On the night of 6–7 June 1925, a mass stabbing took place in , Bavaria, Germany. After murdering his wife in nearby , the perpetrator, 31-year-old Wilhelm Brückner, killed eight members of his family, including his mother, before committing suicide.
An investigation determined that Brückner was mentally ill and had likely acted out due to delusional beliefs and imagined conflicts regarding his family.
Murders
Lindenberg In the late hours of 6 June 1925, Brückner rode his bicycle from Hassenberg to Lindenberg, arriving there at about 23:00 after a two-hour trip to lurk outside the house of his separated wife Karoline Birnstiel and her parents.Zu der Mordtat in Hassenberg, Coburger Zeitung (9 June 1925) Brückner had followed his brother-in-law, 19-year-old Hugo Birnstiel, to the house, presumably observing him and Karoline for a while there, before returning to the road to intercept Hugo. Brückner accompanied him for a while until they arrived at a wooded area, when Brückner ordered Hugo to check out a noise he claimed to have heard while passing by earlier. Just after stepping into the treeline, Brückner took out a piece of iron and severely injured Hugo by hitting him in the back of the head. Hugo was able to escape and find shelter in the grain mill of .
Brückner then returned to Lindenberg and lured Karoline out into the yard, where he deeply slashed her throat. Brückner fled, but the attack was overheard by Karoline's father, with Karoline running back inside and dying of the neck wound in her father's arms. Lindenberg's gendarmerie was notified and quickly identified Brückner through a jacket he left behind, recognised as belonging to him by Karoline's father.
Hassenberg Brückner passed through at around 1:30, arriving back in Hassenberg a few minutes later, where he entered his residence at the house of his sister Wilhelmine and her husband Eduard Rosenbauer. On the ground floor, Brückner killed all five of their children – four girls aged 2, 10, 16 and 19 years, and a boy aged 8 – by crushing the top of their skulls and stabbing some of them as the siblings were sleeping in a shared room.Der Massenmord in Thüringen, Die Neue Zeitung (9 June 1925) On the first floor, Brückner killed his sister, brother-in-law and his own mother in their sleep, bludgeoning them in the same manner and also slitting their throats in two rooms. Eduard Rosenbauer was described as having been mutilated. Brückner then washed his hands clean off blood with a bowl and a rag, also washing the bodies of his mother and Ilse Brückner.Über die Mordtaten in Hassenberg, Coburger Zeitung (31 July 1925) Afterwards, Brückner committed suicide by hanging himself at his mother's bed.
Gendarmerie arrived in Hassenberg by car shortly before 4 a.m. and after a brief stop at the police station, the police vehicle stopped in front of the house. Finding the front door locked, the officers entered through a window on the ground floor and found all eight inhabitants and Brückner dead.Furchtbare Bluttat, Ingolstädter Anzeiger (9 June 1925)Ein zweiter Angerstein, Neuer Hochheimer Stadtanzeiger (9 June 1925)Neunfacher Mord und Selbstmord, Jenaer Volksblatt (8 June 1925) The murder weapons were found to have been an axe taken from the house and a kitchen knife hidden in one of Brückner's boots.
Victims The victims consisted of Brückner's ex-wife, his mother, his sister, his brother-in-law, four nieces and a nephew. Karoline Birnstiel Margarete Barbara Brückner, 71 Wilhelmine Karoline Rosenbauer, 41 Eduard Rosenbauer, 44 Ilse Brückner Emmy Brückner
Perpetrator Brückner had been a life-long resident of Hassenberg, formerly an independent village in Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, now part of Sonnefeld. Around 1905, when he was about 10 years old, Brückner and his father were struck by lightning. His father was killed while he himself was left unconscious, and it was said that the incident caused a change of his character.Die Beerdigung der Opfer des Hassenberger Massenmörders, Coburger Zeitung (11 June 1925) During World War I, he was conscripted repeatedly, but was discharged each time due to suspicions of mental illness, the last and final time in 1917. Through prolonged observation, evaluators had ruled out the possibility of malingering. Brückner worked as a basket maker, the most widespread occupation in his village, and was described as an irritable but otherwise tidy and diligent worker.Furchtbare Bluttat in Hassenberg, Coburger Zeitung (8 June 1925)
Brückner's first wife divorced him several years earlier, citing "religious differences". His second wife Karoline no longer wanted to live with Brückner and refused requests to return to him. Two days before the murders, she had confided in friends of her fears that her husband would kill her someday. Karoline related a possible poisoning attempt several week earlier, when she ate chocolate given to her by Brückner, which caused her abdominal pains and made her rule out a continued relationship with him. It was also found that he had already stalked the house of his wife a few days earlier in late May. Neighbours stated that he had lingered outside at midnight for one-and-a-half hours while wielding an axe before returning to his bike while loudly uttering obscenities. In another stalking incident, Brückner had poisoned his wife's dog. In the past, Brückner was suspected of having killed his sister-in-law in 1923.
