Isabella Mueller (crime writer)
One execution that was not only watched with bated breath across Europe but also caused a huge stir was that of Count Johann Friedrich Struensee on the Osterfeld in the Danish capital, Copenhagen, in 1772. Until his execution, Struensee had enjoyed a picture-perfect career. In 1769, Struensee had come from the Hanseatic city of Hamburg – where he had worked for over 20 years as a doctor for the poor in Altona – to the court of the young, mentally ill Danish King Christian VII. Struensee quickly became the king’s personal physician. The feeble-minded young King Christian VII placed his blind trust in Struensee, who was soon ennobled as a count on the king’s instructions. Struensee exploited the king’s favour, skilfully manipulating him so that the king granted him full powers of attorney. With this, Struensee held all the reins of power; as a German, he now ruled Denmark as sole regent for almost a year. As the most powerful man in the state, in 1771 he brought his good friend Enevold Brandt to court; Brandt was to entertain the king as the new theatre director, so that the king could not interfere with Struensee’s ambitious plans. For Struensee wanted to launch a revolution from above. To this end, he issued over 1,000 decrees within a period of 16 months. These decrees abolished torture and slavery, introduced freedom of the press and granted children born out of wedlock equal status under the law, to name but a few. Struensee saw himself as a great revolutionary, but his self-absorption earned him many enemies at court. For instance, he stubbornly refused to learn the Danish language. Instead, he spoke in his native language, German. Before long, Struensee’s opponents turned his own reforms against him. The new freedom of the press brought to light his affair with Queen Caroline Mathilde, with whom he had fathered a daughter, Louise Auguste. She was born in July 1771 and was known amongst the people simply as ‘Princess Struensee’. The people, too, became increasingly hostile towards Struensee, as he had made the distillation of schnapps a criminal offence. The Struensee era came to an end when King Christian VII was lured into an ambush at a masked ball in January 1772. He was forced to sign a decree ordering Struensee’s arrest. Struensee was subsequently imprisoned. In the subsequent trial, he was sentenced to death for high treason against the king and the kingdom, as well as for adultery and usurpation. In the presence of over 30,000 Danes, the 34-year-old Johann Friedrich Struensee, together with his acquaintance Enevold Brandt, was driven in a carriage to the execution site at Osterfeld, just outside Copenhagen, on 28 April 1772. Struensee, dressed in a blue velvet suit with a fur coat over it and a black hat on his head covering his blond hair, stepped out of the carriage at around 9 o’clock, visibly marked by the mistreatment he had endured beforehand. With great effort, he dragged himself to the scaffold, where the executioner first severed his right hand with two blows before beheading him whilst he was still alive. He then held Struensee’s head aloft to the amusement of the crowd; it was impaled on a stake together with his hand. Struensee’s body was subsequently quartered and broken on the wheel. His acquaintance Brandt had previously been forced to endure the same procedure. The bodies were taken to the Galgenberg in a cart. Thus ended, in such a gruesome manner, the life and meteoric career of the doctor and Enlightenment thinker Struensee.
