Horror at Hinterkaifeck — Part II
In March of 1922, five members of a family ranging in age from two to 72, along with their maid, were murdered at their farm in Bavaria, Germany. What happened next made Hinterkaifeck a crime like no other.
By Kimberly Parr
THE LIVING AND THE DEAD
Police had determined that the four adults and two children murdered at Hinterkaifeck died on the evening of Friday, March 31, 1922. Four days would pass before the bodies were discovered. During that time, neighbors and visitors to the farm told police they saw several signs of life, including a lit oven, smoke rising from the chimney, and, on at least two occasions, people they did not know.
The unusual layout of the farmstead, with the main residence connected directly to the barn and stable, and an attic with no interior walls, allowed the intruders to eat, cook, care for farm animals, and move freely throughout the complex, all without being seen from the outside. They appeared to have made themselves quite at home, feeding and milking the cows, cutting meat from the family’s pantry, and making fires for warmth.
They likely slipped out very early on the morning of Tuesday, April 4, when the mechanic who worked on the farm for several hours reported seeing and hearing no signs of human life. Not long after, alarmed neighbors searched the farm and found the bodies inside the barn and residence.
The murderers had done very little to cover their tracks. Maria the maid and little Josef were left where they died. The bodies in the barn had been moved into a pile and covered by an old stable door that was nowhere near large enough to conceal them. Perhaps the killers simply didn’t want to look upon their handiwork as they moved throughout the compound.
Or, realizing that seven-year-old Cäzilia was still alive, they may have placed the door on top as a way to hasten her death and prevent her escape.
THE SEARCH FOR SUSPECTS
Police quickly eliminated burglary as a motive. Although the intruders appeared to have been familiar with the property, they left behind large sums of cash and valuables, taking only enough food and fuel to sustain them over three-and-a-half days.
They were obviously determined to kill every last person in the house, including a toddler too young to be a witness. The attacks on adult female family members were particularly savage, suggesting they were targeted. Not even the family dog was spared, although it survived.
All the evidence pointed to only one thing: Revenge. The crime was personal, committed by someone known to the family. Who would have cause to hate them? Who would have the means and opportunity to carry out such a terrible crime?
Investigators started taking a closer look at the victims. Over the next few weeks, they uncovered family secrets almost as shocking and bizarre as the crime itself.
A SHOCKING FAMILY SECRET
When Andreas and Cäzilia first met in 1886, he was a 28-year-old unmarried laborer, and she was a 37-year-old widow with two children. Her first husband, Joseph Asam von Hinterkaifeck, had recently died, and she inherited the farm that bore his name. Young, handsome Andreas Gruber seemed like the ideal replacement for Joseph. Cäzilia needed an able-bodied husband to help her with the farm. And Andreas… just needed a farm.
The union was not a happy one. Andreas turned out to be a crude, hot-tempered man. He was feared by his wife’s family, abusive toward employees, and held in contempt by his neighbors. He and Cäzilia had three children together, but only Viktoria survived childhood.
Then Andreas Gruber gave his neighbors yet another reason to despise him: He began sexually assaulting his teenage daughter.
When she was 16, Viktoria told her mother about the abuse. It’s not known what, if anything, Cäzilia did about it. But the incest was an open secret. Neighbors testified that Andreas was extremely possessive of his daughter, and sometimes bragged about his ability to service her.
In April of 1914 at age 27, Viktoria married Karl Gabriel, a young man from a nearby village. The groom moved in with the bride’s family at Hinterkaifeck, then fled back home a few months later. His parents, who were poor compared to the Grubers, insisted their son return to his wife. Instead, Karl joined the German Army. World War I was underway, and in December of 1914, he died in combat in France. His only child, a girl, was born a month later. Viktoria named the baby Cäzilia, after her own mother.
Andreas Gruber strictly forbade Viktoria to have relationships with any other men. When she gave birth to Josef in September of 1919, neighbors were scandalized anew. Everyone assumed Andreas was the father, and both he and his daughter were formally charged with committing incest.
