Escaping the City Walls: Crime in 19th-Century Germany

Walterichskapelle in Murrhardt, Germany

It was so easy to get trapped. The city walls ensnared you and the gates locked you in.

City gate in Iphofen, Germany

If you wanted to commit a crime in one of Germany’s 19^th-century walled cities, you’d probably want to case the place first and plan your escape. A typical town had only a handful of exits via the city gates. Some towns still closed their gates every night and posted the times in the newspaper.

Roman city gate

The city of Ludwigsburg, for instance, closed its gates between 6 pm and 6:30 am during the second half of November, 1835. But, as we saw in the last post, if the townsfolk raised the hue and cry, you couldn’t count on an open gate. The watchmen could close the gates just to catch you.

Hiding place: gap between two houses in a small German town

But most towns offered great places to hide. Houses were built fairly close to each other, leaving narrow gaps between them. Those gaps, noted a 19th-century German investigator, could easily accommodate a skinny criminal. They were a perfect place to dismantle and conceal a weapon, rearrange clothing, or take cover until the commotion was over. Such a gap played a role in the case I’m writing about. It offered the assassin a great hiding place. But he managed to escape the walls, flee to the United States, and eventually take up arms at Robert E. Lee’s side.

Literature:

Intelligenz-Blatt des Neckar-Kreises und Ludwigsburger Wochenblatt. 31 October 1835.

Text & images © Ann Marie Ackermann, September 2014, except for Roman city gate, shutterstock.com

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