Thinking Sideways: Kaspar Hauser

all of the legwork on this thing. They'll also notice if you had listened to what we're calling the last twenty six episodes before and you're re listening now, the music and sound effects are gone. Yes, we've we've gone back to straight audio, so be warned. We sound a little different today than we do in what you're about to listen to. Yeah, bye bye, Thinking Sideways. I don't know, I'm not You never know stories of things we simply

don't know the answer too. Well. Hello, welcome to the show, and tonight we're going to talk about something extremely mysterious, something some of you may have heard about before, but probably not. Um I'm Joe, I'm Steve, and this is Thinking Sideways. Most of you have probably not heard of the mystery of Casper Hauser, which is something that actually occupied a good deal of Germany and even the rest

of Europe in the nineteenth century. So let's start from the beginning, when from the from the very beginning, I'll tell you how I heard the story. First years ago, I read in this book by this guy named Frank, somebody who wrote a lot of lurid a lot of

lurid books about crap that never really happened. He wrote this very, very lurid account of the whole thing, which is that this boy mysteriously shows up in the town of Hamburg, Germany, and he was not able to say anything except I want to be a soldier like my father, and then uh and then uh. He sort of hiss, hangs around for several years, you know, picks up a few social skills, you know, be on being able to say I want to be a soldier like my father,

but then eventually is murdered. He's come stumbling out of this park in Hamburg and with a mortal knife wounded his chest and he dies several days later. Most mysteriously of all, this murder takes place in the middle of winter. There's snow on the ground and there's no footprints, but his own in his park exactly acts. So that that

was my first exposure to Casper Hauser's mystery. So it's a good way to make a living now, just like picking up stuff like this and spending really lured tales out of it and putting in these books and selling them and making money. Well, it's gonna be my next side job. That's kind of what we're gonna do here, and we start getting advertisers. So anyway, so here's the story as it happened, uh briefly, in a boy of

approximately sixteen years old appears in the streets of Nuremberg, Germany. UM. He had a letter with him addressed to the captain of the fourth Squadron of the sixth Cavalry Regiment, Captain Vaughn, investinating, and he was taken He was taken to this captain by a shoemaker who happened to spot him on the streets, and apparently, according to legend, he was Casper Hauser was walking unsteadily, almost as if drunk, and so the shoemaker takes an interest in him, and when he walks up

to him, he hands this letter to him, and the letter is addressed to the captains, he is taken by the shoemaker to meet the captain, who is apparently not at home with the moment. So the servants have them weight out in the garden and they give them some food, which includes sausage and beer, which Casper spits out as if he has never I'm not exactly here in sausages, also as if he has never had these things before. But eventually he does eat some bread and water and

eats him as if he's quite hungry. Eventually, when the captain comes home and he gets to read this letter, the letter says, quote from the Bavarian border, the place is unnamed. The author said that was given into his custody as an infant on seven October eighteen twelve. He extructed, instructed him in reading, writing, and Christian religion, but never let him take quote a single step out of my

house unquote. H The letter state of the boy would not like to be a cavalryman as his father was, and invited the captain either to take him in or to hang him. Oh that's that's nice, yes, yeah, he actually well, you know, this was actually not the father of the child, the father that this was somebody apparently who supposedly was just a day labor or something and

and didn't have a lot of cash laying around. Uh. The infant was given to him by supposedly cash for his mother, who's and the father had had actually apparently according to her in this letter, been in this in this cavalry infantry, and so the intention was that he should be raised to the the age of seventeen or sixteen or whatever the proper age is, and then become a soldier in his cavalry. So anyways, so he came

with two letters. There was this one and there was another one supposedly from his mother to the caretaker, who at the other letter said his name was Casper, and he was born on April twelve, and his father, a cavalryman of the sixth Regiment, was dead. At this point, he has taken into custody and put in what's called the best nerd Gate Tower in care of a jailer. And so he essentially is being watched over by this

guy and his family's kids, and he's exhibiting some strange behaviors. Uh. And later on he wound up writing his own autobiography and which he claimed that he had been kept in a hole in the ground which was about two ms wide by a meter and a half wide by meter and a half tall, So convert that defeat. That's three foot by six ft, that's about that's about six ft by about six ft by about four five ft by about five ft tall, with a straw mat to sleep on,

and that's a very very small cell. Yeah, fed bread and water, and the only thing he had to play with was a carved wooden horse. Yes, so tis today are way spoiled. All he had was a carved horse, and he was happy. I don't know happy is the right word. All right, you got me there. Yeah, So he was mostly in the dark and cell. He he would find bread and water next to his bed every morning.

