Kaspar Hauser Came to Town

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1:36Dana Schwartz:Hey, this is Dana Schwartz. Just one quick note of housekeeping. If you are listening to this on release day, today is also the release day of my brand new book, The Arcane Arts by S.D. Coverley. S.D. Coverley is the pen name I use for me and my friend and co-writer, Dan Fry. It is a magical fantasy book about a grad student and her professor studying illegal forbidden magic and solving a murder mystery while they do it. If that at all interests you, please pick up a copy of The Arcane Arts. We had a great time writing it, I really think. If you like this podcast, I think you'll enjoy it. That said, let's get into the episode.

2:19Dana Schwartz:Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manke. Listener discretion advised. On May 26, 1826, a cobbler named Georg Leonard Weichmann was walking through the town of Nuremberg. Even though it was the afternoon, the city was sparse, almost abandoned. It was a holiday, and many of the town's residents were off in the countryside, enjoying the nice spring weather. But something caught Wegman's eye as he walked. A young man, maybe a teenager of 16 or 17, stumbling awkwardly down a nearby hill. The boy was stocky, with an unusual lumbering gait and blue eyes that seemed to Wegman almost vacant.

3:13The boy shouted a phrase that can be translated to, Hey lad! A casual greeting that masters would use to greet their apprentices. Oddly casual for a teenager to use toward an adult man in his 50s, which Wegman was. The boy also called out the name of a street, and generously, Vigman agreed to help the strange vagrant boy to his destination. It soon became apparent that this boy only knew a few phrases, which he repeated over and over. One of those phrases was, I want to be a cavalryman like my father was. But where had this boy come from? a wandering stranger who stumbled out of the forest and into Nuremberg.

4:06Eventually, Wegman brought him to the police station, and more of the boy's story would emerge.

4:13Dana Schwartz:The boy's name was Casper Hauser, and according to him, and the letters he had been carrying on his person, he had lived his entire life up until this point in a solitary cell, raised entirely alone in isolation. A man wearing a mask had given him water and bread every day. On occasion, the water would be more bitter than normal, and Kasper Hauser would awaken the next day to find that his hair and nails had been cut and his straw had been changed. That was the extent of his human interaction. He didn't know the difference between night and day. The story was astonishing, and almost immediately, Caspar Hauser became famous around Europe, a strange, savage boy raised in conditions of such enthralling cruelty under such mysterious conditions.

5:18Dana Schwartz:Philosophers from the 17th century on had become fascinated by legends and stories of enfants savages, or children who were raised by animals, for what those stories might reveal about humanity. What was it that made us human? Was it something inherent inside of man, or was it something learned? There were also religious implications to these stories. Would a child raised by animals understand or know God? Would he be innocent of all of the sins of man, forever childlike? Beyond the salaciousness of his alleged origin, from the moment Kasper Hauser stumbled down the hill into Nuremberg, he became a symbol for the big philosophical questions that had been captivating Europe for a century.

6:13Dana Schwartz:A living experiment. As Martin Kitchen wrote in his book, Caspar Hauser, Europe's Child, quote, Here was a blank screen on which could be projected the fantasies of those with whom he came into close contact. Here was another of those wild children who people ancient mythology and who had appeared infrequently in Europe since the 14th century and had excited philosophers and medical men to speculate on the nature of men. But, of course, given just how salacious and mysterious this foundling child was, there was also going to be rumors. Why had this boy been hidden away for so long and under such extreme conditions, if not because those in power had a reason for doing it?

7:07Dana Schwartz:It sounds like something out of a fairy tale, that a lost, orphaned child might be something more than he first appears. But the rumors began swirling. Casper Hauser, they said, wasn't just a lost child. He was a lost prince. I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is Noble Blood. It's a fantasy, I think, that everybody has probably had at least once. A fantasy popularized by Sigmund Freud. That your parents secretly adopted you, and that your real parents are wealthy, powerful, royal. And so maybe it's inevitable that when a boy stumbled into Nuremberg under mysterious circumstances, the questions would begin swirling about who he really was and where he came from.

