Episode 13- Gesche Gottfried Angel of Bremen

Join us as we talk about the Angel of Bremen, Gesche Gottfried from Bremen, Germany. She was a horrific and prolific serial killer from the early 1800's. 

Today's episode is paired with a Black Forest Martini-- a delightful, creamy blend of cherry and chocolate-- to die for! But not really ;) Recipe below:

BLACK FOREST MARTINI

1/2 oz. vodka
1 oz. cherry kijafa
1 oz. kirschwasser or cherry brandy
1/2 oz. maraschino liquor
1 1/2 oz. chocolate liquor
1 oz. crème de cacao
1/2 oz. heavy cream

Combine all ingredients in shaker over ice and shake vigorously. Strain into martini glasses. Garnish with Stroopwaffel and cherries. 

And check out our friends of the podcast, Imbibe the Vibe! 

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Transcript

Gesche Gottfried

Angel of Bremen/Angel of Death

Spuckstein Gesche Gottfried—the spitting stone in Bremen, Germany.

Light and Darkness by Catherine Crowe-- Google Books abt 300 pages

Death Mask/Phrenology

Gesche Gottfried was born Geshe Margarethe Timm on March 6, 1785. She resided mostly in Bremen Germany. She grew up in a poor, humble family. Her father, Johann Timm was a tailor and her mother, Gesche Margarethe Timm was a seamstress. She had a twin brother named Johann Timm Jr. (clearly they weren’t very inventive with names back then? Both her and her twin have the same names as their parents. She later names one of her daughters Johanna, her first husband’s name was Johann, and her neighbor’s name was Johann). So I’m not dumb and just calling everyone by the same name all the time, that’s just how it was. Johann is the equivalent of the biblical English name John and is a derivative of Hebrew ‘Yohanan’ meaning God is Merciful. Needless to say, it’s very common.

Her parents were very respectable people. Her father often read Scriptures, attended church, and was described as industrious and of orderly habits. Her twin brother was said to have been a bit wild and joined the Army of Napoleon. But Gesche was the epitome of perfection. From the book Light and Darkness, by Catherine Crowe written in 1850 “Her person was delicate—almost ethereal, her countenance open and attractive, with a smile of benignity ever on her lips, her movements were graceful, her manner bewitching, her demeanor modest, and her conduct unexceptionable. She was held up as a pattern to the young and Father Timm, as he was called, was considered blessed in the possession of such a daughter.” That sounds like the nicest, most gentle lady. And by all accounts, on the exterior, she was. Even as she committed murder after murder of her own close family and friends; her own children; she remained graceful, stoic, calm, and modest. She was well-liked and even sought after at one time. 

As you may be able to tell by now, and because of the nature of our podcast, her exterior was just that. An exterior. She’s not a sweetie-pie. Additionally, she was thought to have been vain and extremely concerned about her appearance to others. She was said to have suffered from leanness, which all I can surmise is she was too thin--she couldn’t keep weight on. So to bulk herself up, she wore additional corsets-- at the time of her death, there was an auction of them. They went for a very small sum as people thought they had some magical properties or they were cursed. In wearing multiple corsets at a time for years, they eventually injured her and aggravated the illness she was so desperate to conceal by compressing her waist. 

When she was young, she began with small crimes like petty theft of which her twin brother was often blamed for (because he was thought to be mischievous). As she matured, she got bold and stole a considerable sum from a woman who was boarding in their house. She tried again to let her brother take the heat, and her father was willing to go along with that, but her mother knew better. Her mother told her she went to a wise woman who showed her the face of the thief in a mirror. While telling her family, she locked eyes with Gesche. Her mother’s glare tipped her off that she was discovered. Gesche was smart enough to quit while she was ahead and her reputation hadn’t been tainted. She moved on from petty crime, reputation intact. 

