Around 1920, Julius Adolf Petersen was Hamburg's most notorious burglar king, known as "Lord von Barmbeck". On June 29, 1921 he was arrested. NDR tells its story in four parts. Part 1:The crook with "style".
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.
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 He learned a lot about the "Lord" over the years." Once he is said to have clothed five playing workers' children in a Barmbeck department store - and then sent them home with a nice greeting from the "Lord von Barmbeck". So Julius Adolf Petersen is a Hanseatic Robin Hood?
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
A scene from the feature film "Der Lord von Barmbeck" from 1973:pub owner Petersen (right) takes on a police officer.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.
Game club behind darkened windows
Petersen has "special merits" with an illegal gambling club, which he maintains after curfew "until the early hours of the morning" in the pub. "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 second part of the series about the life of the "Lord von Barmbeck" you will learn what the most spectacular crimes of Julius Adolf Petersen were - and how he was arrested in 1921 after years of searching.