8:06Dana Schwartz:When Caspar Hauser first appeared, his walk unsteady and his language limited, he carried with him two letters. The first was purportedly written by his mother, announcing that his name was Caspar, He was born on April 30, 1812, and that his father, now deceased, had been a cavalryman of the 6th Regiment. The second letter was from Kasper Hauser's mysterious caretaker, or jailer, the masked man that Kasper recalled had brought him bread and water. The letter was addressed to Captain von Wessening, commander of the 6th Cavalry Regiment. It read, quote,

9:21Dana Schwartz:Ah, so anyone trying to figure out where Casper had come from would be hitting a dead end there. The letter continued, saying that Captain von Wessening could take the boy into his regiment or, quote, hang him by the chimney, the sort of cruelty one might expect from a man who kept a child imprisoned in a cell his entire life. When the people of Nuremberg asked Casper more questions, trying to get any more information from him, he only repeated, I want to be a cavalryman, as my father was, or don't know. He could also say horse. Casper was delivered to von Wessening's stable, but the captain was understandably confused and put off.

10:10A servant offered Casper beer and meat, but he refused.

10:14Dana Schwartz:He did, however, accept water and bread. He was brought to the police station, where they determined that Casper was able to write his own name and had basic familiarity with Christian prayers. His clothing was awkwardly sewn and ill-fitting. His boots were too small. The initial K was sewn into his jacket and his handkerchief. Among his personal effects were a rosary, a worn-out key, a prayer book, a few religious tracts, and most odd of all, allegedly a folded envelope of paper containing a bit of gold dust. But Casper had no papers, and given that he couldn't reply meaningfully to any questions, it was assumed he was a vagrant and he was sent to prison, although it was specified that given his strange circumstances, he would be locked up with, quote, decent prisoners instead of the other random vagrants and beggars.

11:22Kasper Hauser spent two months in prison in the castle in Nuremberg, during which time he became a tourist attraction,

11:30Dana Schwartz:with visitors stopping by in order to see the intriguing foundling raised in isolation. Casper seemed to be making remarkable progress with regards to his physical condition. Where he had been awkwardly lumbering when he first appeared, seemingly barely able to walk, he had been able to climb more than 90 steps up to his cell without a problem. Gradually, more details about Casper's life would come to light. Although notably, Casper had no ill will toward his captor, nor anger about how he was raised. Apparently, every morning when he woke up, he would find a loaf of black bread and a pitcher of water.

12:16Dana Schwartz:He had only two wooden horse toys and one wooden dog toy to play with, and a wooden lidded container that he used as a commode. His door was bolted on the outside, and wood was piled against the room's small windows so that he never saw sunlight, never learned the difference between night and day. One day, Casper had been given a sheet of paper and a pencil, and his anonymous captor reached into the dungeon room to teach Casper how to write his own name. He also taught him how to walk a few steps and taught him the simple phrases to repeat that he had said when he had first arrived in Nuremberg.

13:00And then Kasper Hauser, approximately 16 years old, was released into the wilds of human civilization. The people of Nuremberg could barely believe how cruel and strange this boy's saga had been. The president of the Bavarian Court of Appeals, a man named Anselm von Feuerbach, took a particular interest in investigating the case, and the city of Nuremberg itself formally adopted Kasper

13:30Dana Schwartz:Hauser, with donations raised to pay for his care and schooling. Casper was placed in the household of a man named Friedrich Dahmer, a schoolmaster and philosopher. Dahmer, understandably fascinated by Casper, began to treat him like a science experiment. Casper Hauser's physical condition continued to improve. He allegedly grew two inches in a single month. And according to Dahmer, his senses were astonishingly acute. He had an animal-like ability to see in the dark, to make out impossibly faint sounds, and to taste if his water had been diluted with even one drop of something else. Despite attempts to feed him a more varied diet, Casper only wanted bread and water, and only after a few months was he able to eat small amounts of meat.

14:29Occasionally, he would suffer extreme convulsions. Casper continued to learn remarkably fast.

14:37Dana Schwartz:Soon he was able to write and speak, identifying jokes even, and Dahmer discovered he had a talent for drawing. Dahmer was also interested in using Casper for homeopathic experiments and experiments with animal magnetism, a popular idea in 19th century Germany. He was given homeopathic tinctures, some of which made him sick. And he was frequently waved over with magnets and fed magnetized water, although personally I'm not sure exactly what they were trying to accomplish with that. As Kitchen wrote, quote, He was used as a guinea pig by cranks and amateurs who gained nothing from their experiments.

