| Kaspar Hauser | |
|---|---|
 Contemporary painting of Hauser |
|
| Born | 30 April 1812 (?) Unknown |
| Died | 17 December 1833 (aged 21?) Ansbach, Germany |
| Cause of death | Stab wound |
| Residence | Bavaria |
| Known for | Mysterious origins and untimely death |
| Parents | Unknown |
Kaspar Hauser (30 April 1812 (?) – 17 December 1833) was a German youth who claimed to have grown up in the total isolation of a darkened cell. Hauser's claims, and his subsequent death by stabbing, sparked much debate and controversy.
Theories at the time, long since rejected by professional historians,[1] linked him with the princely House of Baden.
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On 26 May 1828, a teenage boy appeared in the streets of Nuremberg, Germany. He carried a letter with him addressed to the captain of the 4th squadron of the 6th cavalry regiment, Captain von Wessenig. Its heading read: "Von der Bäierischen Gränz / daß Orte ist unbenant / 1828" ("From the Bavarian border / The place is unnamed [sic] / 1828"). The anonymous author said that the boy had been given into his custody, as an infant, on 7 October 1812, and that he had instructed him in reading, writing and the Christian religion, but had never let him "take a single step out of my house". The letter stated that the boy would now like to be a cavalryman; thus, the captain should take him in or hang him.
There was another short letter enclosed, purporting to be from his mother to his prior caretaker. It stated that his name was Kaspar, that he was born on 30 April 1812, and that his father, a cavalryman of the 6th regiment, was dead. In fact this letter was found to have been written by the same hand as the other one (whose line: "he writes my handwriting exactly as I do" led later analysts to assume that Kaspar himself had written both of them[2]).
Shoemaker Weickmann took the boy to the house of Captain von Wessenig, where he would repeat only the words "I want to be a cavalryman, as my father was" and "Horse! Horse!" Further demands elicited only tears, or the obstinate proclamation of "Don't know". He was taken to a police station, where he would write a name: Kaspar Hauser. He showed that he was familiar with money, could say some prayers, and read a little; but he answered few questions, and his vocabulary appeared to be rather limited.[3]
He spent the following two months in Vestner Gate Tower, in the care of a jailer named Andreas Hiltel. Despite what many later accounts would say, he was in good physical condition and could walk well; for example, he climbed over ninety steps to his room. He was of a "healthy facial complexion"[4] and approximately sixteen years old, but appeared to be intellectually impaired. Mayor Binder, however, claimed that the boy had an excellent memory and was learning quickly. Various curious people visited him, to his apparent delight. He refused all food except bread and water.
At first it was assumed that he had been raised half-wild in forests, but during many conversations with Mayor Binder, Hauser told a different version of his past life, which he later also wrote down in more detail. According to this story, he had, for as long as he could think back, spent his life totally alone in a darkened cell about two meters long, one meter wide, and one and a half high, with only a straw bed to sleep on and a horse carved out of wood for a toy.
He claimed that he had found bread and water next to his bed each morning. Periodically the water would taste bitter, and drinking it would cause him to sleep more heavily than usual. On such occasions, when he had awakened, his straw had been changed, and his hair and nails had been cut. Hauser claimed that the first human being with whom he had ever had contact had been a mysterious man who had visited him not long before his release, always taking great care not to reveal his face to him. This man, Hauser said, had taught him to write his name by leading his hand. After having learned to stand and to walk, he had then been brought to Nuremberg. Furthermore, the stranger allegedly had taught him to say the phrase "I want to be a cavalryman, as my father was" (in Bavarian dialect), but Hauser claimed that he had not understood what these words meant.
This tale, still famous today, aroused great curiosity and made Hauser an object of international attention. Rumours arose that he was of princely parentage, possibly of Baden origin, but there were also claims that he was an impostor.
