Today, I will tell you about the most famous crimes that have taken place in the German capital over the last 100 years. Murders, manslaughter, robberies, burglaries, and riots reached their peak in the metropolis by the end of World War I.
In 1904, two fishermen discovered a bundle of wrapping paper in the Spree River under the Marschallbrücke bridge, under which floated the torso of an eight-year-old girl with signs of sexual assault. It soon became clear that this was the missing Lucie Berlin. The coroner wrote that Lucie had been raped and then strangled, and her limbs had been severed by “clumsy hands.” Lucie had disappeared from her parents’ home on her way to the toilet (which was located one floor below). According to various accounts, she left the house with a lame man between the ages of 30 and 40. During the investigation, officers came across a prostitute named Joanna Libetrut, whose partner, Theodore Berger, fit this description — he became the prime suspect.
During questioning, Liebethrut revealed that a white travel basket had disappeared from the apartment, and it was this very basket that the boatswain later found and handed over to the police. Not only did Liebethrut identify it as her property, but the basket also contained traces of fiber from the girl’s clothing and traces of blood. It was not until 1901 that bacteriologist Paul Uhlenhut developed a test that could distinguish human blood from animal blood. In the case of Lucy Berlin, this was the final piece of evidence that led to the conviction of Theodor Berger.
Wilhelm Vogt was born in 1849 into the family of a shoemaker in Tilsit. At the age of 14, he was sentenced to 14 days in prison for theft. Between 1864 and 1891, he was sentenced to prison four times for theft and twice for forging documents. Finally, in 1890, armed with a crowbar, he made an unsuccessful attempt to rob the court cashier’s office in Wongrowiec in the then Prussian province of Posen and was sentenced to 15 years in prison for this. After his release from prison in 1906, he moved to Wismar and worked for a court shoemaker until he was banned from residing in the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. From there, Vogt moved to his sister Bertha in Rixdorf near Berlin (now the Berlin district of Neukölln). On August 24, 1906, Wilhelm Vogt received an order to leave Berlin, which he did not comply with.
For his operation, Vogt purchased a captain’s military uniform piece by piece from second-hand dealers. On October 16, 1906, dressed in the captain’s uniform, during the changing of the guard in the afternoon, Vogt stopped two detachments of guardsmen on one of the streets in the western part of the city, presented them with a forged emergency order from the cabinet, took command of them, and headed for Köpenick by rail. Vogt explained to the soldiers that he had been unable to requisition a car. On the way, the “captain” bought the soldiers beer and, upon arriving in Köpenick, where he gave each soldier a mark at the train station, seized the town hall of the then still independent city of Köpenick. He ordered the local gendarmes to block the surrounding area and ensure peace and order. In order to find his bearings, Vogt even assigned himself an official. Then, in his office, the “captain” arrested Mayor Georg Langerhans and Chief Cashier von Wiltberg for “irregular payments for underground work.” Vogt requisitioned the city treasury, which according to various sources contained between 3,557 and 4,002 marks, signing the receipt with the name von Malzan, the surname of the director of the prison where he had last served his sentence.
There are conflicting versions regarding the fate of the money and the motives behind the raid. In his biography and later in his speeches, Vogt himself claimed that he did not touch the money and actually wanted to obtain the passport that had been taken from him during his expulsion. However, his biographer Winfried Löschburg suggests that Vogt was not actually interested in the passport, but in the two million marks that were rumored to be stored in an armored safe in the Köpenick town hall. This is supported by the obvious fact that Vogt planned his crime while still in prison, and his passport was confiscated only shortly before the events in Köpenick. In addition, it is known that passports were not issued at the Köpenick town hall, but in Teltow.
There are conflicting versions regarding the fate of the money and the motives behind the raid. In his biography and later in his speeches, Vogt himself claimed that he did not touch the money and actually wanted to obtain the passport that had been taken from him during his expulsion. However, his biographer Winfried Löschburg suggests that Vogt was not actually interested in the passport, but in the two million marks that were rumored to be stored in an armored safe in the Köpenick town hall. This is supported by the obvious fact that Vogt planned his crime while still in prison, and his passport was confiscated only shortly before the events in Köpenick. In addition, it is known that passports were not issued at the Köpenick town hall, but in Teltow.
After completing his action, the “captain” from Köpenick ordered his team to hold the town hall for another half hour. He himself went to the train station in front of a curious crowd. In the station restaurant, as the newspapers later described, he downed a glass of beer and disappeared, boarding the nearest train to Berlin. In a men’s clothing store, Vogt bought himself civilian clothes. Ten days later, he was arrested at breakfast: his former cellmate, who was privy to Vogt’s plans, turned him in to the police for a large reward. The regional court sentenced the “captain” from Köpenick to four years in prison for “illegal wearing of military uniform, crimes against public order, deprivation of liberty, fraud, and forgery of documents,” but he was pardoned by Kaiser Wilhelm II and released early from Tegel Prison on August 16, 1908.
