NOTE: Some sources give the name as “Waltmann,” others use the spelling “Woltman” or “Woltmann.” Wilhelmene Woltmann" is the spelling used in German language sources.
***
CHRONOLOGY
1845 – Wilhelmine Woltmann, born Gustrow,
Mecklenburg-Strelitz.
Apr. 3, 1872 – arrested.
Oct. 22, 1872 – Court of Assises gave verdict of
death.
Dec.
21, 1872 – executed by ax beheading.
VICTIMS
Child
– knocked eye out
Martin
– her own child.
Franz
von During – first Husband, Brunswick.
Martin
Wachter, Hanover – father-in-law
Lotta
Wachter, Hanover – mother-in-law
Elizabeth
Woltmann step-daughter.
Adalbert Woltmann – step-son.
***
FULL
TEXT (Article 1 of 2): Wilhelmina Waltmann, known as the “Borgia of the Stade,”
a little city on the banks of the Elbe, recently surrendered her life on the
scaffold to atone for its iniquity. Her career had been marked by continuous,
premeditated cruelty. While at school she knocked out the eye of a companion.
Being a woman of great beauty she became governess to the children of a wealthy
man who had made her his mistress. Her lover’s wife having learned of the
affair the young tigress poisoned her.
At
Hamburg, soon after, her beautiful face attracted many admirers, but becoming
reckless the police expelled her from the city, and she went to Brunswick,
where an officer of the Ducal army fell in love with and married her. She
poisoned him soon after, and then turned up in Hanover, where she married a merchant
named Wachter, and avenged herself upon his parents, who opposed the match, by
poisoning them. Wachter soon deserted her, and she married a widower named
Waltmann, with two children. These latter became the victims of their murderous
stepmother, and this last crime exposed her. Her antecedents were examined, her
other victims exhumed, and the evidence came in copious enough to fix a dozen
death penalties to her had it been possible.
Throughout
her confinement prior to her death the wild beast in her underwent no
subjugation and though chained to the wall she undertook to attack a clergyman
who visited her with spiritual consolation. Her beautiful hair was cut off
before taking her to the scaffold, and she was arrayed in a low black muslin
dress, which left the neck exposed. She was then forced to kneel in front of
the block before a crowd of witnessed; her bead was strapped to it, and with
one blow of the executioner’s axe it rolled into the basket.
[“The
End of a ‘Borgia,’” The Coshocton Democrat (Oh.), Feb. 4, 1873, p. 1]
***
FULL TEXT (Article 2 of 2): Although the 3d of December last
was a bitter cold day, from the earliest hour in the morning vast crowds of
people filled the streets of the little city of Stade, on the bank of the Elbe
river, nearly opposite the great North German seaport of Hamburg. By 9 o'clock
at least 20,000 people had arrived in Stade, and the police had the utmost
difficulty in keeping order in the surging multitude. The occasion which had
caused all these thousands to flock to Stade was the beheading of a woman,
refined, attractive and intelligent. The name of the doomed woman was
Wilhelmina Woltman, and the career of this extraordinary woman, almost from her
earliest youth, had been marked by an uncontrollable and wicked temper. When at
school she had knocked out the eye of one of her young companions. A few years
after she became the governess of the children of a wealthy landed proprietor,
who had fallen in love with her and made her his mistress. Her lover's wife
having discovered the liaison, the girl poisoned the woman; and there is
suspicion that she also caused the death of her own child. She buried herself
thereupon for a time in a whirl of fashionable dissipation in Hamburg, where
her extraordinary beauty attracted numerous admirers. But, becoming very
reckless, the police expelled her from the city, and she went to Brunswick,
where an officer of the ducal army fell in love with and eventually married
her. She returned his devotion by poisoning him. She next turned up in Hanover,
where she became acquainted with a merchant named Wachter, who married her. Wilhelmina
revenged herself upon the opposing parents by poisoning them. The cholera raged
at the time, and, in consequence, it remained a secret for years. Wachter soon
afterwards became a bankrupt, and deserted his wife, who went to Stade and
married a widower named Woltman, who had two children. These also became the
victims of the murderous passions of their stepmother, and then her criminal
career was brought to a close. She was arrested, her antecedents closely
examined into, and her victims exhumed, her trial took place at Stade on the 2d
of October, and the result was that she was convicted and sentenced to death.