Paul Johann Anselm Ritter von Feuerbach, president of the Bavarian court of appeals, began to investigate the case. Hauser was given into the care of Friedrich Daumer, a schoolmaster and speculative philosopher, who taught him various subjects, and who thereby discovered his talent for drawing. He appeared to flourish in this environment. Daumer also subjected him to homeopathic treatments and magnetic experiments. As Feuerbach told the story, "When Professor Daumer held the north pole [of a magnet] towards him, Caspar put his hand to the pit of his stomach, and, drawing his waistcoat in an outward direction, said that it drew him thus; and that a current of air seemed to proceed from him. The south pole affected him less powerfully; and he said that it blew upon him."[5]
On 17 October 1829, Hauser did not come to the midday meal, but was found bleeding from a cut wound on the forehead, in the cellar of Daumer's house. He asserted that while sitting on the privy he had been attacked and wounded by a hooded man who had also threatened him with the words: "You still have to die ere you leave the city of Nuremberg." Hauser said that by the voice he had recognized the man as the one who had brought him to Nuremberg. As was obvious from his blood trail, Hauser had at first fled to the first floor where his room was, but then, instead of moving on to his caretakers, he had returned downstairs, and had climbed through a trap door into the cellar. Alarmed officials called for a police escort and transferred him to the care of Johann Biberbach, one of the municipal authorities. The alleged attack on Hauser also fuelled rumours about his possible descent from the House of Baden. Hauser's critics are of the opinion that he had inflicted the wound on himself with a razor, which he had then taken back to his room before going to the cellar.[6] He might have done so to arouse pity and thus escape chiding for a recent quarrel with Daumer, who had come to believe that the boy had a tendency to lie.[7]
On 3 April 1830, a pistol shot went off in Hauser's room at the Biberbachs' house. His escort hurriedly entered the room and found him bleeding from a wound to the right side of his head. Hauser quickly revived and stated that he had climbed on a chair to get some books, the chair had fallen, and while trying to hold on to something he had accidentally torn down the pistol hanging on the wall, causing the shot to go off. There are doubts whether the (benign) wound had actually been caused by the shot, and some authors associate the incident with a preceding quarrel in which, again, Hauser had been reproached for lying.[8] Whatever the case, the occurrence led the municipal authorities to come to another decision on Hauser, whose initially good relationship with the Biberbach family had soured. In May 1830, he was transferred to the house of Baron von Tucher,[9] who later also complained about Hauser's exorbitant vanity and lies. Perhaps the sharpest judgement passed on Hauser was the one by Mrs. Biberbach, who commented on his "horrendous mendacity", his "art of dissimulation", and called him "full of vanity and spite".[10]
A British nobleman, Lord Stanhope, took an interest in Hauser, and gained custody of him late in 1831. He spent a great deal of money attempting to clarify Hauser's origin. In particular, he paid for two visits to Hungary, as Hauser seemed to remember some Hungarian words. Stanhope later declared that the complete failure of these inquiries had led him to doubt Hauser's credibility. In December 1831, he transferred Hauser to Ansbach, to the care of a schoolmaster named Johann Georg Meyer, and in January 1832 Stanhope left Hauser for good. Stanhope continued to pay for Hauser's living expenses, but never made good on his promise that he would take him to England. After Hauser's death, Stanhope published a book in which he presented all known evidence against Hauser, taking it as his duty "openly to confess that I had been deceived."[11] Followers of Hauser suspect Stanhope of ulterior motives and connections to the House of Baden, but academic historiography defends him as a philanthropist, a pious man, and a seeker of truth.[12]
Schoolmaster Meyer, a strict and pedantic man, disliked Hauser's many excuses and apparent lies, and their relationship was thus rather strained. In late 1832, Hauser was given employment as a copyist in the local law office. Still hoping that Stanhope would take him to England, he was much dissatisfied with his situation, which deteriorated further when his patron, Anselm von Feuerbach, died in May 1833. This certainly was a grievous loss to him.[13] (Some authors, however, point out that Feuerbach had, by the end of his life, apparently stopped believing in Hauser; at least he had written a note, to be found in his legacy, which read: "Caspar Hauser is a smart scheming codger, a rogue, a good-for-nothing that ought to be killed."[14] But there is no indication that Feuerbach, already seriously ill, had let him feel this change of opinion.)