15:24He was so frightened of these experiments that it was impossible to tell whether the often violent reactions were caused by the homeopathic medicines or by sheer terror. When he was ill, the medicines he was given made him feel worse, and it seemed to him that the medical profession devoted its efforts towards torturing their unfortunate subjects and making the healthy sick. End quote. All the while, the mystery of his origin and his true identity continued to be the center of conversations around Nuremberg and all across Europe. Kasper Hauser, the abused, imprisoned child who escaped his mysterious confinement with an innocent, almost animal-like naivete, and who, now among humanity, was making enormous strides of progress.

16:20I mean, how could the writers resist? Was he really just a random foundling? It seemed unlikely. Why had there been such an effort to keep him hidden if not for the fact that Casper Hauser was secretly someone important? Consider the fact that he had been confined and imprisoned, but otherwise kept in remarkably good health and in hygienic conditions. No masked man had been identified, and there were no leads as to where Casper Hauser had actually come from, despite large rewards from police for any information.

17:02Dana Schwartz:Surely, people whispered, that was a sign that this was the work of rich and powerful people, able to cover their tracks so completely that they would never be caught. And despite the fact that he had barely been able to write his name, Casper Hauser was by this point fluent and quick to learn. There seemed to be something innately extraordinary about him. This was no ordinary boy, people believed. It seemed obvious that he was someone special, someone noble, someone royal even. But why had he been imprisoned and hidden away? And by who? And if he wasn't merely Casper Hauser, then who was he? Charles, the Grand Duke of Baden, hadn't been happy about the fact that he had to marry Stéphanie de Bournay.

17:58But Napoleon's France was becoming more powerful, and Stéphanie was Napoleon's de facto adopted

18:05Dana Schwartz:daughter, a relative of Napoleon's wife, Josephine. And so the Grand Duke married her. and despite the fact that the two didn't really get along, they managed to have five children. Unfortunately for them, none of their surviving children were male heirs. And so after Charles, the Grand Duke, died in 1818, the Duchy of Baden went to his uncle, Louis I. But maybe things weren't quite as straightforward as they seemed. Charles and Stephanie had had a son, an infant prince born on September 29, 1812. But the baby boy died after only a few weeks. But had he? When Casper Hauser appeared on the European scene, rumors began to spread that the current Duke, Louis' mother, had schemed to put her son on the throne by stealing away the rightful prince and replacing him in his bassinet with a sickly commoner.

19:15Dana Schwartz:Was Kasper Hauser the missing prince? With those rumors, in the words of Kitchen, Kasper Hauser, quote, wasn't just a symbol for primitive beauty and the purity of man's animal nature, but of the perfidity of the royal family, especially among the German radicals of the 19th century. To those who had already hated the nobility that they saw as corrupt and indulgent, it seemed perfectly in line with their cruelty that they might steal away a baby and torture him in isolation for a decade so that their own son might inherit a throne. Supporting Kasper Hauser as a missing prince became a way to attack and delegitimize the current regime.

20:07There were other theories about who Kasper Hauser was, if he was a noble. Maybe he was the son of a Hungarian countess or an English royal.

20:17Dana Schwartz:But something about his appearance and the peculiarity of his case led many to believe that something nefarious was going on. especially after the attack on Kasper Hauser's life in October of 1829. While living with the teacher, Dahmer, Kasper Hauser and his guardian had gotten into some small disagreements. Kasper was indulging in the dishonesties of a child, skipping school and not telling the truth about it. Dahmer was also getting a little frustrated with his quote-unquote scientific experiments on Casper, seeing that the more Casper adjusted to civilized society, the more he seemed to be losing whatever mystical quality he had had in the first place.

21:10One day in October of 1829, more than a year after Casper had first arrived in Nuremberg, Casper and Dahmer had quarreled after Casper had been caught playing hooky. The next day, Dahmer returned home to a startling scene.