Pastor Decker made, on the morning of the day on which she
was to be executed, a determined effort to move her stony heart. The woman was
fastened to the wall by a chain ten feet long, which was attached to her left
wrist. After listening to the reverend gentleman for two or three minutes, she
made a sudden attack on him, compelling him to beat a hasty retreat.
Reiflenberg, the executioner, saluted his victim respectfully, and informed her
who he was. "What do you want of me?" she said to the headsman,
fixing her large, lustrous eyes inquiringly upon him. "I want to prepare
you or the scaffold." he answered. "Oh," "she said,
carelessly, "I am prepared." "Not quite," he rejoined. He
then unchained her hand and began to cut off her hair. Then he threw a heavy
fur cape over her shoulders, and the toilet for the scaffold was finished. He
thereupon left her cell, and the next visitor was the warden of the prison, who
asked her if she wanted anything. "Only a glass of water," she said,
dryly. It was then about half-past 1, and her last moment rapidly drawing nigh.
Ten minutes afterward the Judge and Clerk of the Criminal Court appeared before
her, and the death warrant was read to her a last time. The presiding Judge
urged her in feeling words to confess her crimes, and make her peace with her
God. She responded by shaking her head impatiently. They left her, and then the
headsman and his assistants took her to the scaffold. When she appeared in the
open air the biting cold caused her to shiver; but she bore the glance of the
thousands of eyes, which the multitude riveted upon her, without flinching.
The scaffold was a coarse, wooden structure, about eight
feet in diameter. Wilhelmina Woltman ascended it with a firm step, and walked
to the fatal block in its middle without betraying any nervousness. The warden
of the prison asked her if she had anything to say. "No, no!" she
answered angrily; "Make haste! make haste!" The next moment the two
assistants of the executioner caused her to kneel in front of the block. They
took the fur cape from her shoulders, and pressed her head upon the top of the
block, to which they fastened it by means of a leather strap. She shook
convulsively for a moment or two, until the executioner, who had meanwhile
taken his flashing ax from a sort of scabbard, hastily stepped up to her. He
took his position at the left side of the block, lifted up his ax, and struck
heavily upon the beautiful white neck of the woman. He had done his work well,
for the head fell down in front of the block, while the trunk raised itself
convulsively, a stream of dark, red blood spouting in the air. The headsman and
his assistants sprang to one side of the scaffold, in order not to be stained
by the blood of the murderess.
[“Brinvilliers At Stade. - A Beautiful Poisoner Brought to
the Scaffold.” Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 44, Number 6808, Jan. 28, 1873,
p. 1]
***
***
***
***
FULL TEXT (translated from German): A criminal trial
was recently held in front of the Court of Assises in Stade, Hanover, whose
story reminds us vividly of the times of the notorious Lucretia Borgia.
Wilhelmine Woltmann, a 25-year-old woman of extraordinary beauty, was found
guilty by a jury of six-fold poisoning, and was unanimously condemned by the
judges to death by ax. On the 21st of December, the executioner's art ended a
career which, albeit in the lower sphere, does not such the horrible any less
than that of the notorious Italian woman. Wilhelmine Woltmann was born in 1845
in Gustrow, Mecklenburg-Strelitz. Her father, a teacher at the Lyceum there,
gave the daughter, who was so great in beauty, an excellent education. In her
13th year she was sent to a guesthouse in Kostock. Wilhelmine had to leave it
after three years, because she knocked out the eye of a playmate in anger.