On 9 December 1833, Hauser had a serious argument with Meyer. Lord Stanhope was expected to visit Ansbach at Christmas, and Meyer said that he did not know how he would face him.
Five days later, on 14 December 1833, Hauser came home with a deep wound in his left breast. He said that he had been lured to the Ansbach Court Garden, and that a stranger had stabbed him there while giving him a bag. When Policeman Herrlein searched the Court Garden, he found a small violet purse containing a pencilled note in "Spiegelschrift" (mirror writing). The message read, in German:
| “ | 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 even want to tell you the name: M. L. Ö. | ” |
The wound in Hauser's chest proved to be fatal, and he died on 17 December 1833.
Inconsistencies in Hauser's account led the Ansbach court of enquiry to suspect that he had stabbed himself and invented a tale about being attacked. The note in the purse that was found in the Court Garden contained one spelling error and one grammatical error, both of which were typical for Hauser, who, on his deathbed, kept muttering incoherencies about "writing with pencil". Although he had been very eager that the purse be found, he did not ask for its contents. The note itself was folded in a specific triangular form – just the way Hauser used to fold his letters, according to Mrs. Meyer. Forensic doctors agreed that the wound could indeed be self-inflicted. Many authors[15] believe that he had wounded himself in a bid to revive public interest in his story, and to convince Stanhope to fulfil his promise to take him to England, but that he had then stabbed himself more deeply than planned.[16]
Hauser was buried in a country graveyard; his headstone reads, in Latin, "Here lies Kaspar Hauser, riddle of his time. His birth was unknown, his death mysterious." A monument to him was later erected in the Court Garden which reads Hic occultus occulto occisus est: "Here a mysterious one was killed in a mysterious manner."
The story about Hauser's alleged incarceration is nowadays widely[17] seen as incompatible with modern medical knowledge of hospitalism (as achieved by researchers such as René Spitz), and moreover as discredited by numerous contradictions[18] in Hauser's various accounts of the story. Psychiatrist Karl Leonhard concluded: "If he had been living since childhood under the conditions he describes, he would not have developed beyond the condition of an idiot; indeed he would not have remained alive long. His tale is so full of absurdities that it is astonishing that it was ever believed and is even today still believed by many people."[19]
Dr. Heidenreich, one of the physicians present at the autopsy, claimed that the brain of Kaspar Hauser was notable for small cortical size and few, non-distinct cortical gyri – indicating to some that he had suffered from cortical atrophy or, as G. Hesse argued, from epilepsy.[20] But it is doubtful that Heidenreich was right. Dr. Albert, who conducted the autopsy and wrote the official report, disagreed; according to him, Hauser's brain did not show any anomalies. The physician P. J. Keuler showed in a 1997 study that Heidenreich was an adherent to phrenology, and may have been misled by phrenological ideas when examining Hauser's brain.[21] Karl Leonhard also rejected the views of both Heidenreich and Hesse. He came to the following conclusion: "Kaspar Hauser was, as other authors already opined, a pathological swindler. In addition to his hysterical make-up he probably had the persistence of a paranoid personality since he was able to play his role so imperturbably. From many reports on his behaviour one can recognise the hysterical as well as the paranoid trend of his personality."[19]
A 1928 medical study[22] supported the view that Hauser accidentally stabbed himself too deeply, while a 2005 forensic analysis argued that it seems "unlikely that the stab to the chest was inflicted exclusively for the purpose of self-damage, but both a suicidal stab and a homicidal act (assassination) cannot be definitely ruled out."[23] That latter study was partly based[24] on two controversial books (one entitled "Prince of Baden Named Kaspar Hauser – A Biography"[25], the other depicting Hauser as a messianic figure from an antroposophic point of view[26]) both of which had been rejected in scholarly reviews.[27][28][29]
According to contemporary rumours – probably current as early as 1829 – Kaspar Hauser was the hereditary prince of Baden who was born on 29 September 1812, and who, according to known history, had died on 16 October 1812. It was alleged that this prince had been switched with a dying baby, and had subsequently surfaced 16 years later as Kaspar Hauser in Nuremberg. In this case, his parents would have been Karl, Grand Duke of Baden, and Stéphanie de Beauharnais, cousin by marriage of Napoleon I of France. Because Karl had no surviving male progeny, his successor was his uncle Ludwig, who was later succeeded by his half-brother, Leopold. Leopold's mother, the Countess von Hochberg, was the alleged culprit of the boy's captivity. The Countess was supposed to have disguised herself as a ghost, the "White Lady", when kidnapping the prince. Her motive evidently would have been to secure the succession for her sons.