Gesche was interested in dancing and theatre. She was school educated until she was 12 which was relatively special at this time in history. So she felt herself to be distinguished and admired. Her need for adoration was lifelong. She used to attend theatre shows in the evening and one evening she was walked home by a young neighbor, Johann Miltenburg. He came from a family of some wealth. Subsequently, they grew fond of each other and married. He was by all accounts a good match for Gesche; but he had been married before. His first wife had died (she was said to have been indifferent, whatever you might think that means). But she is said to have introduced him to ‘a good deal of dissipation (overindulgence) and loose company.’ When his first wife died, those tendencies did not falter and Miltenburgs folks were all too happy to receive a daughter-in-law with Gesche’s reputation. His parents offered them a large sum of money as a gift. Although her and her parents were thrilled because they had always been poor and had struggled, people could not understand why a seemingly lovely creature was getting hitched to this putz.

Together they had 3 children, (2 girls and a boy) Johnanna, Adeheid (Adeline), and Heinrich (henry). After his father’s death in 1813, Johann was left with his money. They moved into his house. Gesche was said to have acted strange after Father Miltenberg’s death. She constantly wanted to visit the chamber of death, was studying his features, and often pressed her hands into his. Ya fuckin’ creep.

During their marriage, Gesche had a few additional suiters. She met a young wine-merchant named Micheal Christoph Gottfried at a ball and they took a liking to each other. She was also known to have another lover, Karnov. Miltenburg didn’t seem to have an issue with her extracurricular activities and he continued to shower her with the same adoration as before.

Her husband’s overindulgence was beginning to spill over and he was ignoring his business ventures. He was basically squandering away the money left by the father. At first, she wasn’t sure how she was going to kill him, but she was not ready to give up the good fortune she had inherited. So she went to a fortune teller who said everyone belonging to her would die off and she would spend the rest of her days prosperous and happy. She said her choice to poison was decided by seeing a play of August Von Kotzebue’s where a good-natured and interesting hero collects his treasures by poisoning everyone who stood in the way of them. She approached her mother about a rat infestation in their home and her mom had a quick fix, but told her to keep it away from the kids. If only she had.

Her husband, Johann Miltenberg was her first victim. She laced her husband’s breakfast with the mausebutter (arsenic flakes mixed into spreadable animal fat used to kill rats). Arsenic is odorless and tasteless so it’s fairly easy to poison someone without them knowing it. In modern times, the most common way to get arsenic poisoning is through contaminated ground water in areas of industrialization. And don’t worry about drinking arsenic and not knowing about it. It’s very obvious and uncomfortable. You will know. The effects are horrendous.  

At first, the arsenic doses weren’t fatal and Johann just got really sick. It took him 4 days to die. Reddened and swollen skin, skin lesions, vomiting, stomach pain, abnormal heart rhythm, muscle cramps, and tingling of fingers and toes. She thought for sure after the first dose she gave him at breakfast, and he left for work, he would be returned home dead. But this was her first experimentation with dosage. He was a full grown man and it would take a bit more than a mouse’s dose to kill him. Throughout his 4 days of anguish, she continued to poison him. She often listened to him cry and groan from behind the closed door, not out of a conscience, but because she was afraid he would suspect her if he saw her face. He finally succumbed to the arsenic poisoning on October 1, 1813. Her neighbors and friends prayed for her and her family. She seemed to just be an unfortunate widow with 3 small children. When Johann died, he committed his wife and children to the care of Gottfried (the wine merchant she met at the ball). They didn’t immediately marry but he did live in the house with her, her children, and her parents. Her parents were not willing to sign off on this marriage to Gottfried, so she had to get that little inconvenience out of the way. And according to the fortune teller, she would be happy and prosperous when everyone around her died, so, you know. She wanted to get on with that. She often said things that revealed the prophecy. It wasn’t a secret and she frequently mentioned she knew she was doomed to lose her children and all her relations. She often pointed to God’s will, saying things like ”God’s will be done! The ways of the Lord are inscrutable, and we must bow to his decrees” &c.

1815 was a big year for Gesche.