Some time after the return of the daughter to the
parental home, the father found himself obliged to remove her for improper
conduct. He arranged a job for her with a landowner, Herr Schalburg of
Herzberg, who needed a governess for his children and a companion for his
ailing wife. A few months after Wilhelmine's entrance into the house of the
still young bon vivant, it was obvious that the handsome blond governess had
been quarried as mistress. The poor wife suffered unspeakably and died after a
few months, from, it was said, a broken heart. Later revelations, however,
discclosed another more terrible mode of death. The scandal finally became so
bad that Schalburg was forced to dismiss Fraulein Woltmann. Thn she went to
Schwerin and initiated a lawsuit against the landowner through lawyer Holbein
because of the paternity of a child born in the meanwhile. A compromise was
achieved by paying 1000 Thalers.
With the money Wilhelmine went to Hamburg and led
there such a devastating life that she soon became an inmate of the workhouse
for dissolute women. A corporal punishment, which the young, impulsive
creature had to endure, probably did little to turn the well-bred child into that
shenanig that reveled in the torments of his fellow-men.
First we meet Wilhelmine in Braunschweig, where she
knew how to seduce a young aristocratic officer with her dance in such a way
that he shook off his status, family and connections in order to lead the woman
to the altar. The marriage was not happy. A child sprouted from the same died
in the autumn of 1864. At that time, cholera spread throughout Braunschweig. A
few days after the death of the boy, the father, as the physicians attested,
was due to the cholera. No one suspected the mourning widow was a Borgia,
famously taken by the executioner. When the usual year of mourning was over,
Wilhelmine sold the property of the divorced husband. With the proceeds, eight
thousand thalers, she went to Hanover and knew how to draw a wealthy young
merchant into her net. Despite the parries of his parents, the wedding took
place.
For six years, the couple lived apparently in peace,
the parents-in-law having fallen victim shortly after the marriage. Two children
sprang from the union. Wachter, the husband, became bankrupt in 1871 and fled
to America.
PART 2: Wilhelmine cried no tears to the heartless,
but packed up their belongings and children and made a pilgrimage to Stade.
There she met the teacher Woltmann, a widower with two children, while not yet
divorced from the fleeing one. The bliss of the good schoolmaster married to
the beautiful woman was soon to be disturbed. Woltmann, a man of sincere, moral
character, became accustomed to the scandalous nature of the woman, and carried
the yoke as long as it was possible. But the man expressed his disapproval one
day, and informed the woman in a quiet but definite manner that he intended to achieve a partial
separation for his children. Wilhelmine accepted the words without any
response, but a stinging, fanatical glance made the unhappy man shudder, as he
later remarked to the jury. For several days the couple did not say a word.
Suddenly, Wilhelm's stepchildren fell ill and died of fearful cramps after a
few days.
The doctors may well suspect, because, despite of the
protests of the stepmother was made a post-mortem investigation – and found
arsenic. On April 3, the woman was arrested by the Criminal Investigation
Department and the procedure started. The investigation by the Crime
Department, conducted with due care, identified the poisoning by arsenic of the
first husband from During, the first-born child, the Wachter in-laws, the
Woltmann children, and most likely Mrs. Schalburg. On October 22, the Court of
Assises, through its president, gave the following verdict:
"Wilhelmine Woltmann! In my long and eventful
career as judge, I have never before seen such an inhumane criminal, who, right
before me, laughed at all natural instincts. It seems that nature has banished
the blackest soul to its most beautiful form. You are, by a jury of free men,
without prejudice and with all justice, the poisoning of Adalbert and Elisabeth
Woltmann, your step-children, Franz von During, your first jusband, Martin and
Lotta Wachter, your parents-in-law, and Martin, your own child, found guilty.
Wilhelmine Woltmann, 26 years old, is ordered to have been put to death on the
morning of 21 December 1872 by the sword of life for these crass crimes. And
God be merciful to your soul.”
Calm, without expression or movement, the woman
received the verdict. With a smiling countenance, gracefully bowing, modern
Borgia left the courtroom and, having arrived at the prison, asked the director
for a rich meal.
["A modern Borgia. A woman who has six murders
on her conscience. "Salzburger Volksblatt (Austria), 23 & 24 January
1873. p. 1]
***
A broadside ballad: Wilhelminia Woltmann, 1872, pub. By Kahlbrock,
Hamburg; reproduced as No. 20 in Leander Petzoldt (ed.), Deutsche Volksagen, 1968,
Beck, Munich.