Occasionally the water would taste bitter, and drinking it would cause him to sleep more heavily because obviously have been roofied, and and on on such occasions when he woke up, he find his nails had been trimmed, and his hair had been cut, and his bed had been changed. And so he was kept alone in this dark little cell, cording to himself for for many many years. And eventually the guy that was keeping him his cell took him out and they wanted a little road trip on foot

to Nuremberg. Well, this guy basically took him to the signal and I said, it kind of leaves and he wandered to the street, and and the rest is history. So he's found by the shoemaker, taken to the captain, turned over to the jailer, who keeps him in custody for a while. And he went to a period of several years when he was under the care and tutelage of various people, and he quickly learned to read and write.

In fact, especially so according to according to some people, because he came in basically being kind of a kind of almost a feral child, barely able to speak, very unable to eat, read and write. I probably didn't mention that after the captain took him to the police station when he was not able to get a coherent answer out of him about anything, and one of the policemen had this idea to hand him a pan and a piece of paper, and so he wrote his name Casper

Hauser on on that. Other than that, he was not able to say much other than you know, I don't know, and I want to be a soldier like my father. Wait, so somebody took the time to so not hang out with him, teach him how to sign his name. Yeah, I know. It's a little weird, isn't that That That that that smells a little fishing. Yeah, I know, I know. There's there's that, and there's a lot about it, And

which is one of the things about the story. That's one of the most interesting things about the story is that it still captures so many people's imagination. Okay, well, let's let's hear what else happened, because I'm I'm I'm still skeptical. Yeah, well exactly exactly. There's a lot about it that's still a mystery. But you know, I mean, we're here, we're all about solving mysteries. So all of you out there who have been puzzling for decades over

this mystery, we're gonna solve it for you tonight. So he as I said, and I'm not going to go into great detail about this stuff. About the various people he came under the tutelage of. One of them was an English nobleman named Lord Stanhope, was a great philanthropist and who actually once he took him under his wing pages living expenses for the rest of his life, which I actually didn't go on for very long. I'll I'll

run back a little bit. There was an incident where he was cutting the forehead um and according to him, he wants he somebody and he said it was the same person, the same guy who took him to Nuremberg, the person who arranged him. The person. Yeah, the same man showed up slashed him with a knife on the forehead and basically said if you leave, if you leave this city, you are a dead man. It's still kind of ambiguous as to whether this actually happened, to whether

perhaps he inflicted the wound on himself. Um. And so there was that ang About eighteen twenty nine or so, there began to be speculation because word got out about Casper that and people came from all over the city to see him because he was such a curiosity, and word got out. A rumor started that he was perhaps royalty, and that perhaps he had he was actually a prince of the House of Boden, And I'm not a student of European royalty. Apparently Boden is related to the Bodens

Edie to Napoleon etcetera. And so that's a long lineageer a well known lineage. Yeah. And so anyway, I said, apparently there was a prince born in eighteen twelve who died at the age of about two and a half weeks and yeah, and the story goes that that perhaps there was a competing tinggent contingent to the family that because Casper, if he was indeed the prince, would have been the last surviving line or less surriving person in that line, or would have gone over to like the

father's brother and his descendants. And so the theory is is that if Casper had been that baby, and if they had, say, for example, swapped and I found a baby that was already dying of natural causes, to a quick swap sand Casper off to the sticks or whatever, who cares, you know, the baby dies and the kingship passes over to you know, the uncle Casper. And so that rumor started about eight and it persisted actually for

many years. Actually there were people up in the twenties century doing d DNA analysis on what there are believed to be remnants of Casper Houser's hair, for example, to see if perhaps he is related to the House of Bottom and they actually the results were inconclusive. It was like, yeah, there's there's a strong correlation, but not quite strong enough to prove anything. And you know, so anyway, that's where