May 2, 1815; Gesche Margarethe Timm, her mother died. Again, she fucked up the dosing and she didn’t die right away. She was very sick on and off. In her impatience, Gesche gave her the final big dose mixed into a glass of lemonade. Gesche said that while she was mixing the poison for her mother, she was seized with such a violent fit of laughter, that she was almost frightened at herself; but she comforted herself with the idea that “her mother would soon so laugh in heaven.” When her mother passed, Geshe felt neither pity nor remorse, she was cheerful and fortified in the resolution to remove all obstacles out of the way of her desires. 

May 10, 1815; Johanna Gottfried, her youngest, infant daughter died-- she was fed arsenic butter spread onto the funeral cake made for her Grandmother’s funeral. She died within an hour. That is sick.

May 18, 1815; Adelheid (Adeline) Gottfried, her other daughter died the same way as her little sister. Adeline died in Geshe’s arms. Geshe had a picture, which happened to resemble Geshe, handsomely framed, and hung in her own room calling it ‘Her beloved Adeline”

June 28, 1815; Johann Timm, her father died-- her father had a really hard time with the loss of his wife and two grandbabies. In his mourning, he would visit the graves often. In his final moments, he hallucinated from illness and spoke to an apparition of his wife sitting on his bed. He talked to her and believed she was waiting for him in heaven.

September 22, 1815; Heinrich (Henry) Gottfried, her son died-- He was the only one to ask why God took all her children from her. She said this question was like a dagger in her heart, for Henry was her favorite child. She said her son’s death was the only one she really felt remorse for. Henry was apparently a remarkably interesting boy, and his suffering was so intense that after she poisoned him, she sent for milk (which she thought was an anecdote) but Henry died anyway. As he was dying, he appeared to see those waiting for him that had gone before. He cried “Oh mother, See Adeline there! She is standing by the stove. How she smiles on me. There is my father too!! I shall soon be with them in heaven!”

She said that after Henry’s death, she would see mothers in the street walk by with their children and it would be so painful for her. She would shut herself in her room and weep. So maybe she wasn’t a complete psycho? Although her actions suggest otherwise.

She was revered by her neighbors for being a selfless nurse and tending to her family members’ every need as they passed one after the other. Back then disease was pretty rampant so entire families dying around the same time could have just been influenza, yellow fever, cholera, or any number of deadly diseases. I mean, it’s the early 1800’s. They didn’t know shit. She seemed to be a Godly women and people genuinely took pity on her. This poor woman; widowed and her children dying in rapid succession. I could see how she would be looked upon as a martyr and the last comfort to those sick souls. They called her the Angel of Bremen. More like the Angel of Death if you ask me.

June 1, 1816; her twin brother Johann Timm came to visit and she killed him. He had been injured and permanently handicapped by war. She knew he would be a burden on her and her relationship with Gottfried, so she had to get rid of him. He arrived on Friday, and she killed him by Sunday.

July 5, 1817: She killed Michael Christoph Gottfried (second husband) but not after first marrying him to secure her inheritance. She began poisoning Gottfried because he was dragging his feet to marry her. He would be ready and then pull back, ready again-- get cold feet. So she figured if he thought he was sick and dying, he may feel the urge to tie the knot. And she was right. He was poisoned leading up to the wedding and on the wedding day. In the days after they married, she continued to poison and kill him. Like the others. He was a good-looking, agreeable, light-hearted, and rather accomplished man. He had a well-selected library, plated the guitar, and published two volumes of songs.

She would seemingly have inherited enough money to live on forever, but she had debts. Gottfried had given money to charities, there were claims on his estate, and she had spent a good deal of his money. After Gottfried died, she formed some sort of relationship with a Mr. X, a gentleman of family and fortune, but because he was some hot shot, they never had an intimate relationship. He did lend her large sums of money, but he kept a record. That move probably saved his life. Because she could have poisoned him, but that wouldn’t have erased the record of her borrowing. He seems to have been the only person associated with Geshe who wasn’t poisoned to death. Mr. X showered her with gifts, tickets to the opera, parties, blah blah blah. To use her own expressions ‘She began to live again; she forgot the past and thought herself the happiest person in the world.’ She had many suitors interested in her and she was surrounded by new friends who thought her to be a suffering angel. She was thought to be religious, pious, and was respected by wealthy people. She said 1819 was some of the happiest days of her life. 

