Isabella Mueller (crime writer)
One of the most brutal mass murderers in Austrian criminal history was Ernst Dostal. He went down in history as the subject of the largest manhunt in the Second Republic of Austria. On 13 June 1973, gendarmes made a gruesome discovery near a bridge over the Südautobahn motorway at Guntramsdorf. They found an explosion crater containing numerous bone fragments and body parts that undoubtedly belonged to a person who had been blown up. This person turned out to be 30-year-old Viennese family man Richard Dvorak. The Homicide Squad’s investigations quickly led to Dvorak’s best friend, Ernst Dostal. The two had met through their shared martial arts club. Ernst Dostal had been Dvorak’s last point of contact, which is why he was questioned on 18 June at the Rennweg Barracks in Vienna. A second interrogation took place on 22 June. No one suspected that Ernst Dostal would completely lose his mind and go on a rampage during this interrogation. At around 5 pm that day, during the interview, Ernst Dostal suddenly and completely unexpectedly drew two handguns that he had hidden under his jacket. In doing so, he seriously injured the detectives present: Ottokar Pücher, Matthias Horvath and Harald Syrinek. The first of these remained paralysed from the neck down until his death in 2010. As he fled the interrogation room, he shot police officer Leopold Ullrich in the stomach, bringing him down. What followed was a Hollywood-style escape. Ernst Dostal jumped out of a first-floor window of the barracks, landing on a car in Oberzellergasse. There he stole a driving school car, holding a gun to the driver’s face. He drove to Südtiroler Platz, where he bought 200 rounds of ammunition and then escaped across the Danube Bridge. The next day, Ernst Dostal shot and killed Viktor and Johanna Steiger, a couple he had never met, in whose weekend cottage near Groß-Enzersdorf he had found shelter. He then fled into the Vienna Woods. The manhunt for Ernst Dostal was in full swing. Then the investigators received a crucial tip-off from a reader of the Kurier newspaper. The reader had noticed an advertisement. It read as follows: “In 1919, I waited for you in vain by the tower on Monday; I’ll try again on Wednesday and Thursday around 10 pm. I can currently be reached on 02774/326.” The advertisement was a coded message from Ernst Dostal to his father, Robert. 1919 was the year of Ernst Dostal’s father’s birth, and the number belonged to an unoccupied house in Altlengbach. But by the time the police raided the property, Ernst Dostal had already vanished into thin air. Fortunately, however, the investigators received a hot tip that Ernst Dostal was staying in a house in Klara-Höhe. When the police arrived there, Ernst Dostal immediately opened fire. A fierce gun battle ensued. When Ernst Dostal realised there was no escape for him, he shot himself in the head. But why had Ernst Dostal murdered his best friend Richard Dvorak? Further investigations revealed that the two had planned together to kidnap wealthy industrialists and then extort a ransom. To this end, they had specially set up a soundproof dungeon in a farmhouse near Obergrafendorf. But when Dvorak got cold feet and renounced the plan, it sealed his fate. Ernst Dostal’s father Robert, who was also involved, had fled to Switzerland and from there to Lüneburg, where he shot himself in a hotel room. Some problems resolve themselves. You just mustn’t disturb them whilst they’re doing so.