it's at. But so it's it's a tenuous theory at best. Yeah, and it's uh, and and and and it's not supported by some of the other facts, which is that doing a baby swapping in the House of Royalty is probably not that easy. I wouldn't think so. I would imagine that would be something that they would try to make very hard, you would, thanks, So yeah, okay, But anyway, that was that was a widely believed theory, and so therefore that that's kind of like lens support to this

whole thing. That a guy shows up and threatened said of the he ever leaves Nuremberg, you know, his life is forfeit, and YadA, YadA, YadA, and slashes him with a knife. And so anyway, a bunch of stuff went by. Um, he was living with out of the tutelage of various people, many of which he seemed to eventually alienate, and then at the very end he wants up stabbed in the chest fatally took him three days to die. But that's

not fun, not really now. So he so December eighteen thirty three, so this is five days or five years, excuse me? After he was actually found counsel with a wound in his chest, and he claims that he was lured to the Ansbach Court garden in Nuremberg and then a stranger tried to hand him a purse and then

while handing the purse, stabbed him in the chest. And the message there was a message in the purse because the police want to the park and they found it, and the message read and Hauser will be able to tell you quite precisely how I look and from where I am to save houses the effort. I will tell you myself from where I come blank blank, I come from like blank little Bavarian border blank blank on the river blank blank blank. I will even tell you the

name Damn l SO initials. So a cryptic message. Wait, I'm confused, what's the blanks? Were those dashes in the letter or what's going on there? I'm I'm a little confused because I've seen that I've seen something on this story and that's never made sense to me. I am blank is yeah, are you telling us they're not? Yeah, I will tell you. And now now I'm not going to tell you. I wrote this out ahead of time so that when I got there, I could tell the

coast clearance. Going to write it in myself. It seems weird that there's these pre made blanks. Yeah, yeah, and so and so. Anyway, but again this deepness of mystery because even though that, even though there's a lot of absurdities and inconsistencies, people want to believe what they want to believe, you know, and so there's a lot of people after he died, we was thinking, all he was murdered because he was a rightful prince, you know in YadA YadA um. Why was he at the park? Do

we know? Uh? He later said that he was tricked into going to the park with the promise of information about his mother. But you know, he didn't say who. I mean. Obviously, he had three days to die, so plenty of times to spill the beans about everything, but he didn't give up out any useful information. Apparently, he didn't say, for example, whether he was like sent a note or somebody who told him this in person or what. So he uh waited by the artesian well in the park.

No one came, so we went across to a monument in the park where a man was waiting for him. They walked together in the freezing cold. The man made as if to give him a document and suddenly stabbed him the side, puncturing his long piercing his liver, and then ran off. He goes back his naggers back home, saying that stab knife out, gave purse. Go the quickly they go and they find the person. They find this note inside the purse. But this is the thing is

that the note was written. It was written in mirror scripts. So essentially you're hold a piece of papers in the mirror and you right backwards. So and okay, I got I got I got it. And it was folded in a in a way that was apparently characteristic of Casper Hauser himself. How was it folded? It was folded diagonally stuff he instead of folding it like this, so it was square corner a corner instead of edge to edge. So you fold a diagonally basicly, got it? Yeah, So

it was folded in a in a manner. And so this guy, even though he was a clever huckster in my opinion, Uh, you know, a very good con man was not that bright about you know, like covering his tracks when he did in those sticks like porge murder notes. Um so anyway, so so I'm sorry, we do or do not know if it was just left blank or they just never released that information or no, it was left blank. It was left blank. Yeah, yeah, And he

was stabbed, Joe. You said the left chest, the left side of the chest, the left side of the chest, through the lung and into liver. Yeah. Is that a direct or an upward stroke or a downward stroke. Well that's the thing that's kind of mysterious about the whole thing, because you know, if it needed is true that his liver was punctured. As you know, your liver is on the right side of your chest. I mean it's like

it's not all on the right side. But but in order to stab somebody too, the long into the liver and into the liver, that's that you know, you're talking about at least four or five inches not longer. And so is it and is it an easy way to stab yourself? Well, that was the thing is a speculation,

is that he stabbed himself to get attention. Uh. And the same thing with the not the slashing of the forehead incident where this guy threatened that if he ever left the city of Nuremberg then he would be his

life with fortfit. And that is that he was just trying to keep his little legend alive because he liked the attention, and also by the way that that kept people coming to him, like Lord Stanhope, who were benefactors who would actually pay for his pay for his expenses and stuff like that and keep them want to keep them, you know, going. So essentially he screwed up. And the first time he slashed himself it wasn't that deep, so hey,

