Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Killer Priest The Crimes Trial and Execution of Father Hans Schmidt by Mark Gado The Crazy Story Of Hans Schmidt, The Killer Priest. There are plenty of records that you might want to hold. Only athlete to play in both the Super Bowl and the World Series? Sounds good. Only thespian to have won three Oscars for Best Actor? Awesome. Hans Schmidt holds one of those kinds of records, but it's not one you'd be jealous of. As The New York Daily News reports, Schmidt is the only Catholic priest to ever be executed. In fact, Schmidt was very much unlike any Catholic priest you've ever known or heard about, even if your opinion of priests in general isn't very good. His story shocked the entire country more than a century ago, and even looking back from the modern day it's difficult to believe he actually existed. If Schmidt was a character in a gritty thriller novel, people would say he was too over-the-top. But Schmidt did exist, and his story is one you won't forget. It involves literal blood lust, promiscuity, religious delusion, murder, and forbidden affairs — not to mention forgery, abuse, and creative interpretations of the Catholic Mass. In other words, here's the crazy story of Hans Schmidt, the killer priest. Hans Schmidt's family had a history of mental illness. Hans Schmidt was born in Germany in 1881 to Heinrich and Gertrude Schmidt. Heinrich worked for the railroad, and Gertrude was a stay-at- home mother to their ten children, and the family was well-regarded in the small town of Aschaffenberg. But as historian Mark Gado notes, the Schmidt family showed a lot of signs of mental instability. Most notably, Hans' mother, Gertrude, showed little capability for raising ten children more or less on her own. Heinrich was away a great deal, leaving it to Gertrude to take care of the household. She became depressed and began attending church services constantly, and when she wasn't at church she sat in her room reciting the rosary instead of cooking or caring for her children. And Heinrich had anger issues. A Protestant, Heinrich opposed his wife's Catholicism and would fly into terrible rages when he discovered she'd resumed attending mass when he went away on business trips. His rages prompted Hans to hide in his room. But as Gado makes clear, the history of mental illness in the Schmidt family went much deeper. Hans' great-grandfather was an alcoholic who suffered a mental break, his great-uncle, great-aunt, and cousin all committed suicide, and another cousin spent the last portion of her life in a mental institution. His parents were kind of crazy. Heinrich Schmidt was outwardly a well-respected member of German society. He had a good job with the local railroad and a well-tended property with a thriving garden that supplemented his family's groceries nicely. But Heinrich had a dark secret — a terrifying temper. He was a man of fixed ideas about the proper ways to behave, and his solution to any whiff of disobedience from his family was to physically beat them. As historian Mark Gado notes, whenever his son's strange behavior came to Heinrich's attention, he would beat the boy in an attempt to discipline him. And when his wife, Gertrude, continued to practice the Catholic religion despite his stern disapproval, he would beat her mercilessly to discourage it. Meanwhile, Hans Schmidt's mother was depressed and lonely and found solace retreating into religious fanaticism. She attended mass twice a day when her husband was away and spent much of her time in her room reciting the rosary. As reported by Hushed Up History, as Hans grew older, she would dress him in priestly clothes she made herself and practice the mass with him at a homemade altar they'd created. His nickname as a child was "The Little Priest" as a result. Hans Schmidt was a very strict—and very bad—Catholic. You might think that anyone who enters the priesthood must be a very religious person and deeply committed Catholicism — and you would be right. After a childhood spent dressing as a priest and practicing the Catholic Mass with his mother in her bedroom, Hans Schmidt duly entered the seminary to study for the priesthood at the age of 19. But as historian Mark Gado makes clear, Schmidt had some very strange ideas about what it meant to be a good Catholic. At a very young age, Schmidt began to explore his sexuality with both boys and girls despite the clear prohibition of the Catholic Church in such matters. In fact, Schmidt was bisexual and quite promiscuous his entire life, engaging in sexual affairs with men and women even after becoming a priest. As author Mark Grossman notes, he was having an affair with a man named Ernest Muret even after "marrying" a woman and fathering a child with her. Worse, he was also a pedophile. Historian Mark Gado notes that he confessed to being obsessed with the altar boys who assisted him and even confessed to having impure thoughts about them. And then there's the whole thing where Schmidt murdered someone, which is a very un-Catholic thing to do. As a child he was fascinated with human blood. There are often warning signs that someone is going to grow up to be disturbed. When it comes to Hans Schmidt, there were plenty of such signs. Schmidt exhibited a disturbing affection for human blood and suffering from an early age. As reported by The New York Daily News , Schmidt spent much of his childhood hanging around slaughterhouses because he found the blood and suffering of the animals to be arousing, and he even used human blood in strange religious rituals he invented. According to historian Mark Gado, he and another boy named Fritz would meet at the slaughterhouse and engage in masturbation together, and he began to kill small animals like chickens and rabbits for his religious rituals. His father would beat him when he was caught lurking around the slaughterhouse, but it never deterred him for long. Schmidt was often observed walking around at night, stopping suddenly and standing still for long periods, and frequently referred to hearing the "voice of God" in a very literal sense. As noted by Murder Revisited, Schmidt was obsessed with Catholic ritual from a very early age and liked to dress as a priest as a child, practicing the mass and other aspects of the religion with his mother. There were plenty of clues to Schmidt's mental instability. Hans Schmidt was arrested for forgery. Some criminals are satisfied to focus on a single specialty. Hans Schmidt was the sort of criminal who had a wide variety of immoral and illegal interests. Aside from eventually becoming a murderer and a very, very bad priest, he was also an accomplished forger. In fact, as historian Mark Gado reports, shortly before being ordained, Schmidt was arrested in Munich on charges of forging graduation certificates for students who had failed out of school. His father hired a lawyer for him, who successfully argued that Schmidt's family had a long history of mental illness and was therefore not responsible for his poor judgment. The argument worked, and Schmidt was sentenced to a month at a local sanitarium, and the church allowed him to continue his studies. Later, while serving as a parish priest in New York, Schmidt continued to dabble in forgery and counterfeiting. As noted by Hushed Up History, Schmidt was involved in a counterfeiting ring in Harlem making fake $10 and $20 bills — but he wasn't terribly smart about it, as Gado reports that his $20 bills all had the same serial number, making them very easy to spot and trace. He claimed he was ordained by a saint. By the time Hans Schmidt had completed his seminary studies and was ready to be ordained as a priest, his reputation was ruined in Germany. As historian Mark Gado recounts, because he'd already been arrested for forgery and had a reputation as a strange and unreliable man, his ordination was conducted by the bishop in private, with no witnesses or ceremony to mark what was typically a joyous occasion. In fact, as Gado writes, just about everyone who had any experience with Schmidt had serious doubts about his fitness for the priesthood. By the time the bishop ordained him in Mainz, Germany, he had a reputation for having sexual affairs with both men and women and was a frequent guest of the local taverns. When asked about his ordination, Schmidt often refused to speak about it, but he also claimed that the official ceremony didn't count — because his actual ordination had been conducted by Saint Elizabeth. "The real ordination took place the night before. St. Elizabeth, she ordained me herself," he said. "I was praying at my bedside when she appeared to me and said, 'I ordain you to the priesthood.' She then disappeared. There was light during her appearance." Hans Schmidt got creative with the mass. Despite his obvious mental health issues and problematic behavior, Hans Schmidt was ordained a Catholic priest in 1906 and was assigned to the small village of Burgel in Germany. This did not go well. As historian Mark Gado notes, Schmidt seemed disinterested in his parishioners and often skipped services altogether, which upset the community. Worse, as noted by The New York Daily News , Schmidt didn't stick to the Catholic script.