Kasper Hauser

[Sukato-San]

Hey, I was wondering if anyone knows about or has anything to say about Kasper Hauser. I read about him years ago, and I don't remember much about the particulars. Thanks!

[Althalus]

Ah yes, the man that just turned up out of the blue, and landed a cushy place at the side of a wealthy man, and also travelled europe being examined by all sorts of doctors.

It was found recently that he was most likely mentally ill, and that his parents had abandoned him after keeping him locked up for most of his life.

I have quite a bit on him, I'll post it when i find it out

[Sukato-San]

You know, I might have read something similar... I guess there is a psychological... thing regarding people being uber-sensitive to light and only being able to eat one thing (like bread). Any info you have would really be apprecaited. Thanks!!!!!

(Thanks for moving the thread... Wasn't sure where to post it.)

[Althalus]

I have found the latest research into the story of Kaspar Hauser, and I will be putting bits of it here next week. When i get a chance.

[AndyThorley]

Ive got a massive essay on this guy, but Ill only post a few things, cause I dont wanna steal Al's thunder.

Arrived in neuremburg on May 26th 1828 when he was assumed to be about 17-20. George Weichmann finally stopped the boy and asked him where he was from. The boy simply held a letter "being addressed to the captain of the 4th cavalry 6th regiment in Neuremburg,"

When taken to the captain and presented with all he could eat, Kaspar would only touch bread and water before he walked over to a candle and tried to pick up the flame.

Kaspar seemed to treat things on a black and white basis-living and dead. for instance, the clock scared him and he thought it was alive or if someone rolled a ball to him he would treat it like a pet and stroke it as if it were alive.

--

Thats all I can remember (and all I can give since claire is asleep right now )

Hope it helped anyway...

[Althalus]

These are extracts from Antonio Melechi's survey of the information about Kaspar Hauser:

Kaspar staggered into Neuremburg on the 26th May 1828, he was 16 years old and could not express himself, he was dressed in peasant clothes, and he was throughout his life plied with memories and encouraged to take on different roles.

His first contact in Neuremburg was with a shoemaker by he name of Weismann, to whom he handed a letter addressed 'To the well born captain of the Fourth Squadron of the Sixth regiment of Light Horses in Neuremburg'. he was escorted to Captain Wessenig's house and immediatly said 'I want to be such a one that my father was.' Asked what he meant, his reply was 'Dunno'. As further questions provoked tears, groans and convulsions, the seeming wild boy was taken to the stables and aloud to sleep.

Wessnig did not recognise the boy, he later said that he thought the boy was behaving like a small child which was not like to his size, and that he seemed to have been totally neglected.

Hauser was still unable to reveal anything about himself, and was taken to the police. Not knowing what to do with him, one officer then handed him a pen and ink, where Kaspar wrote Kaspar Hauser in firm and legible letters.

The letter to the captain seems to have been from a day labourer who claimed to have raised the boy from 1812, having not 'allowed him to take a single step out of the house so that noboidy knows the place where he was brought'.

The letter also asked that his guardian not torture him with questions and to let him be a Schwolische, or else 'hang him up in the chimney'. A further note in latin, gave that the boy was baptised Kaspar and was born 13th April 1812.

For the next 2 months he was kept in Vestner Gate Tower.

More to come soon.

[AndyThorley]

Ill let Al take this one from here...

Good schtuff, dude...

[Althalus]

From the beginning it was no ordinary incarceration. Beguiled by the 'natural innocence of everything he did', his jailor Andreas Hiltel, took an unusual interest in his welfare, housing Kaspar in his own rooms downstairs, and away from the jails themselves. During this time, Kaspar recieved a stream of official visitors. And as his fame grew, so did the rumours of his real identity and origins. To the very end, Hiltel remained convinced that Kaspar had been 'forcibly deprived of all education and opportunities for mental development' and that this neglect accounted for his 'childlike innocence'.

The Mayor of Nueremburg, Jakob Friedrich Binder, started municiple enquiries, when he arrived with the State Medical Officer, Dr. Preu.

After a series of examinations, Dr. Preu was able to determine that Kaspar was 4ft 9ins, and that he had a broad bild, and delicate limbs. That he was probably 16-17 years old, and that the unusual formation of his kneessuggested that he had endured some form of physical constraint. As for his mental state, Preu said that it was signatory to the opinion that 'this personis neither crazy nor an idiot, but evidently had been raised like a half-wild person, had been forcibly and in the most heinous way removed from all forms of human and societal education'.

Mayor Binder's public proclomation, delivered on the 14th July, went somewhat further. Hauser was, he claimed, no ordinary wild boy, he was endowed with an 'enormous intellectual curiosity and an extraordinary memory'. To Binder's mind, this suggested noble birth.

Also, from conversations with Kaspar, Binder thought he had an idea as to what Kaspar had endured:

He had been locked in a small, narrow, low room.