I can do it again. But now I have this knife and oh that went way deeper than I expected, and that hurts a lot more. Yeah, and that's that's well, that's the thing about it that is a little mysterious though. It's because like if you want to if you want to like stab yourself, you know, I mean, I mean, driving an if that deep into your body, even by accident, is pretty difficult. I mean, for forensic specialists, did that did that? They agree that it's entirely possible that he

could have afflicted the wound on himself. But if you think about it, if you're gonna puncture your lung and your liver, you're gonna drive that knife been pretty damny. Yeah, so maybe somebody is seven. But at the same time, there are people around who didn't like Casper, because apparently the guy was a really major flaming jerk, and he was widely regarded as a huge liar by the people

that knew him very well. So it's like the public who didn't know him, well, we're all enraptured by his story, but the people that actually spent a lot of time with them all uniformly seemed to come away convinced that the guy was a massive liar. Well, I I can see, okay, I can see that somebody did it, but I can also see a guy who isn't that smart about things.

We've all seen movies where somebody's gonna fake that they got beat up, and so they run their head into the door frame and then go, oh wow, that really hurts more than I thought. And I could just see him going, I need to jab this in, but I know that as soon as I stab myself, it's gonna hurt and I'm gonna pull it out and it's not gonna be credible enough himself against the wall. Yes, yeah, exactly, I mean, okay, okay, one too. Three. Oh oh, I

shouldn't use the eight teenage knife. Oh that's more than I expected. Yeah, I can see that happening because people have poor judgment and poor pre planning about these kind of things, as we well know. You see things like that in the news all the time. Did they ever find the knife? No, actually it didn't, and it's it's actually one of those things too. Where it was he was lying on his death, Patty was probably thinking, wow,

I really should have sterilized that blade before he read ask. Yeah. Now, they didn't find the purse with the note in it, of course, getting back to the beginning, the letters he carried with him, one of which was wrong supposedly his mother, the other one was from the guy who raised him in the dark little cell on the ground, were written in the same handwriting. So that but wait, wait wait,

wait say that again. They were written in the same handwriting. Yeah, and so yeah, are those notes still I mean, did are they still around at all? You know, that's a

good question. I don't know I really don't know, because if Casper is so nefariously devious, he's so nefarious but so devious about making things for himself, then I would say, well, let's compare the quote unquote mirror script handwriting letter to the ones that say I want to be in the cavalry and see if they're the same handwriting, because that would prove if he did it himself or not. Yeah. Yeah,

the note, the none the purse. They're not specific about this, but the note that was found had a spelling air and a grammatical error, both of which were fairly typical for him. So the writing wasn't necessarily a smoking a smoking gun, but apparently those errors were kind of a

little bit of smoking gun. You know. Again, it's hard to say, but it appears to me that the guy was just a fraud and that I made up this weird stick that would get him some attention and get him I'm getta taken care of, versus just being this peasant kid who's a homeless kid living in streets of Germany and whatever. And it seemed to work really well for him, except you know, his like megalomania sort of

like you know, took over and eventually killed him. He killed himself with the knife accidentally, accidentally, or somebody stabbed him. It could we be maybe somebody just didn't like him and decided to stabb When was he stabbed? December? So it's it's December in Nuremberg, which means it covered in snow,

cold snow. Okay. So they went back to find where he was at and follow his blood trail from where he came from, absolutely to go to the park, and they found they found his foot prints and no other footprints. Was there paths in the area They were kept up to be clear that he could have been walking on if there was the second person. Yeah, exactly. You know, again, the accounts are a little vague on that whole thing.