After Hauser's death, it was claimed further that he had been murdered, again because of his being the prince.
In 1876, Otto Mittelstädt presented evidence against this theory, based on the official documents about the prince's emergency baptism, autopsy and burial.[30] Andrew Lang summarizes the results in his Historical Mysteries: "It is true that the Grand Duchess was too ill to be permitted to see her dead baby, in 1812, but the baby's father, grandmother, and aunt, with the ten Court physicians, the nurses and others, must have seen it, in death, and it is too absurd to suppose, on no authority, that they were all parties to the White Lady's plot."[31] Historian Fritz Trautz went so far to write: "The silly fairytale, which to this day moves many pens and has found much belief, was fully disproved in Otto Mittelstädt's book."[32] Furthermore, letters of the Grand Duke's mother, published in 1951, give detailed accounts of the child's birth, illness and death, strongly corroborating the evidence against the alleged switch of babies.[33]
In November 1996, the German magazine Der Spiegel reported an attempt to genetically match a blood sample from underpants assumed to have been Kaspar Hauser's. This analysis was made in laboratories of Forensic Science Service in Birmingham and in the LMU Institute of Legal Medicine at the University of Munich. Comparisons with descendants of the princely family proved that the blood examined could not possibly stem from the hereditary prince of Baden.[34][35]
In 2002, the Institute for Forensic Medicine of the University of Münster analyzed hair and body cells from locks of hair and items of clothing that also belonged to Kaspar Hauser. The analysts took from the items used in the test six different DNA samples, all of which turned out to be identical. They differed substantially, however, from the blood sample examined in 1996, whose authenticity is therefore questionable. The new DNA samples were compared to a DNA segment of Astrid von Medinger, a descendant in the female line of the hereditary prince's mother, Stéphanie de Beauharnais. The sequences were not identical but the deviation observed is not large enough to exclude a relationship, as the difference could be caused by a mutation. (The mitochondrial DNA, which was examined, is passed only through the female line and thus cannot change except through mutation.) On the other hand, the relatively high agreement by no means proves the alleged relationship, as the "Hauser samples" showed a pattern that is common among the German population.[36]
The House of Baden does not allow any medical examination of the remains of Stéphanie de Beauharnais or of the child that has been buried as her son in the family vault at the Pforzheimer Schlosskirche.
Kaspar Hauser fits into the contemporary European image of the "wolf child" (despite the fact that he almost certainly was not one), and he became possibly the best-known example of the genre. As a result, his story inspired numerous works.
Kaspar Hauser inspired the French poet Paul Verlaine to write the poem Gaspard Hauser chante, published in his book Sagesse (1880). Kaspar Hauser is also referred to in Herman Melville's unfinished novella Billy Budd (begun in 1886), as well as in his novels, both Pierre; or, The Ambiguities and The Confidence-Man.
Perhaps the most influential fictional treatment of Kasper Hauser was Jakob Wassermann's 1908 novel Caspar Hauser oder Die Trägheit des Herzens ("Caspar Hauser or the Inertia of the Heart"), which was largely responsible for its popularization in Germany.
In the mid-20th century, Kaspar Hauser was referred to in several works of science fiction or fantasy literature: Eric Frank Russell, in his 1943 novel Sinister Barrier, described Kaspar Hauser as a person who originated from a non-human laboratory. Fredric Brown, in his 1949 short story Come and Go Mad, offered another theory about "Casper Hauser". Robert A. Heinlein, in his 1963 Glory Road, referred to "Kaspar Hausers" as an analogue to persons popping in and out of metaphysical planes. Harlan Ellison, in his 1967 story The Prowler in the City at the Edge of the World, suggested that Hauser had been plucked out of time and later murdered by a female sadist named Juliette.