Now she was finally alone and happy, right? Wrong. She was lonely. So, she took another suiter-- Paul Thomas Zimmermann. She killed him June 1, 1823. She didn’t want to marry him because he would discover all of her lies; “Her body was made up of paint and paddings, and her conduct was a tissue of deceit and hypocrisy.” She did however borrow money from Zimmerman. And she poisoned him to erase the debt. 

After killing Zimmerman, she gave a few doses to her old friend Maria Heckendorf, who had offended her somehow. Not enough to kill her; just enough to say Fuck You. While Geshe was on vacation in Hanover making new friends with the Klein family, she wrote very affectionate letters to Heckendorf and offered to pay for the expenses of her illness. 

March 21, 1825, Anna Lucia Meyerholz, music teacher and friend-- Meyerholtz took care of her blind, 80 yo father. Geshe visited Anna in her last moment before her death, and after confirming her dead, Gesche opened Anna’s desk and stole the little savings she had left for her blind father. 

December 5, 1825 Johann Mosees, Neighbor, friend, and advisor-- Wanted to marry her-- Had loaned her money and she erased the debts again with arsenic

December 22, 1826 Wilhelmine Rumpff, boarded at her house with her husband Johann Christoph Rumpff-- After this murder, the husband began to suspect her of poisoning them. Geshe knew and she moved along to Hanover, Germany, taking her maid and maid’s daughter with her. 

She thought at this time heaven and earth were leagued together to betray her, and it was happy that she was suffering because of the suffering she had caused. If there was a storm, or fire in the town, or if the river overflowed the banks, she thought it was all for her; to show her how she had wronged. She declared herself persecuted by the apparitions of her victims. But all this mumbo jumbo didn’t stop her from killing. 

May 13, 1827 Elise Schmidt, daughter of Beta Schmidt her maid and friend

May 15, 1827 Beta Schmidt or Beta Cornelius-- She was described as one of the most honest, industrious, innocent, and pure-minded creatures that ever existed, and after living in intimate quarters with Geshe for several years, continued to believe Geshe was an angel of goodness. She was so blinded by her own goodness, she often unknowingly assisted Geshe with her crimes by helping and watching over the home. I guess when you’re good, you only see the good in others. You would think it was impossible to do something so horrific. She never questioned or suspected Geshe. And if she did, she never vocalized it. 

July 24, 1827 Friedrich Kleine, Friend, -- murdered in Hanover-- This was the Kleine family that was so taken by her. And had loaned her a considerable amount of money. And actually, Geshe poisoned his whole family, but only the father Friedrich died. 

Her condition was Munchausen syndrome by proxy which is now called Factitious Disorder Imposed on Another (FDIA) which is a mental illness in which a person acts as if an individual he or she is caring for has a physical or mental illness when the person is not really sick. I have to say, like I’m obviously not a doctor, I just play one on this podcast. But that seems off to me. The primary motive for FDIA is to gain attention, love, and adoration. Which seems to have worked for her, but to me-- this was a byproduct of her murders, not her main motive. I guess it’s easy to say she had FDIA, but after reading Light and Darkness, it seems like there was something more to it than that. Her need to be wealthy, important, and adored was impeded by her family and friends. She needed to eliminate them to be happy. And she offed people because she owed them money. Sometimes she poisoned people that had offended her but didn’t kill them. I mean, the book said it was too many people to list. So, idk. I’m not totally sold on the FDIA thing. I think she was just a fucking murderer and her Angel of Bremen disguise was just a disguise like her corsets and her lies. I honestly don’t think it was a mental illness for her. I think it was intentional and she had control over it. Idk, I could go on and on about my thoughts on this. I’m also kind of torn about chalking up a family annihilator to a mental illness. Like beep boop, FDIA-- nothin’ to see here. Yes, it does have the characteristics of FDIA, but I think that assessment is wrong. Fight me! I DIGRESS. Let’s move on.