Both were convicted, and Andreas was briefly imprisoned. By now, the entire family was shunned as deviants and outcasts. The murders in March of 1922 struck some neighbors as divine judgment for the Grubers’ crimes against nature.
SUSPECT #1: KARL GABRIEL
Although Viktoria’s husband, Karl Gabriel, was killed in combat in France, his body was never recovered. Witnesses claimed to have encountered him, or someone who looked very much like him, following the end of World War I. In one account, he actually returned to Hinterkaifeck, then immediately left upon learning that Viktoria was pregnant.
Had he survived, Karl would have likely been mortified to learn his widow was convicted of incest with her own father. However, soldiers who served with him swore they saw his dead body on the plains of Arras, France, in 1914. Karl Gabriel was officially ruled out as a suspect in December of 1923.
SUSPECT #2: LORENZ SCHLITTENBAUER
More than three years after her husband died, Viktoria secretly began a romantic relationship with a handsome, 48-year-old widower, Lorenz Schlittenbauer, who lived one mile from Hinterkaifeck. She soon became pregnant, and Lorenz, assuming the baby was his, proposed marriage. Andreas Gruber wasn’t about to allow his daughter to remarry, and didn’t care if people thought the baby was his. Viktoria reluctantly obeyed her father and ended her relationship with Lorenz. Baby Josef’s paternity was never clearly established.
Lorenz eventually remarried but remained understandably bitter toward the Gruber family. He was among the group of neighbors who first searched the property and moved the bodies before police arrived. Witnesses later claimed he yelled, “Where is my son, Josef?” and let himself into rooms using a key Andreas had previously reported was stolen.
Suspicion against Lorenz Schlittenbaurer lingered for years. Although he made no secret of his hatred and contempt for Andreas, he angrily denied any involvement in the murders. Eventually, he sued several people for slander, and won. He died in 1941, declaring his innocence to the end.
OTHER SUSPECTS
Several weeks after the murders, a farmer who lived near Hinterkaifeck was awakened at midnight by a stranger who asked several questions about the Gruber family. The man suddenly yelled, “I am the murderer!” before running away into the woods. He was never identified.
Former laborers at Hinterkaifeck who had publicly complained about Andreas Gruber — particularly those who publicly wished him dead — were of course suspects from the start. Most people believed the murders were committed by more than one person, and at least four pairs of brothers were questioned. None were charged.
Witnesses continued to come forward for years, citing deathbed confessions from recently departed loved ones, and recovered memories from their own childhoods. The investigation officially closed in 1955, although one final interrogation was conducted in 1995. In 2007, several police academy students in Bavaria applied modern investigative techniques to the case. They unanimously concluded that only one person was responsible, but declined to identify him because some of his relatives were still living in the area.
AFTERMATH
On Saturday, April 8, 1922, eight days after the murders, more than 3,000 mourners followed the carriages bearing six coffins to the cemetery in nearby Waidhofen. The family and their maid were laid to rest, side-by-side, in a single grave.
Most people didn’t realize it at the time, but the bodies were all headless. The physician who conducted the autopsy removed the heads and shipped them to Munich for further examination. It is unknown what, if any, additional forensic analysis was performed, but the skulls were all lost in the subsequent bombing and chaos of World War II.
As for the loyal German Spitz, the only living creature to survive the massacre: He was taken in by the family of Viktoria’s first husband, Karl Gabriel, who nursed him back to health and cared for him the rest of his days.
The Hinterkaifeck complex was abandoned forever. No one wanted to live there, but plenty of people wanted to stop by and see the crime scene for themselves. They became such a nuisance that one year after the murders, authorities decided to tear everything down. Just before demolition was to begin, workers uncovered a bloody mattock hidden in the attic over the barn. Police determined it was indeed the murder weapon, which had been somehow overlooked in the initial search.
Today, more than 100 years after the murders at Hinterkaifeck, all traces of the crime scene are gone. Only a memorial remains to mark the site one of Germany’s most infamous unsolved crimes.
