Hamburg's crook king:The Lord von Barmbeck

Around 1920, Julius Adolf Petersen was Hamburg's most notorious burglar king. On April 20, 1922, the busy crook confessed to 49 cases. His life was filmed under the title "Lord von Barmbeck".

by Marc-Oliver Rehrmann, NDR.de

"In our family we always spoke well about the 'Lord von Barmbeck'," says Astrid Mayer when NDR met her in 2015. At the time, the Hamburg native knew a lot to tell about the legendary burglar king of the early 1920s, whose real name was Julius Adolf Petersen. Mayer had taken over the estate of her great-aunt Frida Goedje, who was a long-time companion and lover of the "Lord von Barmbeck" - until his tragic death in 1933 in a Hamburg prison cell. The documents give deep insights into the thoughts and actions of the "Lord", whose story was also filmed in 1973.

Julius Adolf Petersen - The crook with "style"

Julius Adolf Petersen was already a legend during his lifetime. The Hamburg newspapers report in detail about the savvy burglar, who also made a name for himself as an escapee. The "Hamburger Fremdenblatt" gave Petersen the nickname "Lord von Barmbeck" - named after the Hamburg working-class district where Petersen once ran a pub (and which has been spelled "Barmbek" since 1946). Petersen attached great importance to impeccable clothing and probably never went out without his stiff black hat, according to contemporaries. His manners and quick wit also set him apart from the roughnecked criminals of his time.

The "Lord von Barmbeck" - a Hanseatic Robin Hood?

"Even as a child I was always told that the 'Lord von Barmbeck' stole from the rich and gave to the poor. And that's probably how it was," says Astrid Mayer, who, through conversations with her great-aunt Frida Goedje, was born when she was young learned a lot about the "Lord" over the years. "Once he is said to have given new clothes to five playing workers' children in a Barmbeck department store - and then sent them home with a nice greeting from the 'Lord von Barmbeck'." So was Julius Adolf Petersen a Hanseatic Robin Hood?

Petersen is in prison for the first time at the age of 13

The later "Lord" grew up in modest circumstances, his father was a worker in a cigar factory. Julius Adolf Petersen was born in October 1882 in a cramped basement apartment in Hamburg. He gets on the wrong track early on. At the tender age of 13 he was sentenced to five days in prison. He had taken a well-stocked purse from a playmate who had found it in exchange for a few sweets. But the thing comes out. And after he threw a full inkwell in the face of a teacher who was giving him a few canings on the buttocks in the classroom, he didn't dare go home for four weeks - and learned as a 13-year-old to join in petty thefts and swindles in the big city. "During those four weeks I drank poison, poison to the fullest," the "Lord" later recalled. And so, at the age of 18, Petersen ends up in prison for a few years.

Beating the police as a pub owner

From 1904 to around 1908, Petersen worked as a bartender in Barmbeck. But even here he cannot escape the criminal milieu. "In this job as an innkeeper, I got to know a number of customers whom I should have avoided as much as possible," writes the lord in his memoirs. The fact that Petersen does not shy away from fighting a police officer who wants to take a guest away contributes to the reputation in crook circles. Petersen also rudely throws the second policeman who rushes up to the street. "This performance made me a hero among the elements in a wide area. My economy was now constantly full, the ordinary citizen gave up the field to dubious audiences," said Petersen. The economy is doing very well. "Because it was the Eldorado of burglars and coal workers," said Adolf's little brother Arnold.

Petersen has "special merits" with an illegal gaming club, which he maintains in the pub after curfew "until the early hours of the morning". "I had to block out the light with black curtains so that the police officers on patrol could not see from the outside that the bar was still in operation." In 1908 Petersen was again sentenced to several years in prison. The family then gives up the pub.

In love with the Salvation Army's "blonde"

The women play a special role in the life of the "Lord". They keep providing him with much-needed alibis for the nights he commits his burglaries. In return, he gives her jewelry or money from the loot. But one woman in particular appealed to him:during his time as a pub owner, he fell in love with a "blonde from the Salvation Army" named Helmi - at least that's how Petersen describes it in his memoirs. She is said to have been a beautiful woman. The two married in 1911, but the marriage was anything but happy. Because Helmi prefers to be in high society, she doesn't get along with her husband's gangster friends. Petersen, on the other hand, complains that his wife's high demands have prompted him to commit more and more crimes.