In 1963, Marianne Hauser gave a fictional account of Kaspar Hauser's life in her novel Prince Ishmael.
In 1967, the Austrian playwright Peter Handke published his play Kaspar.
Paul Auster, in his 1985 novel City of Glass, compares the situation of one of its character to Kaspar Hauser.
Kaspar Hauser is also referred to in Katharine Neville's novel The Magic Circle (1998), in Steven Millhauser's short story Kaspar Hauser Speaks (published in The Knife Thrower and Other Stories, 1998) and Jeffrey Eugenides's novel Middlesex (2002) and Lucie Brock-Broido's poem Self-Portrait as Kaspar Hauser (published in Trouble in Mind, 2004). Canadian artist Diane Obomsawin tells the story of Kaspar Hauser in her 2007 graphic novel Kaspar.
In 1974, the German filmmaker Werner Herzog made Hauser's story into the film, Jeder für sich und Gott gegen alle ("Every Man for Himself and God Against All"). In English, the film was either known by that translation, or by the title The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser.
In 1993, the German-Austrian co-production Kaspar Hauser – Verbrechen am Seelenleben eines Menschen ("Kaspar Hauser - Crimes against a man's soul"), directed by Peter Sehr, espoused the "Prince of Baden" theory.
In the 1966 film Fahrenheit 451, the protagonist Guy Montag discreetly puts a copy of a book entitled Gaspard Hauser into his bag before the rest of the books in that residence are torched.
In the American TV series Smallville, in the first season (2001) Clark Kent finds a boy who does not to remember who he was or where he came from, except his name. Chloe refers to the boy as a "modern-day Kasper Hauser".
In the Japanese horror movie Marebito (2004), the protagonist Masuoka refers to a girl he found chained up underground as his "little Kaspar Hauser".
In February and March 2009, actor Preston Martin starred as Kaspar Hauser in "Kaspar Hauser: a foundling's opera" at The Flea Theater in New York. The show was written by Elizabeth Swados, composer and director of the cult Broadway hit Runaways.
Musical references to Kaspar Hauser include:
Anthroposophists have written several books on Kaspar Hauser. One in particular, a detailed work by Peter Tradowsky, addresses the mysteries surrounding Kaspar Hauser's life from the anthroposophical point of view. His analysis delves into the occult significance of the individuality he sees as incarnated in Kaspar Hauser.
Another book on Kaspar Hauser is Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson's Lost Prince: The Unsolved Mystery of Kaspar Hauser (1996).[38]
The Atlantic Monthly in January 1861 included an unsigned article on Caspar Hauser which was circulated among the American intellectual establishment of the time. It provides a sense of perspective on many of the issues firing the debate about Who was Kaspar Hauser? to this day.