***
FULL
TEXT: Vor dem Assisenhofe zu Stade, Hanover, wurde vor Kurzem ein
Kriminalprozez verhandelt, dessen Geschichte uns lebhast an die Zeiten der
berüchtigten Lucretia Borgia erinnert. Wilhelmine Woltmann, ein 25jähriges Weib
von ausserordentlicher Schönheit, wurde von einer Jury des sechsachen Giftmordes
schuldig besunden, und von den Richtern einstimmig zum Tode durch das Beil
verurtheilt. Am 21. Dezember hat die Art des Scharfrichters eine Laufbahn
beendet, welche, wenn auch in niederer Sphäre, des Schrecklichen nicht weniger
in sich schliesst, als diejenige der berüchtigen Italienerin. Wilhelmine
Woltmann wurde im Jahre 1845 in Gustrow, Mecklenburg-Strelitz geboren. Ihr
Vater, Lehrer am dortigen Lyceum, liess der zu grosser Schönheit heraublühenden
Tochter eine votzügliche Erziehung angedeihen. Im 13. Jahre in eine Pension
nach Kostock gesandt, musste Wilhelmine dieselbe bereits nach drei Jahren
wieder verlossen, weil sie einer Gespielin im Zorn ein Auge ausgeschlagen.
Der
Vater sah sich einige Zeit nach der Rücklehr der Tochter in das elterliche Haus
genöthigt, dieselbe ihrer ungeziemenden Aussührung wegen zu enfernen. Er
erwirkte ihr eine Stelle bei einem Gutsbesitzer Herrn Schalburg zu Herzberg,
der eine Gouvernante für seine Kinder und eine Gesellschafterin für seine
kränkelnde Gattin bedurste. Wenige Monate nach Wilhelminens Ginstritt in das
Haus des noch jungen Lebemannes war es ein offenkundiges Gehimniss, dass die
hübsche blonde Gouvernante zur Maitresse erboben worden. Die arme Gattin litt
unsäglich und starb nach wenigen Monaten, wie es hiess, an gebrochenem Herzen.
Spätere Enthüllungen liessen jedoch eine ausdere schrecklichere Todesart
konstatiren. Der Skandal wurde schliesslich so arg, dass Schalburg sich
gezwungen sah, die Woltmann zu entlassen. Diese begab sich nach Schwerin und
leitete gegen den Gutsbesitzer durch nach Advokaten Holbein einen Prozess wegen
der Vaterschaft eines mittlerweile geborenen Kindes ein.Ein Kompromiss wurde
durch Zahlung von 1000 Thaler erzielt.
Mit
dem Gelde ging Wilhelmine nach Hamburg und führte dort ein so ausschweisendes
Leben, dass sie bald ein Infsalle des Arbeitshauses für liederliche Weiber
wurde. Eine körperliche Züchtigung, welche das junge, impulsive Geschöpf zu
erleiden hatte, trug wohl nicht wenig dazu bei, aus dem wohlerzogenen Kinde
jenes Schensal zu machen, welches in den Qualen seiner Mitmenschen schwelgte.
Zunächst
treffen wir Wilhelmine in Braunschweig, wosetbst sie einen jungen adeligen
Offizier mit ihren Reigen so zu sesseln wusste, dass derselbe Stand, Familie
und Konnexionen abschüttelte, um das Weib zum Altar zu führen. Die Ehe war
nicht glücklich. Ein derselben entsprossenes Kind starb im Herbst 1864. Damals
grafjirte die Cholera in Braunschweig. Wenige Tage nach dem Tode des Knäbleins
folgte der Vater, wie die Aerzte bescheinigten, an der Cholera. Niemand
vermuthete in der trauernden Wittwe die Borgia, welche einst noch dem Henker
versallen sollte. Als das übliche
Trauerjahr vorüber war, verkaufte Wilhelmine das Eigenthum des geschiedenen
Gatten. Mit dem Erlös, achttausend Thalern, ging sie nach Hannover und wusste
dort einen vermögenden jungen Kaufmann in ihr Netz zu ziehen. Trotz der
Widerrede der Eltern sand die Hochzeit statt. Sechs Jahre selbte das Ehepaar
scheinbar in Frieden, nachdem die Schwiegereltern kurz nach der Heirath der
Giftmischerin zum Opfer gefallen waren. Zwei Kinder entsprossen der Ehe. Im
Jahre 1871 wurde Wachter, der Gatte, bankerott und floh nach Amerika. (Schulss
folgt.)