"Chained unconscious to this woman"

In 1915 their only son Adolf was born, called "Hatzel". The "Lord" suffers from his emotionally cold wife, who apparently does not return his passionate love. And yet he can't get rid of her for a long time. "How was it possible to be chained to this woman in a faint? To tear yourself away seemed like eternal night, they have paradise around me," Petersen later recalled. Together they get through the First World War - even if he is in prison again in the meantime. Petersen is not allowed to go to war as a soldier because he is considered a career criminal. During the war, Petersen also steals butter and cigars to alleviate the need.

A lovestruck night watchman at the post office robbery

After the end of the war, Petersen has his heaviest time as a burglar. He is considered a specialist in safes, which he drills out by hand. Or he opens the safe on the "bed tour":he sneaks into the homeowner's bedroom at night to steal the safe key from the bedside table. His most spectacular burglary, however, was the attack on the Post Office 6 in Susannenstraße - in today's Schanzenviertel.

On September 29, 1920, Petersen and his six accomplices sneak up on the post office. It's easy for you:The only night watchman is distracted. "We were amused by the love affair that the guard had with a girl," Petersen described the robbery. They let him and break open a basement window. "The watchman in his love frenzy heard nothing of it." When the girl has left the building, they lock the perplexed night watchman in a closet. "I shook hands with the guard and said nothing was going to happen to him," said Petersen. Then they empty the safe. The incredible booty:221,000 marks in cash and 335,000 marks in stamps.

Western-style money transport robbery

Another coup by the Petersen gang is the robbery of a money transport at the Farmsen trotting course in the same month. In western style, they storm the carriage on the open road - and escape.

The name Petersen quickly appeared in the Hamburg newspapers - including the "Hamburger Fremdenblatt". The "Lord" fears for his reputation - and decides to take a daring action:he appears in the editorial office and, in mock indignation, rejects the allegations in connection with the money transport robbery. "I'm a commercial clerk and have nothing to do with the matter," says Petersen. "And if you're interested:I'm not a burglar at all, I'm just an escapee! It's been twelve years since my last crime." The "Hamburger Fremdenblatt" promptly prints a counterstatement the next day - the editors have been taken in by the "Lord von Barmbeck". His share of the trotting track booty:40,000 marks.

Pension for lover bought with booty

The "Lord" is now a rich man. Especially since he continues to get involved in illegal gambling clubs. But he lives rather modestly. In January 1921, he used part of the stolen money to buy his lover Frida Goedje a pension in the Colonnaden near the Alster for 100,000 marks. The marriage with Helmi has long since broken down, and in the spring of 1921 they divorce. He has known Frida Goedje since childhood, they were neighbors for a while. Later they keep crossing paths, Petersen flirts with her after the First World War. He now mostly lives with her in the boarding house - if a room is available. From his nocturnal forays, he always brings stolen goods to the boarding house to then sell them.

Arrested in the closet

Frida Goedje did not like to remember this time. "I had to take care of everything in the pension. He held me like a prisoner then," she wrote in a letter at the end of 1921. Petersen pretends to be her brother Adolf to the boarders. A woman who lived in the boarding house for months later describes how Petersen beat and abused his lover Frida. "In my opinion, she was completely under his influence," the witness told the police. So it is no coincidence that Petersen was arrested in June 1921 after a burglary in a lingerie shop in the boarding house. Frida Goedje opened the door to the police and denied his presence. But the police officers refuse to be put off and catch Petersen "as he just got out of a closet". Goedje is also arrested.

The fairy tale with the fiancé from the USA

During the interrogations, Frida Goedje initially states that her fiancé from the USA donated the money to buy the pension. His name was John Black, but she couldn't say which city he came from. He always drove back and forth between Hamburg and the USA. Shortly before the outbreak of the First World War, he made 80,000 marks available to her for times of need. Goedje will later distance himself from this "fairy tale" and admit that Petersen bought the pension. She has never had a fiancé in the USA.

