Kaspar Hauser: Strange 16-Year-Old Boy And Cryptic Notes In 1820s

The tale of Kaspar Hauser stands out from the crowd since he was murdered right after five years when he made an appearance claiming that he has been kept in a dark cell since his birth.

Kaspar Hauser, a 16-year-old child who claimed to have spent his entire life in a dark cell, inexplicably appeared in Germany in 1828. However, he was killed mysteriously five years later, and his identity is still unknown. He was the unfortunate main character in “The Case of the Captive Kid”, one of history’s odd mysteries. He had no idea how he got there or who he was. He was only able to speak a few simple words. He could not read or write at all which was strange, given his age.

In fact, he appeared to know nothing about the surrounding, and he needed to witness anything done multiple times before he could comprehend something as basic as sipping from a cup. The boy also exhibited a number of impolite actions, such as biting his nails and repeatedly rocking back and forth, which were all seen as highly impolite at the time. In addition, he insisted that he had been unaware of his own name until lately and had been imprisoned in a chamber. The question is where did he come from and where was he until 1828?

Who was Kaspar Hauser?

The 16-year-old boy showed up in the streets of Nuremberg, Germany, on May 26, 1828. He was in possession of a letter written to the captain of the 6th cavalry regiment. The youngster was reportedly put into his custody as a baby on October 7, 1812, and the author claimed that he had never let him “walk a single foot out of my (his) house.”

The captain should take the youngster in or hang him because the boy now wants to be a cavalryman “like his father was.” Another brief note was enclosed that claimed to be from his mother to his previous caregiver. It mentioned his name was Kaspar, his date of birth as April 30, 1812, and the fact that his father, a cavalryman in the 6th regiment, had passed away.

Kaspar asserted that for as long as he could remember, he had lived entirely by himself in a dimly lighted cell measuring little over one person’s bed in size, with just a straw bed to sleep on and a wooden horse for a toy. He continued by saying that the first person he ever interacted with was an enigmatic man who paid him a visit shortly after he was released. This man always took great care to keep his identity a secret from Kaspar.

I want to be a cavalryman like my father was.

“Horse! Horse!”

Kaspar Hauser

It was all the young boy would repeat when he was taken by a shoemaker named Weickmann to the home of Captain von Wessenig. Only sobs or the defiant declaration of “Don’t know” followed more demands. He was brought to the police department, where he was asked to sign his name as Kaspar Hauser. He demonstrated his knowledge of money, his ability to say a few prayers, and his ability to read a little, but he only answered a few questions and his vocabulary seemed to be very restricted. He was kept in prison as a homeless child since he gave no account of himself.

The people of Nuremberg Welcomed Kaspar Hauser

Hauser received financial support for his maintenance and schooling after being formally adopted by the town of Nuremberg. Johann Biberbach, a municipal official, Friedrich Daumer, a schoolteacher and speculative philosopher, and Johann Georg Meyer, a schoolteacher, were each entrusted with caring for him. Hauser started working as a copyist in the neighborhood legal firm in late 1832.

The Murder of Kasper Hauser

On December 14, 1833, five years later, Hauser returned home with a deadly wound on his left breast. According to him, a stranger brought him to the Ansbach Court Garden where he was stabbed while handing him a bag. Police officer Herrlein discovered a little violet handbag with a penciled message written in Spiegelschrift in the Court Garden after searching the area (mirror writing). The message is mentioned below:

Hauser will be able to tell you quite precisely how I look and from where I am. To save Hauser the effort, I want to tell you myself from where I come _ _ . I come from from _ _ _ the Bavarian border _ _ On the river _ _ _ _ _ I will even tell you the name: M. L. Ö.”

So, did the guy who had raised Kaspar Hauser as an infant stab him? The wound caused Hauser’s death on December 17, 1833.

Note left by Kaspar Hauser’s killer

Rumors of the time, presumably from as early as 1829, claimed that Kaspar Hauser was the hereditary prince of Baden who was born on September 29, 1812, and who passed away a month later. It was asserted that this prince had actually been switched with a dying baby and had actually made an appearance in Nuremberg 16 years later as “Kaspar Hauser.” Others speculated that he might have ancestors from England or Hungary.

Was Kasper Hauser a Fraud?

It was discovered that the two letters Hauser had on him were written by the same person considering the similarity between the handwriting. Letter analysts believed that Kaspar Hauser composed both of them himself after reading the second one (from his mother), which had the line, “He writes my handwriting exactly as I do.”

A wealthy British nobleman by the name of Lord Stanhope spent a large deal of money trying to determine Hauser’s ancestry after taking an interest in him and obtaining custody of him late in 1831. He specifically paid for two trips to Hungary in an effort to spark the boy’s memory because Hauser had previously claimed that the Hungarian Countess Maytheny was his mother and appeared to recall certain Hungarian terms.

Hauser did not identify any Hungarian structures or monuments, though. The sheer failure of these probes, Stanhope later said, made him question Hauser’s credibility. However, a lot of people think that Hauser accidentally stabbed himself too deeply and self-inflicted the wound. Hauser fabricated every detail of his assassination because he was unhappy with his surroundings and still held out hope that Stanhope would take him to England as he had promised. He did it in an effort to pique interest in his story among the general public and to convince Stanhope to keep his word.

The University of Münster examined bodily cells and hair from clothing articles and hair allegedly belonging to Kaspar Hauser in 2002. The DNA samples were compared to a portion of Astrid von Medinger’s DNA, a female descendent of Stéphanie de Beauharnais who, if Kaspar Hauser had been the hereditary prince of Baden, would have been his mother. The sequences were not similar, but the observed variation is not significant enough to rule out a link because a mutation could be to blame.

Everyone who heard about Kaspar Hauser’s situation was perplexed. How could a person so young spend their entire life in prison without anyone noticing? Why Hauser didn’t know basics like what letters or numbers were after spending so much time in solitary confinement is stranger.

People speculated that he might be mentally ill or a fake prison escapee. Whatever transpired, it is still possible that Kaspar Hauser’s life was endangered by the political snare of the day. Kaspar Hauser had in fact been held hostage for many years prior to making an appearance in public, it was discovered after further investigation into his claim. Who held him captive for such a long time and how this transpired are still unknown at this point.

Well, what do you think of this case? Let us know in the comments section.

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