PART
2: Wilhelmine weinte dem Herzlosen keine Thränen, sondern pacte ihre
Siebensachen und Kinder auf und wallfahrte gen Stade. Dort, lernte sie den
Lehrer Woltmann, einen Wittwer mit zwei Kindern, kennen, dem sie noch erlangter
Scheidung von dem flüchtigen Wachter in aller Form angetraut wurde. Die
Glückseligkeit des guten Schulmeisterleins in der Ehe mit dem wunderhübschen
Weibe sollte bald gestört werden. Woltmann, ein seinfülender, moralischer
Charakter, wurde von der screchen Natur des Weibes angeekeit und trug das Joch
so lange es eben möglich war. Doch eines Tages rasste der Mann sich aus und
theilte dem Weibe in ruhiger, aber bestimmter Weife mit, dass er seiner Kinder
wegen eine partielle Trennung zu erzielen gedenke. Wilhelmine nahm die Worte
ohne alle Erwiderung entgegen, allein ein stechender, fanaticher Blick liess
den unglücklichen Mann schaudern, wie er selber vor den Geschworenen bemerkte.
Mehrere Tage wechstelte das Ehepaar kein Wort. Plötzlich erkrankten Wilhelmens
Stiefkinder und starben unter furchbaren Krämpfen nach wenigen Tagen.
Die
Aerzte mochten wohl verdacht schöpfen, denn trotz der Proteste der Stiefmutter
wurde eine post mortem Untersuchung vorgenommen und – Arsenik gefunden. Am 3.
April wurde das Weib von der Kriminal-Behörde eingezogen und das Verfahren
eingeleitet. Die mit vieter Umsicht geführte Untersuchung durch den
Kriminalsenat konstatirte die Vergiftung durch Arsenik des ersten Gatten von
During, des erster Ehe erzeugten Kindes, der Wachters’chen Schwiegereltern, der
Woltmann’schen Kinder, und liess serner diejenige der Frau Schalburg als
wahrscheinlich annehmen. Am 22. Oktober fällte der Assisenhof durch seinen
Präsidenten folgendes Urtheil:
“Wilhelmine
Woltmann! In einer langen und ereignissreichen Laufbahn als Richter habe ich
nie eine so unmenschliche und allen Naturtrieben hohnlachende Verbrecherin vor
mir geseben. Es scheint, als ob die Natur die schwärzeste Seele in die schönste
Form gebannt. Sie sind von einer Jury frier Männer, ohne Vorfurteil und noch
allen Formen Rechtens, des Giftmords von Adalbert und Elisabeth Woltmann, Ihrer
Stiefsinder, von Franz von During, Ihres ersten Gatten, von Martin und Lotta
Wachter, Ihren Schweigereltern, und Martin, Ihres eigenen Kindes, schuldig
befunden worden. Für diese schrusslichen Verbrechen sollen Sie, Wilhelmine
Woltmann, 26 Jahre alt, am Morgen des 21. Dezember 1872 durch das Schwert vom
Leben zum Tode gebracht werden. Und Gott sei Ihrer Seele gnädig.”
Ruhig,
ohne irgend welche Vewegung zu äussern, empfing das Weib den Urtheilspruch.
Lächelnden Antlitzes, graziös sich verbeugend, verliess die moderne Borgia den
Gerichtsaal und bat, im Gefängniss angekommen, den Direktor um ein reichliches
Mahl.
[“Eine
moderne Borgia. Ein Weib, das sechs Morde auf dem Gewissen hat.” Salzburger
Volksblatt (Austria), 23 & 24 Jänner 1873. p. 1]
***
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