Secret messages in urine script

Now the police have caught the "Lord von Barmbeck" after years of searching. But Petersen does not think about surrendering. From prison, he organizes an alibi for breaking into the lingerie shop:he was at his sister's engagement party at the time of the crime. But there was no celebration at his mother's house, but the "Lord" even had an engagement ring made with the appropriate date. He discusses details with his relatives. But in the end the thing flies up. Again and again Petersen succeeds in smuggling secret messages out of the prison. Many of them are written in urine script so the guards won't discover the messages.

The "Lord" is in torture chains for five months

"During the first ten months of my almost two-year pre-trial detention, I fought hard with the investigating judge," Petersen later wrote. "Even the chains I was put on nightly for five months until my wrists swelled and broke in two could not depress me mentally enough to make the confessions I wanted. As the coroner saw, his 15-pound chains did nothing reached, he changed his tactics. He revealed all the cards to me about the confessions of accomplices that incriminated me as an accomplice. Even this card revelation did not persuade me to confess."

Confession of Frida Goedje:He brought bad luck to me

His lover Frida Goedje has made a confession. Months of solitary confinement had worn her down - and so she unpacked in November 1921. "I would have said it sooner if I hadn't been under Petersen's spell too much and if I hadn't had to fear his revenge that he would have done something to me if I had testified," says Frida Goedje. "Today I know that I was only a means to an end for Petersen." She tells the examining magistrate that she wants to break away from Petersen once and for all. "He brought too much misfortune on me, and on others." But what did Frida Goedje know about the crimes? The public prosecutor's office is convinced that she "was aware of his entire life and activities". Petersen, on the other hand, helps his lover by saying that he has always hidden the fact that he commits theft. Frida Goedje herself wrote at the time:"I probably knew that Petersen didn't have a good reputation." But she only found out about all the crimes after her arrest. Goedje was held in custody for thirteen months and was acquitted in court.

Why did the "Lord" confess in 1922?

Petersen finally gives up his resistance:on April 20, 1922, the "Lord von Barmbeck" makes a comprehensive confession. In it he describes 49 crimes that he had committed in Hamburg over the past few years. He names all the accomplices who were involved in a burglary - and writes down how each burglary went in detail.

Why Petersen ultimately decided to confess is unclear. In his memoirs he is silent about it. A few weeks earlier, however, he had written to his younger brother Arnold, who was also in prison:"If you let the mother go, I would be willing to admit everything, whether I did it or not." Because the mother has also been in prison for months because she is said to have kept stolen goods from her son in her apartment. But Petersen is apparently unsure whether the examining magistrate would stick to such an agreement. And so he asks his brother:"If there is more conviction in the near future that the mother will be released, then let us both make a confession and spare no one. Then we both want to bear our fate like men."

Petersen may also see that his situation is now hopeless due to the confessions of his accomplices. And so he makes a clean sweep. "My confession had an almost phenomenal effect on all the judges," Petsersen writes in his memoirs. "The prison gates opened for me, I was free to walk about every day in the summer of 1922." At least until the fall of 1922, when the trial begins.

"Everywhere I was the subject of a sensation"

The trial of the "Lord von Barmbeck" caused a sensation in Hamburg. The newspapers relish the details. Petersen writes:"My confession caused a great public stir. Everywhere I was the object of curiosity and a sensation, which was not insignificantly exaggerated by sensational newspaper articles." Each crime is tried individually - for example, the "Lord von Barmbeck" received six years in prison for stealing the mail. Overall, the individual penalties add up to more than 50 years. In 1924, however, the individual sentences were combined into a total sentence of 15 years in prison.

"Two years after my conviction, visitors came to the prison who wanted to see me," says the memoirs of "Lord von Barmbeck", which he wrote around 1927 in the Fuhlsbüttel prison. "Even the Senate summoned me once. Today, after serving seven years, my memory has faded. Curiosity is satisfied."