He had never seen the sun.

He heard and saw no one. ('bar the monster who handed him his only nourishment, bread and water').

more to come.

[Althalus]

Binder provided acomprehensive account of Kaspar's imprisonment and passage to the edge of a 'big village', and declared that Kaspar's condition - his broken speech and his inability to grasp abstract and metaphysical concepts - was a direct consequence of these terrible experiences.

Certain that a crime had been comminted against Kaspar, Binder's proclamation requested further information, hinting at a generous reward. By touting the posibility of Kaspar's blue blood, this document played an important part in turning Kaspar into the talk of the German salons. But the official version of Kaspar's captivity was never roundly believed.

Doubts were immediately expressed about the reliability of the 'memories' that had been teased from his impoverished mind. Government officials took these critisisms seriously, and the remaining copies of Binder's proclomation were quickly withdrawn.

By this time, speculation was rife, in particulaer the rumour that Kaspar was the son of the Grand Duke Karl of Baden and Pirincess Stephanie de Beauharnais, and as such the adoptive son of Napoleon.

Official investigation into the case was carried out by Anselm Ritter von Feuerbach, president of the Bavarian Court of Appeals ad the countries most prominent criminal lawyer. Days before Binder's proclomation had gone to press, Feuerbach had travelled to Nueremburg from nearby Ansbach.

He arrived to find that Kaspar had become a one-man side-show.

Entering the small neat room, that was furnished with gifts, Feuerbach and his party found Kaspar 'anything but shy or timid'. Transfixed by their bright clothes and uniforms, Kaspar approached them quickly and with obvious glee. During the introductions, he scrutinised the face of each visitor. Though he was still prone to spasms, convulsions and breif periods of catalepsy, he had extended his vocabulary, and could nowexpress himself in 'badly jumbled syntax' (which lacked pronouns and used verbs only in the infinitive).

more to come.

[Althalus]

Concerned with Kaspar's health, Feuerbach placed him with Friedrich Daumer, a young teacher and would-be poet, who in turn would relay his observations back to him, as Feuerbach's interest in Kaspar was both 'human and scientific'. Under Daumer's tutelage, Kaspar could be placed in an environment where he could be stimulated and intensively obsereved.

On being transferred to Daumer's home, Kasper became lodged in a world of a man whose ideas were essentially romantic and mystical. A student of the dreaming and somnolent mind, Daumer had, through ill health, come to explore homeopathy, mesmerism and pneumenology. Dauner was thus easily disposed to believe that Kaspar's imprisonment and suffering had made him privvy to an 'inner state', to a magnetic force that stimulated preternatural faculties. Daumer noted during this time that all of Kaspar's senses were remarkably accute.

His vision enabled him to see better at twilight.

At 20 yards he could make out and read house numbers that he could not read during the day.

His hearing and other senses weer no less prodigious. Inordinately sensetive to thunderstorms, churches, spiders and flowers, he alsways opicked up distant smells, everything seemed to effect him too deeply.

Having helped Kaspar make good progress in his 3 R's, Daumer decided that the structured environment was having a detrimental effect on his health, triggering severe headaches, tics and nervous debilitation. As a result Daumer allowed Kaspar to spend time outdoors.

[Ronin6th]

The psychological thing, like you say Sukato, is what is called the Wild Child Myth, I'm not very skilled in that field but it's something like a theory that the personnality of a child is shaped by his surroundings and the socio-cultural relationships...

Tarzan could be a good example...

I would like to give you sources, but I cannot check the whole content of the sites found...

[Althalus]

Doctor Preu at this time had been replaced with a Dr. Osterhausen, and daumer was helped by the new Dr when they administered the various homeopathic treatments to Kaspar. These invariably stimulated a marked response. Diluted sulphur made Kasper's face blister, Silica made him vomit and apart from Nux Vomica which had the effect of relieving many of his symptoms all the other treatments had a distressing effect on him.

Kasper underwent other tests in this period:

First, his sensitivity to magnets and metals was tested, and he was found to be able to identify materials by the pulling force they exerted on him.

Then, as Daumer and his colleagues turned there attentions to Kasper's former life, he was encouraged to keep a journal to record his private thoughts and memories.

This history was reworked in a series of episodes which suggested that his memory of captivity and arrival in Neuremburg was awakening.

In February 1882 he was able to describe 'the prison in which I was obliged to live until my release. Daumer suggested that his memories that were reperessed in his waking hours, may be brought up to the surface in his dreams, and to this end, he wencouraged Kaspar to reord and talk about his dreams. According to Daumer his first dream was Mayor Binders wife who he had dreamed had come to his bed and asked how his headache was.

The next day when Kaspar reported that the mayor's wife had come and taken away his headache in the night, he was unable to be shaken from the belief.

