From the Fruits of His Robberies

Die Mainzer Voruntersuchungsakten gegen die Schinderhannes-Bande. Udo Fleck, ed, Udo Fleck. Die Mainzer Voruntersuchungsakten gegen die Schinderhannes-Bande: Elektronisches Buch auf CD-ROM. Trier: Kliomedia, 2004. , , ISBN 978-3-89890-072-0. Reviewed by Eileen Crosby Published on H-German (September, 2006) It is not often that the author of a dissertation son for whom we have historical evidence. Was publishes his or her archival source material pri‐ Schinderhannes really a German "Robin Hood," as or to the publication of the dissertation itself. he has sometimes been portrayed? Why were his With this CD-ROM, Udo Fleck has done just that. victims disproportionately Jewish? Is there any The sources are the documents assembled in evidence that the bandits were allowed to operate preparation for the trial of Johannes Bueckler-- as long as they did because the authorities, the better known as Schinderhannes--and sixty-seven criminals, and the Christian inhabitants of the re‐ other men and women on charges of theft, armed gion shared anti-Jewish sentiments? These are robbery, extortion, and murder. In November some of the questions Fleck anticipates users of 1803, Bueckler and nineteen others were guil‐ this collection will ask.[1] Those likely to raise lotined for their crimes in Mainz, the capital of such questions are serious scholars of the Schin‐ the recently created French Department of Don‐ derhannes band, and they are probably the in‐ nersberg. Bueckler and his associates worked in tended audience for this collection. But the CD small groups, at frst stealing horses and livestock also provides primary source material of a sort from pens and barns, later accosting merchants usually found only in archives to graduate stu‐ and other travelers on the roads of the Rhine- dents exploring topics in social history or the his‐ Mosel region. On many occasions, the robber tory of crime and to those interested in law, gov‐ band broke into homes and intimidated the occu‐ ernment, and society in the French Rhineland. For pants until the latter turned over their stores of advanced undergraduates with German language coinage and other wealth. Aside from some ad‐ skills, it could supply the ideal primary source on ministrative and legal correspondence, the 2792 which to base a senior thesis. It is also priced so as documents on the CD (3722 pages of text) are not to be out of reach of the individual scholar or made up largely of prosecutorial summaries of graduate student. The records of Bueckler's the criminal charges, interrogation records of the interrogation do not support the notion that he sixty-eight accused parties, and records of witness was a German "Robin Hood." In his detailed re‐ testimony. Fleck's chief goal in publishing them is sponses to the charges against him recorded just to ask readers to question the myths, legends, and prior to his 1803 trial, he did not claim to have treatments (literary and scholarly) that multiplied been generous toward or concerned about the after Bueckler's execution by examining the per‐ poor of the towns and villages in which he circu‐ H-Net Reviews lated. Although there is little to suggest that ment collection also allows one to consider how Bueckler was a friend of the poor, there is much the accused altered or embellished their narra‐ evidence that the poor had little to fear from him tives over the course of time. When Bueckler's fe‐ or his associates. By its members' own confes‐ male companion and mother of his children, Julia sions, the band's intimidation tactics were direct‐ Blasius, was interrogated in 1802, for example, ed at people known to have cash and other porta‐ she related that she and her sister encountered ble wealth. In addition, the robbers sometimes Bueckler two years before near a wood as they targeted individuals known to be despised in their were out walking (p. 449). They were threatened own communities, assuming that local authorities with bodily harm if they refused to accompany and bystanders would be less likely to come to the the man, whom she later learned was Schinder‐ aid of such victims (p. 126). It is in details like hannes. During an interrogation almost a year lat‐ these that the perpetrators' presentation of events er she stated that she and her sister were coaxed contradicts those of the prosecutors, who de‐ out of the tavern and into the wood on the pre‐ scribed the criminals as terrorizing the popula‐ tence that someone there wanted to meet them tion at large on both sides of the Rhine (p. 84). (pp. 453-459). Blasius then elaborates: they fol‐ Such discrepancies seem to offer a window onto lowed the man they met in the tavern into the tensions between government and governed in wood where she saw a handsome young man. He