Isabella Mueller (crime writer)
The year was 1918, when the First World War had come to an end. There were supply shortages throughout Austria, which led to the emergence of black markets. These were, so to speak, the supermarkets of the post-war era, where one could find anything that was up for sale. At that time, Karl Weber ran a pub on Althanplatz in Vienna’s 9th district, Alsergrund, where, on 15 December, he was visited by a man who proposed a lucrative business deal. He offered him wine from a wine merchant in the Weinviertel region at an incredibly low price. They were to meet up with him there. The innkeeper Karl Weber took his good friend Erhard Schmucker, also an innkeeper, with him to the meeting point at Glaubendorf-Wetzdorf railway station. Once there, the middleman informed them that the wine merchant was in Radelsbrunn, so they set off for that town. However, the two men never arrived there, as they were shot and robbed by the middleman. They had fallen victim to a swindler who had cold-bloodedly lured them into a trap. The manhunt for this dangerous man was in full swing. Johann Hahn, a penniless, heavily indebted and known-to-the-authorities black-market trader, quickly came under the scrutiny of the Vienna Security Office. Both Weber’s son and the inn’s staff had recognised him as the man who had negotiated with Karl Weber. Johann Hahn had served in the army. In 1917, he met and fell in love with Rosa Feigl in Wimpassing, whom he married that very same year. After the war ended, Johann tried to make a living through odd jobs and smuggling. He had planned to buy a farm in the Mühlviertel region of Upper Austria, which he intended to run together with his wife Rosa and his mother-in-law. However, the purchase price proved too high, so they had to return to Vienna. He had the furniture stored temporarily in Nussdorf. Secretly, however, he sold a large part of it, even though the furniture belonged to his mother-in-law. With this money, he rented a flat in Vienna-Meidling, where he lived with Rosa and their one-and-a-half-year-old son until they were forced to move out due to rent arrears. The small family had no choice but to move into a homeless shelter. It was there that their daughter was born on 14 October 1919. They placed their son in care. During this difficult time, Johann kept running off. Not only did he abandon his family, but he also embezzled the money from the insurance payout that belonged to his mother-in-law. In a letter dated November 1919, Johann told his wife that he had finally found a good job in Switzerland and intended to return to her for Christmas. However, the postmark was from Gänserndorf. Nevertheless, Rosa believed in Johann’s good intentions; on 17 December 1919, he visited his mother-in-law in Fasangasse in Vienna, where Rosa was now also living. As compensation for his embezzlement, he sent 10,000 crowns to his mother-in-law and 9,000 crowns to Rosa. Johann, who reportedly arranged business deals, had to travel to Carinthia that very same day. His wife Rosa was to follow shortly afterwards. On 19 December, she travelled by the Südbahn to Judenburg, where she met Johann, who checked into the Hotel Post with her under the name ‘Johann Halm and wife’. As Rosa had sent a letter to her mother from there, the police were able to track down the wanted Johann Hahn using the return address. He was arrested, together with Rosa, on 7 January 1920 at the Hotel Post. Whilst being transported to Vienna, Johann attempted to escape, but this was quickly put to an end by a warning shot fired by the police. Johann Hahn was taken to the police remand centre in Vienna and transferred to the Vienna Regional Court on 13 January. His wife Rosa was released after just five days. During police questioning, Johann Hahn confessed to the robbery and murder of the two innkeepers, whom he had shot in self-defence. He had only been carrying the pistol to exchange it for potatoes. He was also charged with several counts of fraud. For instance, Johann had offered a timber merchant a plot of woodland at a particularly low price and collected a deposit for it. However, the promised plot of woodland never materialised. Johann attempted to swindle a second timber merchant using the same scam. But the latter did not suffer the same fate, as he refused to pay a deposit. During the investigation, it emerged that Johann had been planning further robberies. On 2 December 1919, Johann had also approached the innkeeper Alois Kölbl from Vienna-Währing with an offer from a wine merchant in Radelsbrunn to buy wine at a bargain price; the merchant was said to be in urgent need of money for his daughter’s wedding. Kölbl took a fellow innkeeper, a friend of his, along to the meeting in Ziersdorf on 9 December. As Hahn arrived late, Kölbl enquired about the wine merchant, but nobody knew who he was. Johann explained that the wine merchant was from Ebersbrunn. However, on the way there, Hahn suddenly took off. When Kölbl returned home the next day, his wife told him that Johann had demanded money from her to buy the wine, as Kölbl allegedly hadn’t had enough money with him for the purchase. As this struck her as suspicious, she gave him two rucksacks instead of the money. Kölbl reported Johann to the police. He also wanted to publicise the fraud in the newspaper to warn other innkeepers. However, no such report was published. On 10 December 1919, Hahn, using a false name, tried to persuade the innkeeper Siegel on Liechtensteinstraße to buy cheap wine from his wine merchant, who was in urgent need of money for his daughter’s wedding. Siegel was to bring 50,000 crowns with him. But Siegel politely declined. Afterwards, Johann promised a timber merchant a forest in Göpfritz. In return, the merchant was to travel there on the evening train and pay a deposit of 50,000 crowns. When the merchant arrived in Göpfritz, there was no sign of Johann, as the timber merchant had told him that he wished to pay the purchase price only once he reached Vienna. On 14 October 1920, Johann Hahn was sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labour for two counts of murder with robbery and treachery, several counts of fraud and a breach of the firearms licence. His wife Rosa fainted whilst the verdict was being read out and had to be carried out of the courtroom. The Court of Cassation dismissed an appeal for annulment at the end of January 1921. Johann Hahn thus spent the rest of his life in prison until his death.