KASPAR HAUSER, a German youth whose life was remarkable from the circumstances of apparently inexplicable mystery in which it was involved. He appeared on the 26th of May 1828, in the streets of Nuremberg, dressed in the garb of a peasant, and with such a helpless and bewildered air that he attracted the attention of the passers-by. In his possession was found a letter purporting to be written by a poor labourer, stating that the boy was given into his custody on the 7th of October 1812, and that according to agreement he had instructed him in reading, writing, and the Christian religion, but that up to the time fixed for relinquishing his custody he had kept him in close confinement. Along with this letter was enclosed another purporting to be written by the boy's mother, stating that he was born on the 30th of April 1812, that his name was Kaspar, and that his father, formerly a cavalry officer in the 6th regiment at Nuremberg, was dead. The appearance, bearing, and professions of the youth corresponded closely with these credentials. He showed a repugnance to all nourishment except bread and water, was seemingly ignorant of outward objects, wrote his name as Kaspar Hauser, and said that he wished to be a cavalry officer like his father. For some time he was detained in prison at Nuremberg as a vagrant, but on the 18th of July 1828 he was delivered over by the town authorities to the care of a schoolmaster, Professor Daumer, who undertook to be his guardian and to take the charge of his education. Further mysteries accumulated about Kaspar's personality and conduct, not altogether unconnected with the vogue in Germany, at that time, of "animal magnetism," "somnambulism," and similar theories of the occult and strange. People associated him with all sorts of possibilities. On the 17th of October 1829 he was found to have received a wound in the forehead, which, according to his own statement, had been inflicted on him by a man with a blackened face. Having on this account been removed to the house of a magistrate and placed under close surveillance, he was visited by Earl Stanhope, who became so interested in his history that he sent him in 1832 to Ansbach to be educated under a certain Dr Meyer. After this he became clerk in the office of Paul John Anselm von Feuerbach, president of the court of appeal, who had begun to pay attention to his case in 1828; and his strange history was almost forgotten by the public when the interest in it was suddenly revived by his receiving a deep wound on his left breast, on the 14th of December 1833, and dying from it three or four days afterwards. He affirmed that the wound was inflicted by a stranger, but many believed it to be the work of his own hand, and that he did not intend it to be fatal, but only so severe as to give a sufficient colouring of truth to his story. The affair created a great sensation, and produced a long literary agitation. But the whole story remains somewhat mysterious. Lord Stanhope eventually became decidedly sceptical as to Kaspar's stories, and ended by being accused of contriving his death !
In 1830 a pamphlet was published at Berlin, entitled Kaspar Hauser nicht unwahrscheinlich ein Betrfiger; but the truthfulness of his statements was defended by Daumer, who published Mitteilungen fiber Kaspar Hauser (Nuremberg, 1832), and Enthfillungen fiber Kaspar Hauser (Frankfort, 1859); as well as Kaspar Hauser, sein Wesen, seine Unschuld, &c. (Regensburg, 1873), in answer to Meyer's (a son of Kaspar's tutor) Authentische Mitteilungen fiber Kaspar Hauser (Ansbach, 1872). Feuerbach awakened considerable psychological interest in the case by his pamphlet Kaspar Hauser, Beispiel eines Verbrechens am Seelenleben (Ansbach, 1832), and Earl Stanhope also took part in the discussion by publishing Materialen zur Geschichte K. Hausers (Heidelberg, 1836). The theory of Daumer and Feuerbach and other pamphleteers (finally presented in 1892 by Miss Elizabeth E. Evans in her Story of Kaspar Hauser from Authentic Records) was that the youth was the crown prince of Baden, the legitimate son of the grand-duke Charles of Baden, and that he had been kidnapped at Karlsruhe in October 1812 by minions of the countess of Hochberg (morganatic wife of the grand-duke) in order to secure the succession to her offspring; but this theory was answered in 1875 by the publication in the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung of the official record of the baptism, post-mortem examination and burial of the heir supposed to have been kidnapped. See Kaspar Hauser and sein badisches Prinzentum (Heidelberg, 1876). In 1883 the story was again revived in a Regensburg pamphlet attacking, among other people, Dr Meyer; and the sons of the latter, who was dead, brought an action for libel, under the German law, to which no defence was made; all the copies of the pamphlet were ordered to be destroyed. The evidence has been subtly analyzed by Andrew Lang in his Historical Mysteries (1904), with results unfavourable to the "romantic" version of the story. Lang's view is that possibly Kaspar was a sort of "ambulatory automatist," an instance of a phenomenon, known by other cases to students of psychical abnormalities, of which the characteristics are a mania for straying away and the persistence of delusions as to identity; but he inclines to regard Kaspar as simply a "humbug." The "authentic records" purporting to confirm the kidnapping story Lang stigmatizes as "worthless and impudent rubbish." The evidence is in any case in complete confusion.
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Kaspar Hauser (born probably 30 April 1812; died 17 December 1833) was a child who lived in Germany. His early life is a mystery. Kaspar appeared in the street in 1828, not able to talk normally, and no one knew where he had come from.