the period and, specifically, onto tensions between began talking to her and tried to persuade her to the population of the Rhineland and its new run away with him. When she refused, he threat‐ French government. In his introduction to the ened to kill her. "[U]nd auf diese Art," she contin‐ collection, Fleck is sharply critical of scholarly ues, "wurde ich mit Gewalt dazu gebracht, diesem treatments that portray the bandits and their ac‐ unbekannten zu folgen" (p. 454). After a while, re‐ tivities as a fundamentally antisemitic phenome‐ alizing how far she was from her parents' home non, carried out with the collusion of the non-Jew‐ by that point, she decided to stay with him. Her ish populace (pp. 9-11). The band chose its targets interrogators quizzed her thoroughly: Why did for their assumed possession of portable wealth she go to the woods? Why didn't she and her sister alone, suggests Fleck, and the bandits' state‐ resist? She was young, she says; they were afraid; ments--on how they identified targets and timed she was naive. This fascinating set of exchanges their attacks--supports his view. Bueckler was also brings us tantalizingly close--but never close as capable of colluding with some Jewish busi‐ enough--to a Julia Blasius who was probably nei‐ nessmen--to fence his stolen goods--as he was of ther as innocent or naive as she claimed nor as relieving others of their money. Nonetheless, culpable as her interrogators imputed. (Blasius readers of these documents will probably fnd was later sentenced to two years in the that the issue is thornier than Fleck's presentation <cite>Zuchthaus</cite>).[2] Scholars interest‐ of it in his introduction implies: they will be ed in the art of self-presentation will also fnd struck by the disproportionate number of Jewish food for thought in Bueckler's lengthy statements victims of attack, by the violence to persons those under interrogation. Fleck himself raises the victims reported, and by the perpetrators' con‐ question in his introduction of how to consider sciousness of each potential target's Jewish or these interrogations in light of discussions about non-Jewish identity. By allowing each of us to read how to define and how to learn from "Ego-Doku‐ the surviving written evidence, the CD-ROM has menten" (pp. 16-17). Bueckler's statements in his the potential to prepare a wider group of scholars defense appear to support an interpretation that to discuss what may have motivated the attackers aligns him politically with the poor and property‐ or enabled their activities. Having the docu‐ less. Although he acknowledged a role in each of 2 H-Net Reviews the ffty-three charges described in these docu‐ spite of the powerful search feature, the CD-ROM ments, he repeatedly pointed out that he was ad‐ format of this edition does seem under-exploited. mitting only to this or that robbery; he consistent‐ Aside from a brief introduction, its contents con‐ ly denied accompanying acts of violence or attrib‐ sist of text transcriptions accompanied by a fairly uted them to accomplices whom he tried but was simple table of contents and a few illustrations. unable to restrain. One overall effect is that For more elaborate background and supplemen‐ Bueckler seems disdainful toward the authorities' tary material, one can turn to the website of the excessive concern about mere (albeit substantial) 2003 exhibit "Schinderhannes: Prozess und property crimes. His stance hints that they should Urteil," the link for which is buried, regrettably, at be paying more attention to people who actually the end of Fleck's introduction (p. 19).[3] The web‐ do harm and, in taking that stance, Bueckler site supplies an extensive bibliography of primary seems to claim the higher moral ground in spite and secondary literature on the topic as well as a of his admissions. In addition, the matter-of-fact‐ guide to the trial. Any newcomer to the topic ness with which Bueckler appears to have de‐ would do well to access both the website and the scribed his methodical, well-planned robberies printed exhibition catalogue.[4] The latter (to and many of the mundanities surrounding them which Fleck made significant contributions) con‐ suggests that he was a careful, articulate speaker, tains not only the aforementioned bibliography fully in control of his emotions. He comes aston‐ (minus some recent publications), but also good ishingly close to persuading us, on occasion, that introductions to the history and structure of his activities were merely those of a day's work by French government and law in the Rhineland a professional who knew his job. Whether Bueck‐ along with maps and charts of the robber-band's ler, who was only about twenty-four years old at activities.

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