At the time of the murders Brückner lived, together with his mother, at the house of his sister and her husband, and was said to have argued with them frequently. However, he apparently kept a good relationship with his mother and another relative, Ilse Brückner. Brückner's one-year-old daughter was living with her grandparents.
Investigation The Landeskriminalamt of Thuringia took jurisdiction over the case. The investigation was completed by the state prosecutor's office of Landgerichtsbezirk Coburg in late July. In a trouser pocket of Brückner's body, officers found black peppercorns, commonly used by criminals at the time to contaminate crime scenes, leading them to believe that Brückner initially planned to escape and hide traces of his presence. Police assume that the suicide was a spontaneous decision made to avoid criminal prosecution, with Neuste Zeitung noting that Brückner's body was still warm on arrival and speculating that he killed himself when hearing the police car. A search of Brückner's belongings found a second blackjack, some handgun bullets, and literature about "wizards and witches, devilish hauntings and ghost evocations". A closet also contained books in 14 languages and an "oracle book", while hidden underneath the floorboards were two Himmelsbriefe, described as letters written by mediums to be carried near one's chest as a charm.Hassenberg, Coburger Zeitung (18 June 1925)
Mental imbalance was immediately suspected. Although his family lacked a history of psychiatric illness, locals confirmed that Brückner was always seen as an outsider and loner prone to daydreaming. However, outside of his temper and argumentative nature, he was not considered mentally abnormal. Brückner left a letter on a table in his room, voicing a hatred for his brothers-in-law Hugo Birnstiel and Eduard Rosenbauer. He accused Hugo of having an incestuous relationship with his own sister (Brückner's wife) and implied that her pregnancy was a result of this, also claiming that Eduard "lived like a savage" and had been regularly in conflict with Brückner over some geese. However, authorities did not believe that the contents of the letters had any foundation in reality since both men had good reputations in the area.
Another motive discussed was attention seeking, specifically a "lust for sensationalism". Police discovered after the murders that Brückner had an interest in contemporary murderers, with a particular preoccuaption with serial killer Fritz Haarmann, who had recently been executed. It was stated that he had sketched the murderer's head and studied crime magazines about the case in detail. Police also found a note at his workplace reading "Massenmörder Haarmann! Massenmörder Denke! Massenmörder ? ? ?" ("Mass murderer Haarmann! Mass murderer Denke! Mass murderer ? ? ?") in reference to Fritz Haarmann and Karl Denke, another serial killer whose crimes made headlines at that time. Media also noted parallels to a similar familicide in Haiger in neighbouring Hesse, perpetrated by Fritz Angerstein, six months earlier. Local Hassenberg residents recalled that Brückner had already made foreboding comments for a longer period of time, once saying "Dieses Haus bekommen einmal fremde Leute" ("This house will one day belong to strangers") and on the day before the murders, Brückner told his nieces, who wanted to attend the Sunday Kirchweih, "Ihr geht mir morgen nicht aus dem Haus" ("You're not leaving the house tomorrow").
The investigation concluded that Brückner was affected by hysteria, epilepsy, and feeble-mindedness, based on the findings in his military medical record. It is thought that these conditions caused Brückner to build up rage and feelings of vengeance, misconstrue minor conflicts into personal attacks, and experience non-existent stimuli. His motive was vengeance for the reasons listed in Brückner's final letter, which were fabrications of his own mind, having mostly likely heard imaginary conversations between his wife and her brother that made him believe they had a relationship. His minor arguments with Eduard Rosenbauer were believed to have been real, but exaggerated in significance by Brückner. Investigators believed that Brückner saw the murder of his family as a method of redemption for the supposed incest and adultery as well as other imagined transgressions. However, it could not be determined if Brückner was aware of his actions or acted in a postictal state, though the statements made by Brückner before the murders indicated premeditation. Brückner's brain was given to the University of Erlangen for study and possible confirmation of physical anomalies.
Misinformation An early slightly erroneous account of the events in Lindenburg claimed that Brückner first killed his wife in Lindenberg, inaccurately describing that her death was initially unnoticed. The attempted murder on Hugo Birnstiel is also described differently, taking place after Karoline Birnstiel's murder and has Hugo left unconscious from the attack, also describing the police response as coming from Neuhaus rather than Lindenberg.