All they say is they found his footprints in the snow and no one else's, which implies to me that at the paths had been cleared, they hadn't been cleared after every snow flowing, and so they were able to find his footprints but nobody else's, which is why they thought he had stabbed himself. Well, other people like this, Frank, what's his name that I read years ago? I'll play

devil's advocate. Let's say that the paths were relatively clear, and you only find one set of footprints, and that's because he walked off onto the path, found that met the person got stabbed and walked back. Well, the other person would probably for a fast give getaways. Yeah, exactly, I want to run as fast as I can. Let's not go through through six inches of snow. Let's just go through a clear path and just hustle out a

yeah and yeah. Unfortunately, on all the accounts that I've read, nobody gives that amount of detail about about whether the passmen cleared years ago. Of course not, we're not there. He accounts were not as detailed as they are now. Yeah, yes, I mean no. It might be that if he could research it, there might somebody might have written a very detailed account that actually had that information in it, but I haven't seen it, but it's quite possible. How old

did Casper appear to be? Did he appeared to be the age he claimed or they said he appeared to be between the ages of fifteen and eighteen when he showed up, that's what they thought, So he maybe looked younger than yeah, and he was. It was an anteen the year eighteen twenty eight, and he had these letters claiming that he had been born in eighteen twelves. So they assumed the letters were true and he was sixteen. Uh,

perhaps he was a little older. So if he was sixteen, then according to that account of the sixteen, he died at one. Oh yeah, he died. He died pretty young. Yeah, that is really young. Really yeah, goodness. They gave him beer when he was sixteen, beer and sausage. Dumbass spatted out kidding me. Yeah. So anyway, it's one of those internal mysteries, but it persists to this day. They did DNA analyses. Obviously DNA analysis has not been around for

very long. Uh. Der Spiegel reported an attempt to match a blood sample from underpants assumed to have been his. Uh. And apparently apparently they were the wrong enterpants, because in two thousand two this was ninety six when der Spiegel reported this. In two thousand two, the NST for Forensic Medicine for the University of Munster and So analyzed hair and body cells from locks of hair and I was a clothing that had belonged to him. The items all

matched DNA. Wise, they did not match the blood from the thing, which means that they were using the wrong blood and they found that they compared that to a DNA segment from Estrad von Meddinger. I think I pronounced that right, I sent it in the female line of definitely uh deebo Harns. I think I'm pronouncing that right. Who was from the House of Boden. Uh. They were not identical, but it was definitely a possibility that there was a relationship between Caspar Hauser and the House of Bodden.

But now the DNA sample that there were referenced against, was that someone that was alive at the same time or someone in modern times? This I don't know. I assume that was somebody in the House of Boden that was actually alive and willing to provide a sample. So modern times, so we've got two hundred years of between for genetics to change. So that would add the mystery

or the inconclusive inconclusiveness. Yeah and so yeah, so that there was there was a high there was a relatively high similarity in DNA and not enough to be conclusive. Um And as far as matching the DNA was definitely Debo Harney's um who would have been his other or the child that was buried, because obviously there their remains are known and they could be dug up and a little. The House of Bod does not permit that. Shocking. Shocking.

I don't think I would permit it either. Actually, there's as urban legend that this guy is related to us. Just go ahead and dig up all our old relatives, what the heck exactly? So so yeah, anyway, it's an interesting little thing, which is, you know, may maybe all that stuff is true, but mostly I think it's probably a fraud. And I think a lot of people bought into it because people wanted to buy want to buy into lurid stuff like that. So you're you're you're convinced

he's a sham. Uh, not a hundred percent, but convinced he's a sham. Yes, Yeah, I don't know. I don't know where I come down on this. I think that it's hard for me to imagine someone being so desperate for attention that they would stab themselves that deep, even by accidents. But I I don't really know where I stand on it. I'd have to do a little more research. Think I I have mixed feelings on it, so I don't I don't say that he was a huckster sham, but I don't say I'm not convinced that was the

way that Casper said it happened. The only reasons that I say that is I've I've read some accounts of this, and the things that didn't ring true for me against Casper is the fact that the incident where he his he somebody barged in on him in the bathroom and

caught him in the forehead. The problem that I had with that, and there's other accounts that were similar where he had evidently he had a couple of runnins of getting stabbed or beat up and stuff like that by bad people, is that in that particular where we got his head cut, they followed the blood trail from the bathroom to his room and then to the seller where he had gone to hide. And it's see, it's very plausible.

