The Robber Murderer

Two robber murders that took place within six months caused fear and terror among the population of Dresden in 1819. It all began on December 29, 1819, at around 6 p.m., when the body of carpenter’s apprentice Gottlob Leberecht Winter was found on the road leading from Dresden to Großenhain. He had been beaten to death, robbed, and left lying in the frost. A reward of 100 talers was offered for the capture of the murderer. But the search was unsuccessful. Almost six months later, on March 27, 1820, Gerhard von Kügelgen, a renowned painter and professor at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden, disappeared. He owned a vineyard near Loschwitz, whose winegrower’s house he had converted into a studio by craftsmen. He had set off for the vineyard to check on the progress and pay the craftsmen their wages. Once there, he paid the craftsmen and ordered some young birch trees for the vineyard. He then set off for home. He was walking along the country road from Dresden to Bautzen when someone smashed his skull with an axe. Von Kügelgen was then robbed on a footpath leading to the Elbe, which had been flooded by the river, in a hollow behind a field boundary, and stripped down to his undergarments. When von Kügelgen did not arrive home, his 17-year-old son Wilhelm set out to search for his father. But it was not until around 9 a.m. the next morning that he found his father’s body together with a gendarme and his dog. The murder of von Kügelgen caused horror among the population of Dresden, as it not only took place not far from the legendary Marcolinische Vorwerke and Linkeschen Bade, popular excursion destinations, but also not far from where the carpenter’s apprentice Winter had been murdered in the same circumstances. This was clearly the work of a serial killer, which is why a reward of 1,000 talers was offered for the capture of the murderer. Based on witness statements and a soldier’s coat that had been found, the gendarmerie was certain that the murderer was a soldier. This clue was confirmed when, on April 4, 1820, a merchant brought a silver watch to the gendarmerie that had been sold to him on March 28 by a man in uniform. This watch actually belonged to Kügelgen. The watch had been sold to him by gunner Johann Georg Fischer, who was arrested. He claimed to have found the watch in front of the Black Gate and sold it to the merchant, but denied murdering Kügelgen. Shortly afterwards, Fischer confessed to the murder, but recanted his confession shortly afterwards. This happened several times. After Winter and Kügelgen had again advertised the stolen clothing on April 21, the merchant Löbel Graf came forward on April 24, having purchased a steel-green petticoat from the sub-gunner on February 3 and a dark blue cloth overcoat with oil stains and a pair of long trousers on April 4. These turned out to be the clothes of the two murdered men. The sub-cannonier Kaltofen had bought them from Fischer. Johann Gottfried Kaltofen was a 24-year-old non-commissioned officer of stately appearance who lived in the attic of his superior’s house. He was considered polite and educated, and no one would have believed him capable of such heinous crimes at that point. But as is so often the case, appearances were deceiving. During the first search of the house, Kügelgen’s house keys were found there. During a second search of the house, stolen items belonging to the two murder victims were found, whereupon Kaltofen finally confessed to the robberies and murders, which he had intended to pin on Fischer. A third gunner named Kießling also incriminated Kaltofen, testifying that Kaltofen had confessed to him about the two robberies and murders and wanted to make Fischer the scapegoat. The junior gunner Fischer had initially confessed to the robberies and murders on April 19, 1820, because he had been tortured by the judicial officer. Although torture had been officially abolished in Saxony in 1770, it was still practiced in secret. Thanks to Fischer’s defense attorney, Dr. Eisenstuck, who was able to prove that his client had a watertight alibi and brought the judicial officer’s medieval interrogation methods to light, Fischer was released. However, the judicial officer was not willing to let the matter rest. With the prospect of Kaltofen receiving a royal pardon, he persuaded him to accuse Fischer of being an accomplice. But due to the alibis and circumstantial evidence, no one believed Kaltofen, who was addicted to gambling and in desperate need of money. On January 4, 1821, Johann Gottfried Kaltofen was sentenced to death by breaking wheel for the robbery murders of Gottlob Lebebrecht Winter and Gerhard von Kügelgen. Kaltofen submitted a petition for clemency to the king, asking him to commute the death sentence to life imprisonment. However, the king merely changed the sentence from death by breaking wheel to death by the executioner’s sword. Sub-gunner Fischer was acquitted and discharged from the army on August 26, 1822. Kaltofen was placed on the scaffold on the Altmarkt in Dresden on July 11, 1821. Until the very end, he hoped that a royal messenger bearing the sovereign’s order of mercy would still save him. But in vain. Even before his head was cut off by the sword, he claimed that Fischer deserved the same punishment as him.