Contents |
On May 26 1828 the boy who became known as Kaspar Hauser was found in the streets of Nuremberg, Germany. He was dressed like a simple country person and could hardly talk. He carried with him two letters. One letter seems to have been written by a poor workman and it was addressed to a captain in the army. The writer of the letter says that he had looked after the boy since 1812 and that the boy wants to serve the king in the army. He asks the captain to take the boy or to hang him. There is no date on the letter. The other letter looked as if it was from his mother to the poor workman who had been looking after him. It says that the child was born on April 30th 1812 and that he was called Kaspar but that he has no second name. It says that his father was a soldier and that the boy should become a soldier when he is 17. The mother writes that she herself is too poor to look after him.
The boy was taken to an army captain whose name was Wessenig. The only things Kaspar could say (in German) were: "I want to be a knight, as my father was," and "Horse! Horse!" The captain asked him lots of other questions but the boy only cried and said "Don't know." He was taken to a police station where he could only write his name: Kaspar Hauser.
He spent the next two months in a tower where a jailor looked after him. Many people came to see him. He smiled, and he walked like a baby. He was probably 16 years old, but his thinking was like a small child, and he would only drink water and eat bread
It took a long time, but Kaspar was taught to speak, and slowly told people about his life. He said that he had spent his life locked up in a small room with only a straw bed to sleep in and a wooden horse to play with. He was only given bread and water. Sometimes the water tasted strange because it had something inside that made him go to sleep. When he woke up from such a sleep he found that his hair and fingernails had been cut. Later he was visited by a man who never showed his face. The man taught him to speak a little bit, and then let him go. Kaspar walked down the streets of Nuremburg and then fainted.
People in many countries heard about the mysterious boy and tried to find out who he was. Some people thought he was related to the Grand Duke of Baden. Some people thought it was all a big joke.
Hauser was then taken into care by a schoolteacher, Friedrich Daumer, who taught him to speak, read and write. Kaspar learned quickly.
On October 17 1829, a hooded man tried to kill Hauser with a large knife but managed only to wound his forehead. People were worried that the person might try to kill him again, so he was given to someone else to be looked after. He was given a job as a copyist. Because someone had tried to murder him some people thought it proved that he was related to a noble family in the house of Baden.
A British nobleman, Lord Stanhope, was interested in Hauser and gave him presents and tried to get permission to look after him. He said that Hauser was Hungarian and not of noble blood. Many historians thought that Lord Stanhope himself might have been from the house of Baden and that was why he was interested in Kaspar.
On 14 December 1833, Hauser was told to go to a garden where he would find out about the family he came from. When he got there he was attacked by a stranger who stabbed him in the chest. He managed to get home but died three days later. No one knew who had murdered him, although a strange note was found in a black purse saying that Kaspar would not be able to tell people who had killed him, but that he was from the Bavarian border and that his initials were MLÖ." No one ever found out who the murderer was, and no one ever found out who Kaspar was.
The story of Kaspar Hauser has been made into films, both in German and in English. Books have been written about him and lots of people have made guesses about who he might have been. Some people have even guessed that he was just pretending, but it seems unlikely that he could have kept that up for several years.
   | An illustrated article - Unsolved Mystery of Kaspar Hauser |
| | Kaspar Hauser and other feral children at FeralChildren.com - FeralChildren.com | Feral children: isolated, confined, wild and wolf children |
| | ''The Mystery of Kaspar Hauser'' - Historical Mysteries by Andrew Lang: The Mystery of Kaspar Hauser |
| | Fortean Times - a new theory on Kaspar's life and death - Fortean Times Magazine | Articles | |
| | The Case of the Seven Year Sex Slave - All about Carol Smith - Seven Year Sex Slave, by Katherine Ramsland - Crime Library on truTV.com |
| | Perfect Victim: The True Story of "The Girl in the Box" by the D.A. That Prosecuted Her Captor - Amazon.com: Perfect Victim: The True Story of "The Girl in the Box" by the D.A. That Prosecuted Her Captor: Christine McGuire, Carla Norton: Books |
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