berger felt that he was sentenced to death in jail, despite the
death penalty having been abolished in Germany in 1949. Hubert Dietl, a high-ranking official in the Bavarian justice department, once declared that Berger should die in jail since he was a danger to the public.
Berger never publicly showed regret for his crimes, but an inmate in his final years stated that Berger had changed and was much calmer and unlikely to be threat to anybody anymore.
Death
After 39 years in jail, Berger committed suicide by hanging himself in Straubing prison on 20 November 2003. The appropriateness of Berger's 36 years in jail was questioned in his
obituary
An obituary ( obit for short) is an article about a recently deceased person. Newspapers often publish obituaries as news articles. Although obituaries tend to focus on positive aspects of the subject's life, this is not always the case. Ac ...
by the ''
Sueddeutsche Zeitung'', as he never killed anybody and even murderers in Germany tend to be released after much shorter sentences.
Berger was buried at the ''Alten Friedhof'' in Neuburg an der Donau.
Personal life
While in prison in 1991, Berger married a teacher from
Karlshuld
Karlshuld is a municipality in the district of Neuburg-Schrobenhausen in Bavaria in Germany.
History
The locality was created in the course of the draining of the '' Donaumooses'' begun at 1790, in the year 1795 it became a colony of Karl Freiher ...
. She made four unsuccessful appeals to have Berger pardoned, and she died in 2001. Berger had five children with three different women; two of the children died as infants. The surviving three children are all daughters.
[Der Al Capone vom Donausmoos]
''Augsburger Allgemeine
The ''Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung'' is a major German regional daily newspaper published since 1945.
History
From 1807 to 1882, another paper named '' Allgemeine Zeitung'' was published in Augsburg but it is not connected to the later newspap ...
'', published: 9 April 2009, accessed: 3 March 2011
Berger's daughter Michaela, who regularly visited him throughout his time in jail, made numerous attempts to have her father released and to have him live with her and her children. Shortly before his suicide, plans were underway to permit Berger to spend one day a week at his daughter's house.
In popular culture
* Berger's life was the subject of a 1986 German documentary ''The Bavarian Al Capone'' by
Oliver Herbrich
Oliver Herbrich (born 1961 in Munich) is a German filmmaker working as author, film director and producer. He is associated with the New German Cinema movement in the 1980s. From 2016, his films are digitally remastered and re-released in the ''Fi ...
. The 59-minute documentary features Theo Berger as one of the coauthors and actors. The film was seen as too controversial for
Bavarian public television, but it was shown in cinemas in Augsburg and the ''Donaumoos''. For broadcast in West German Television
(WDR) the film needed to be subtitled in High German. In 2018 the film was digitally remastered and successfully re-released.
* in 1989, his autobiography ''Ausbruch'' (English: ''Escape'') was published and 10,000 copies were sold.
* In 2006, Berger became the subject of a theatre play in
Neuburg an der Donau
Neuburg an der Donau (Central Bavarian: ''Neiburg an da Donau'') is a town which is the capital of the Neuburg-Schrobenhausen district in the state of Bavaria in Germany.
Divisions
The municipality has 16 divisions:
* Altmannstetten
* Bergen, Neu ...
titled ''Bruchstücke''. It became the most successful play in the history of theatre in Neuburg.
However, the play was not uncontroversial; it was seen by some of his victims as an undeserved glorification of a criminal.
Gewaltverbrecher als Theater-Star
''TZ Newspaper'' - Violent criminal as theatre star, published: 3 November 2006, accessed: 3 March 2011
References
Further reading
* Theo Berger (1989) ''Ausbruch. Die Erinnerungen des Al Capone vom Donaumoos'' AV-Verlag, Augsburg
Augsburg (; bar , Augschburg , links=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swabian_German , label=Swabian German, , ) is a city in Swabia, Bavaria, Germany, around west of Bavarian capital Munich. It is a university town and regional seat of the ' ...
,
*Oliver Herbrich (2018) ''Mathias Kneißl - Theo Berger. Volkshelden wider Willen'' (German language) Fiction - Non-Fiction Film Edition,
External links
''Bruchstücke''
Website on the Theo Berger theatre play
*
The Bavarian Al Capone
' Website on the film by Oliver Herbrich
{{DEFAULTSORT:Berger, Theo
1941 births
2003 suicides
20th-century German criminals
German bank robbers
German escapees
German people convicted of attempted murder
People convicted of theft
Crimes against police officers in Germany
Criminals from Bavaria
People from Neuburg-Schrobenhausen
People who committed suicide in prison custody
Escapees from German detention
Suicides by hanging in Germany
German people who died in prison custody
Prisoners who died in German detention