And people said, well, he didn't really think this through very well as he cut himself and then said, oh what am I gonna do with the razor, went back, washed it off, went back to his room, put it in his room, and then went and hid, which seems like poor planning, which a lot of these things seem as if from the outside they're very sensational, but once you look at him, it's very poorly planned, which is somebody's got this great idea, but they just don't think

about how to tie it together, and so it just it's really loose and there's nothing credible about. Yeah, exactly the whole idea that you know, like say, for example, I mean if if I was if I was stabbed or slashed by somebody, I would run to where there were people, exactly. I wouldn't run and hide in a cellar where I'm isolated that could be stabbed again, you know,

it doesn't make sense. Well, and and here's the here's the other problem with that, do you And this is again I've seen the an accounts, and and the accounts that's the hard part of the accounts are two years old. People are interpreting them because the language is different now than it was then. But the accounts talk about the fact that he had been in a big argument or been chastised by his the people that were currently hosting

him in their home, so he was in trouble. He got in trouble, and he got his hand slapped for doing something wrong and bad and he wanted to get in everybody's good graces. So I'm gonna get attacked and everybody will love me and hug me and forget about that I did wrong. It's very It's like a five year old or a three year old. I I I the cat broke that. I didn't break that. Oh god,

the kid he scratched me. Kind of Yeah. I was gonna say that actually might be evidence for him actually being a part of the royal family, because that's very indicative of in breeding. That's so true. But but the

thing about it is is it's true. Is you know what what was consistent about him was what he was taken in by a lot of different people and families and stuff, and consistently he managed to alienate all of them, every single one of them, because every one of them came away with the impression that he was an incredible

liar and you know, and a fraud. And there's something else I said, Yeah, there's another another huge glaring in his inconsistency or just whatever you wanna call it, is the claim to have been kept for sixteen years and a little hole and be fed nothing but bread and water. Well, excuse me, you would die. I mean, you know, that's I mean, seriously, that's very true. Yeah, you're not gonna You're not gonna be able to survive on that diet.

I'm sorry. And so they were just a number of like I said, you've got he comes into town with two letters written in the same handwriting, by written by two people sixteen years apart. And but they're in the same handwriting. And so I think, well, this is the strongest, the best answer for this whole thing is that many, many people wanted to believe something that was just outlanderously silly. And people want to believe, and they and they do want to believe, and so and so, even to this date,

people believe in this crap. Well, obviously we're curious about wanting possibly want to believe, because we're still doing stories like this. This is what we do. We all look into this stuff because we still we find it fascinating. So, I mean, we're we're almost on the same level. It's just that we have the benefit of all this research coming ahead of us accused, and just really super good looks that people out there don't have. Sorry, yeah, you know, I I get off the model runway, I take off

my awesome sunglasses. I shake out my full head of hair and I walk and I go ahead and I start researching stuff like this, because that's that's just what my life is, the runway. That's not what I do. What I do is I jumped in the Ferrari with my intern. My intern is taking notes, and I'm speeding down, speeding on the highway in Malibu and at ninety miles. Yeah, that's so how that's kind of how it works for me. How about you, Devin House, has it worked for you.

I'm not a model, so I don't know. I thought you that's it, You're out. I thought, Oh, I thought we were doing mysteries. I think if you want to find out more about Casper Houser, we will have links on our website, which is Thinking Sideways podcast dot com. And also if you have any more information of any theories, so you know, what are just complaints or our Casper Houser.

Oh yeah, if you are Casper Houser or the stander from Casper Houser or just sender from the House of Boden, then we would like to hear from you, so please uh as an email at Thinking Sideways Podcast at gmail dot com anyway. That's it for tonight. We will talk to you guys soon. I am Joe. Good night, I'm Devin, and goodnight. This is Stephen. I'll be talking to you soon.