Isabella Mueller (crime writer)
The following gripping criminal case proves that poisonings are not only committed by women. It was 17 November 1909 when Captain Richard Mader, who served in the railway department of the Imperial and Royal General Staff, was found by the officer’s orderly, Anton Tomola, writhing on the floor in agony in his flat at 56 Hainburgerstraße in Vienna’s 3rd district, Landstraße. The officer’s valet immediately called a doctor, who could only confirm that the man was dead. At first, the doctor assumed it was a natural death. However, the court-ordered post-mortem revealed that he had died of cyanide poisoning. During the subsequent search of the flat, a box was found containing a promotional letter detailing the pills’ potency-enhancing effects. The letter was signed ‘Charles Francis’. It appears that the young General Staff cadet had received a promotional letter in which the lethal pills were disguised as an aphrodisiac. When this became public knowledge, other General Staff officers came forward to report that they too had received a promotional parcel containing the pills. Consequently, the Chief of the Imperial and Royal General Staff, Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, had a warning telegraphed to all garrisons throughout the Monarchy. Apart from Captain Richard Mader, 11 General Staff officers had received the sexual enhancer by post; according to the postmark, it had been dispatched from Vienna Post Office 59 at 8 am on 14 November 1909. The sender, ‘Charles Francis’, was quickly revealed to be a fictitious name. Who could possibly have been targeting these general staff officers, all of whom were graduates of the 1905 discharge cohort? Whilst the military assumed a political motive, the Viennese police believed that the matter must have had a personal background. Handwriting samples were compared and the origin of the boxes determined. The intensive investigations eventually led to First Lieutenant Adolf Hofrichter. As luck would have it, he too belonged to the 1905 intake, which was currently stationed with the 14th Infantry Regiment in Linz. The young officer, who was born on 20 January 1880 in Reichenau near Gablonz and came from a wealthy industrialist family, was regarded as pathologically ambitious and had only recently got married. During a search of his home, two boxes were found which were identical to those that had been sent to the other 12 general officers. According to an expert, the handwriting on the recruitment letter also matched that of First Lieutenant Adolf Hofrichter. But why would he have wanted to eliminate his former military academy classmates? Although Adolf Hofrichter had been a member of the General Staff, he had been reassigned to the rank-and-file due to poor performance, which had deeply offended him. He had hoped that by poisoning the General Staff officers, he would himself climb back up the military career ladder. To achieve this, he would have had to send five of them to their graves in order to stand a chance of being reinstated to the General Staff. This would have restored his highest social standing. It would have meant a better life for his wife Anna, whom he loved more than anything. He had done it all out of love for Anna, who was now heavily pregnant. During the investigation, many dark secrets about Adolf Hofrichter came to light; whilst he was a cadet, he had been engaged to Johanna Amlacher, the pastor’s daughter, until she suddenly died in February 1904 following a visit to her sister Elsbeth. Had he poisoned her? The body was exhumed. It could not be determined whether she had been poisoned or had died of natural causes. However, suicide could be ruled out. She was not pregnant at the time of her death. Before that, however, it was highly likely that she had been. Accordingly, Adolf Hofrichter had sent Johanna to a backstreet abortionist who had performed an illegal abortion, a procedure that often proved fatal. It also came to light that Adolf Hofrichter had forged first-class travel itineraries for private journeys. He had therefore also committed forgery. Furthermore, in July 1909, he had arranged for a young woman, under the alias ‘Dr Haller from Prague’, to be brought to a hotel in Linz. However, the young woman saw through the ruse and alerted the police, suspecting human trafficking. The police did not arrest Adolf Hofrichter, as they did not wish to get into trouble over an officer. Adolf Hofrichter made a confession on 26 April, which he retracted on 9 May 1910 in order to avoid the death penalty. At the court-martial held at the Vienna Garrison Court on Hernsaler Gürtel from 23 to 25 May 1910, First Lieutenant Adolf Hofrichter was sentenced to 20 years’ rigorous imprisonment for the murder of Captain Richard Mader of the General Staff. On 27 June 1910, he was transferred to the Möllersdorf military prison, from which he would not have been released until 25 June 1930. However, following the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, he was released on 8 November 1918 with an official certificate of release. In May 1919, he was re-imprisoned. In September 1919, he was finally pardoned. His wife Anna and their child did not wait for him, as she had divorced him whilst he was still in prison. Once free, Adolf Hofrichter changed his name to Adolf Richter and worked as a sales representative, enjoying trips to Prague and Paris, until he passed away in Vienna on 29 December 1945.