21:27Dana Schwartz:Casper had a large gash on his forehead. It had dripped blood all the way from the outhouse through the first floor of the house. According to Casper, a hooded man had attacked him in the outhouse, shouting, you still have to die before you leave the city of Nuremberg. And though Casper wasn't able to see the man's face, he knew it was the man who had kept him captive all of those years, the mysterious man who had brought him bread and water and taught him how to write his own name. The incident garnered sympathy among Casper's supporters and renewed public interest in his case. One person who found himself fascinated by this strange story out of Germany was a British nobleman named Lord Stanhope.

22:19Stanhope was the nephew of Prime Minister William Pitt, but his immediate family was notably eccentric, and he himself was a much-remark-upon Germanophile. Stanhope met Caspar Hauser in May 1831, and he became obsessed, the sort of flair of quick intimacy that sometimes happens among new friends.

22:44Dana Schwartz:Stanhope declared that there was no doubt in his mind that Casper Hauser was, in fact, of noble birth, and he began to shower him with expensive presents. He gave Casper a life annuity of 500 goldens and 100 goldens as pocket money, which I'm sure was something of a weight off of the shoulders of the town administrators of Nuremberg, who had up until that point been paying for Caspar Hauser's upkeep. Within no time at all, Stanhope and Hauser were calling each other by their first names, so close that some speculated that the relationship was sexual in nature. Stanhope got it into his mind that Caspar Hauser's true mother was a Hungarian countess, and so he took Caspar on a trip to Hungary to see if anything might jog his memory.

23:34Though Hauser seemed to recognize a few Hungarian phrases, the trip itself did not prove anything, and ultimately it was a failure. And in failure, the eccentric, impatient Stanhope found that Hauser now left a bad taste in his mouth. With the same speed that had characterized the beginning of their friendship, now Stanhope turned against Caspar Hauser, This wholesome, wide-eyed innocent was now clingy and annoying, and though Stanhope had promised that he would take Hauser with him back to England, he changed his mind and instead deposited the young man in Ansbach with a schoolmaster and under the patronage of Anselm von Furbeck, that legal scholar and president of the Bavarian Court of Appeals I had mentioned earlier.

24:32Stanhope wasn't alone in souring on Caspar Hauser. There were plenty of people who saw him as a sideshow distraction, or else an abject fraud. To quote Kitchen again, quote, Many resented his fame, found his character unattractive, commented bitterly on his arrogance, his mendacity, and his absurd pretensions to gentility. It was grotesque to people of a conservative bent that this somewhat ridiculous figure should be the darling of assorted radicals, devotees of alternative medicine, and practitioners of experimental pedagogy. The anti-Husserians saw the whole fuss as further evidence of the absurdity of radical pretensions and as an underhand attack on the established order.

25:25End quote. But was it possible he wasn't just pretentious and absurd? Was it possible he was a complete fraud? Had he stabbed himself shallowly in the outhouse in order to garner sympathy? Was it possible Kasper Hauser had never been imprisoned at all, never raised in his strange isolation? After all, there was no proof of it. No criminal had been caught. It seemed that Kasper Hauser was simple-minded and innocent to some degree, but he also had a mean edge, and he could be vain and prone to small self-aggrandizing lies. Although even his sins could be explained away by his most ardent supporters.

26:17See? See how even a short time among the so-called civilized society corrupts the pure and innocent among us? The schoolmaster that Kasper Hauser was living with in Ansbach was named Johann Meyer. Meyer seemed uninterested and unwilling to indulge Hauser's behavior when he acted out. and he found the young man a job at a local law office doing menial work as a copyist. As a side note, it is extraordinary to imagine, just from a psychological development perspective, that if Kasper Hauser did in fact live his entire life in isolation, that five years after re-entering society, he would be capable of working a standard administrative job.

27:05But he was. Even so, Johann Mayer and Kasper Hauser didn't get along,

27:11Dana Schwartz:and on December 9th, 1833, they had a fight. Less than a week later, Kasper Hauser would have his final adventure, the last mysterious piece of the puzzle in his mysterious life. On December 14th, 1833, Kasper Hauser stumbled back into Johann Mayer's house, bleeding from a slash across his chest. While he gasped for air, he managed to explain what had happened to him. A stranger had found him in the Endback Court Gardens, had handed him a purse, and then, when Casper accepted it, had stabbed him. As Casper bled in Meyer's house, he tried to explain that they needed to find the purse. He had dropped it somewhere in the gardens, but Casper was going pale.