[Sukato-San]

Wow.... I didn't remember it being like that... Someone killed him, right?

[Althalus]

In the end it appears he was, but that is in a bit, I'll be able to put the rest of the story up during this week.

[Althalus]

Speculation on Kaspar's origins had begun as early as Jult 1828, but it was not until the following year, when an attempt was made on Kaspar's life, that the question of his origins became central to his mystery.

Since there were no witnesses to the attack that took place on 17 October 1829, many suspected that thw wound to his forehead was self-inflicted and that the -black silk scarf that covered the whole of his head' existed only in his imagination. Feuerbach, took the incident seriously however. Still fearing for his life, Kaspar was given a police escort and taken to the home of Johann Biberbach. Six months later, his guardianship was passed on to Baron Tucher, who maintained contact with Kaspar throughout his Neuremburg odyssey.

During Tucher's guardianship, 'the development of his character was unable to make any important progress... he resemble a man of 18-20 years, although his mental capacity was that of a 13-14 years old boy.'

All the same he was good hearted and eager to please. Tucher was sure that any bad habits he had were the result of mistreatment during the first few months. Tucher ensured that Kaspar's education continued and even found him a job as a copyist in a legal office.

It was at this time that Lord Philip Henry Stanhope, Kaspar's next foster-father arrived in Neuremburg. having failed to meet Kasper on a previous visit, Stanhope now insinuated himself into Kasper's coterie. After maiking some flamboyant gestures to the authorities and kasper, Stanhope was grnated full guardianship.

Promosing that he would eventually take Kaspar back to his family home at Chenevix, Stanhope arranged for Kaspar to be sent to Ansbach, where he was to become the hapless beneficiary of a certain Johan Georg Meyer's tireless pedagogy.

On 14 December 1833, the final phase of the enigma began.

Kaspar arrived at Dr Meyer's house and collapsed on the floor clutching at his chest. He had been stabbed, the kife peircing his left side and damaging his lungs and liver.

Kasper gave descriptions of the assailant to police whom he said had attacked him in Ansbach's City Park, but police found only Kaspar's wallet at the spot where the attak had taken place.

Three days later on 17 December 1833, Kaspar Hauser was dead.

[AndyThorley]

And on the spot where he died they erected a statue reading (in Latin)

"On this place for mysterious reasons one mysterious figure was murdered by another mysterious figure"

And not far away is his tombstone which reads

"Here lies the riddle of our time. His birth was unknown, his death, mysterious"

[Kismit]

Thank you Al , your research as usuall is outstanding ......

[bluesky21]

why a statue for a crazy guy? you don't see statues around any madhouses that i know of.

[Sukato-San]

Bizarre.... Perhaps he was royalty after all.

[Althalus]

This is a picture of the Kapsar Hauser Monument at Ansbach, germany.

[PurpleStuart]

Facinating, Thanks Al!

[AndyThorley]

why a statue for a crazy guy? you don't see statues around any madhouses that i know of.

Imagine if bigfoot came to us and said "Excuse me gentlemen, but I have the key to the universe. Its..." and then he was shot and killed so they erected a statue reading "Here lies bigfoot. One helluva huge monkey-thing"

Would you then shout that they dont build memorials to the chimps in the zoo?

[Phantom]

Good point Andy!

[Kryso]

It reminded me of the true-life story that was portrayed by Jody Foster; called Nell.

Below is the description of the movie.

Nell (Foster) is discovered by the deputy and the local doctor (Neeson) just after her mother is found dead. Nell, a grown woman, appears to have had no contact with anyone other than her mother since she was born. The result is that she seems to speak some strange unknown language.

Neeson seeks out the help of the psychiatrist from the local university to try to decrypt Nell's speech. Unfortuantely, the university has other plans and would like to bring Nell in for observation. Neeson manages to block the efforts of the university and Nell is to be observed for three months to determine whether she can survive on her own.

Neeson and the university psychiatrist set up separate camps outside Nell's cabin and the investigation begins. Neeson and the psychiatrist slowly learn the pattern of Nell's speech. In the meantime they also begin to learn about each other. Nell's speech turns out to be a heavily accented vairant of English and Nell can take care of herself. But, Nell knows nothing of the world and when a reporter stumbles across the story of a Wild Woman in the woods, the outside world comes crashing in.

[DrStrangelove]

I have not read the entire thread so forgive me if someone has already posted this information.

I read in a book once that Kasper Hauser was a guy who could do some pretty amazing things. I read that his knees were multi-jointed to the point where he could bend them in a concave manner. I also read he had amazing sight in night yet horrible in the day (due to his years of confinement in the dark). It was once reported that he saw a spider spining a moth that was caught in its web quite some distance away. I read all this information in a book called 'The Mammoth Encyclopedia of the Unsolved.' It is an exelent read and I will probably end up making many references to it during my stay here at this awesome website.

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