The "Lord von Barmbeck" gets a chance

In April 1932, Petersen was given the opportunity to lead a life outside the prison walls:he was initially given a six-month "trial leave" for good behavior and was then able to leave prison. A good three years before the end of his prison term. The "Lord" had repeatedly protested that he had broken with his previous life. He moves back to Frida Goedje's pension. But he doesn't manage to stay away from the criminal milieu in the long run. He was arrested again in June 1933:He is said to have teamed up with the burglar Ernst Hannack and to have founded a counterfeit money gang with his brother Arnold. Petersen denies the allegations of counterfeit money.

The last resort - hanged in the prison cell

He will be released again in July - probably because he promised to hand Hannack over to the police. But the plan fails:Hannack shoots Petersen at a meeting in Hamburg's Harvestehude district and escapes. Two days later, on October 26, 1933, both were arrested. The "Hamburger Fremdenblatt" reports:"Yesterday the 51-year-old Adolf Petersen was arrested, who is strongly suspected of having carried out several burglaries with the already arrested robber and murderer Hannack." Four weeks later, the "Lord von Barmbeck" hanged himself in his prison cell. It is November 21, 1933. A guard finds him. "Petersen had hanged himself with two knotted stockings and a handkerchief on the hook of the air vent," says the guard's report.

"He was a criminal through and through"

Why did Petersen decide to commit suicide? In an interrogation a few hours before his death, he said he would probably never be released from prison again. In the meantime, the National Socialists had the say in the city. "And as a career criminal, he probably wouldn't have been released under the Nazis," said writer Jürgen Ehlers a few years ago. Ehlers wrote a book about the "Lord von Barmbeck" in 2008 and after his research did not believe that Petersen had the honest intention of leading an honorable life after his leave of absence in 1932:"There is no indication that he tried when honest citizen to gain a foothold." The image of the Hanseatic Robin Hood or a criminal with fine manners also does not correspond to Ehler's knowledge, which he collected in the Hamburg State Archive, among other things:"He tried to appear as a gentleman, but he wasn't a gentleman. He was a criminal through and through."

Petersen's memoirs first published in 1973

After his death, the "Lord von Barmbeck" is quickly forgotten. His memoirs are not published until 1973. It had long been believed that the manuscript, written in cursive, had been destroyed in the air raids of World War II. In the same year, the NDR broadcasts a six-part radio play, actor Uwe Friedrichsen speaks "Lord von Barmbeck". In the opening credits, the author is attested to have an "amazing narrative talent". The film "Der Lord von Barmbeck" with Martin Lüttge in the title role was also released in 1973. The work received two federal film awards and a Bambi for best German film. And so the legend of the "Lord von Barmbeck" comes to life again.

The long search for the grave

But it remains a mystery for a long time where Julius Adolf Petersen was buried. At the Ohlsdorf Cemetery in Hamburg? A long search was made for the grave, according to the NDR in 2015 from the cemetery administration. Corresponding documents could not be found in the archive either. But then NDR.de tracks down the grave letter - privately owned by Astrid Mayer, Frida Goedje's grandniece. The document shows that the "Lord von Barmbeck" was buried in the Ohlsdorf cemetery at the end of November 1933. The exact grave site is also listed. Until her death in 1959, Frida Goedje, who after marriage was now called Frida Regeser, took care of the care of the grave. The tombstone is no longer preserved. Archival documents show:The tomb was dissolved in 1963.

The hand in the photo

Astrid Mayer, the guardian of Frida Goedje's estate and the last documents of the "Lord von Barmbeck", said a few years ago:"My mother, who was Frida Goedje's niece, said to me before her death:Take good care of things." Her legacy includes a number of black-and-white photos showing her great-aunt - often with a dog by her side. And the only surviving photo of Julius Adolf Petersen, which was previously only known in a retouched version. It shows Petersen in fine clothes sitting on a chair. Another person's hand can be seen on the back of the chair. "This is my great-aunt's hand, which later cut up the photo," says Mayer.

A crochet blanket from prison

Mayer inherited a crocheted blanket from her great-aunt, which she had made in prison. In the 1970s she continued to manage Frida Goedje's boarding house for a while. "But in the long run it was too exhausting, so I sold the pension," says Mayer. The boarding house that the "Lord von Barmbeck" once founded with his booty money is still in the Colonnaden. A few doors down and under new owners, but with the old name:"At the Esplanade".