The whole of Germany laughed at the ingenious scam. The Kaiser demanded that a report be sent to him immediately by telegraph, and upon reading it, he allegedly said with a laugh: “That’s what discipline means. No nation in the world can catch up with us!” In the file on the ‘captain’ from Köpenick, the Kaiser made a note: “a brilliant fellow.”
Thanks to media coverage and a huge number of humorous postcards, photographs, and satirical poems, this crime became famous not only in Germany but also beyond its borders, earning the “captain” from Köpenick the fame of “Till Eulenspiegel of the Wilhelmine military state,” as Luxembourg historian Marc Jäck called him. Gustav Meyrink wrote a story called “The Evaporated Brain” dedicated to Vogt. Journalists from all over the world flocked to Vogt’s trial. Throughout Fogt’s time behind bars, the authorities were inundated with inquiries, messages, requests for autographs, and petitions for clemency for the “captain,” coming not only from Germans but also from abroad. While still in Tegel Prison, Vogt was offered large sums of money for the exclusive rights to his biography. Upon his release, Vogt became the subject of the entertainment industry.
After having fun and gloating, society soon began to wonder how an officer with nothing but his uniform could stop the activities of the civil authorities. Many saw this incident as a serious symptom, evidence of the impressive role of the military in Kaiser’s Germany. The foreign press also saw in this incident, despite its comical nature, the dominant role of the German military in the state and society.
This offer made Vogt popular. On the day of liberation, his voice was immortalized on a gramophone recording, for which he received 200 marks. The subsequent performances in Rixdorf attracted huge crowds and even led to the intervention of law enforcement. Four days later, in honor of the unveiling of his wax figure at the Castans Panoptikum museum on Unter den Linden in Berlin, Vogt reappeared in public, signing photographs and giving a speech. Vogt traveled throughout Germany, performing in taverns and at fairs. In halls and circus arenas, Vogt portrayed the “captain” from Köpenick and sold autographs on cards bearing his image in military uniform and civilian clothes. Some soldiers from his team also took part in his performances, posing for photos with him. In 1909, his autobiography was published in Leipzig under the title “How I Became the ‘Captain’ of Köpenick.”
Vogt, who was particularly popular among the lower classes, constantly neglected his duty to report to the police and was often arrested. Local authorities were unhappy with the “captain” from Köpenick’s performances, which were accompanied by ridicule and mockery of the state and the military. Vogt considered emigrating and preferred to perform mainly outside Germany. There are unconfirmed reports that in March 1910, Vogt was allowed to enter the United States, where his tour was a huge success.
On May 1, 1910, Vogt obtained Luxembourg citizenship and, settling there, preferred working as a waiter and shoemaker to performing. Thanks to his popularity, he achieved some material prosperity and even became one of the few car owners in Luxembourg, traveling with his landlady and her children. In 1912, Vogt bought a house in Luxembourg, where he lived until his death.
The “Captain” from Köpenick had to meet the Prussian military once again when, in late autumn 1914, he was briefly arrested during the occupation of Luxembourg by German troops during World War I. The lieutenant who interrogated him wrote in his diary: “It remains a mystery to me how such a pathetic man could once have shaken the whole of Prussia.”
In the last years of his life, Wilhelm Vogt no longer appeared in public. On January 3, 1922, impoverished by inflation during the war and suffering from severe lung disease, Vogt died at the age of 72 in Luxembourg and was buried in the local cemetery. According to legend, the funeral procession was met by a detachment of French soldiers who were stationed in Luxembourg at the time. The French commander asked about the deceased and, upon receiving the answer, “the captain” from Köpenick, ordered his soldiers to give the procession military honors, deciding that they were burying a real captain.
In 1996, a bronze monument to the “captain” from Köpenick, created by Armenian sculptor Spartak Babayan, was erected at the entrance to the Köpenick town hall. A commemorative plaque to Wilhelm Vogt hangs on the wall of the town hall. In Wismar, a memorial plaque has also been installed on the house where Fogt lived and worked for the court shoemaker Gilbrecht.
The Berlin Film Archive has preserved original footage of the famous “captain” from Köpenick. A wax figure of the “captain” is on display at Madame Tussauds.
The events in Köpenick formed the basis for Carl Zuckmayer’s tragicomedy Der Hauptmann von Köpenick. Ein deutsches Märchen (The Captain of Köpenick: A German Fairy Tale, 1928). In 1931, it served as the basis for the film of the same name starring Max Adalbert, directed by Austrian (later American) filmmaker Richard Oswald. However, the story was first adapted for the screen in 1906 and has been adapted eight more times since then, including a television film in 2005.
Karl Zuckmayer dedicated a play to it, followed by films, books, and radio plays, and stars such as Heinz Rühmann and Harald Junke portrayed him. The mustachioed trickster Friedrich Wilhelm Voigt has long been part of Berlin folklore. A myth that turned a cunning thief into a hero.