Demise; Her would-be 12th victim, Johann Christoph Rumpff was suspicious after finding unknown granules in the food Gesche has served him. He took a sample of the meal to his physician Dr. Luce.

By the time it has been confirmed that the substance in the meal was in fact arsenic, Gesche had already fled to Hannover and claimed two more victims. Johann Christoph was not the 12th victim, Wilhelmine Rumpff was. She was the wife of Johann Christoph who were both boarding in her house. Y’know she was a widow with financial means, a nice place, and some extra rooms (because she was twice widowed and killed both of her husbands). So, unfortunately Johann Christoph lost his wife but he saved himself.

She was arrested on her 43rd birthday, the night of March 6, 1828. At the time of her arrest, she was slowly killing her last victim and ‘friend’, Friedrich Kleine. She was subsequently sentenced to death and her head was chopped off in front of a crowd of 35,000 spectators on April 21 1831. 

Before her death, Geshe said she was often visited by the ghosts of her victims. After their deaths, she would visit their graves as that was the only thing that would appease the ghosts. She said the apparitions that haunted her led her to confess her crimes. “Besides the terrors she suffered from the supernatural visitations of her murdered friends, Madame Gottfreid was tortured by all sorts of horrible imaginings.”She was aware of the hatred that followed her, and she feared some strange and terrible death would be invented for her -- like she would be tied to the bodies of her victims and buried alive with them, or that she would be flung as food to wild beasts. I think the three years it took her to be executed and the horrors she lived with were the punishment. Sometimes our thoughts are worse than the reality. She asked to be executed faster, but they wouldn’t do it. 

A death mask of her face and skull was cast so she may be studied. Back then, there was a pseudo science called Phrenology. Phrenology is a process that involves observing and/or feeling the skull to determine an individual's psychological attributes. Franz Joseph Gall believed that the brain was made up of 27 individual organs that determined personality, the first 19 of these 'organs' he believed to exist in other animal species. The principles upon which phrenology was based were five: (1) the brain is the organ of the mind; (2) human mental powers can be analyzed into a definite number of independent faculties; (3) these faculties are innate, and each has its seat in a definite region of the surface of the brain; (4) the size of each such region is the measure of the degree to which the faculty seated in it forms a constituent element in the character of the individual; and (5) the correspondence between the outer surface of the skull and the contour of the brain-surface beneath is sufficiently close to enable the observer to recognize the relative sizes of these several organs by the examination of the outer surface of the head. It’s been completely discredited by now, but it was thought to have some value back then. These are the results of her Phrenology study; 





She was the last person ever publicly executed in Bremen. The spot in the town where she was executed is marked with a black, basalt stone and it is called the Spuckstein, or the spitting stone. Travelers from far and wide come to visit the Spuckstein in Bremen and leave a nice fat lougie in her memory. I have seen this described as ‘The people of Bremen honored the prolific serial killer with a Spuckstein in the Domshof town square.” I think honor is the wrong word. This is a seriously interesting way to memorialize a public beheading and a horrific killer; by leaving a permanent effigy so Gesche’s crimes could be remembered and hated for centuries. If you don’t know what an effigy is; it is a figure, often ugly or amusing, that represents someone despised. Many times effigies are scarecrow-like dummies on sticks that are burned by those who feel contempt for the violator. I’m sure you can all visualize that. Additionally, from what I understand, in Germany it is considered very rude to spit on the street. So they must consider her crimes especially disgusting to have a place especially for public spitting.

Speaking of Effigy, there was a movie released in 2019 called “Effigy; Poison and the City.” The film is an adaptation of a stage play about Gesche and her murders. It was released in German but has English subtitles. Judging by the trailer, it seems to be a historical thriller (although it was described as a ‘slow burn’ so maybe it wasn’t all that thrilling) The movie focuses more on the investigation and a female investigator and her struggles in a male dominated field. I don’t know how historically accurate the movie is to the actual investigation, but it does seem to be entertaining. I think this movie was recently (like in the last few weeks) released in the US because there are a lot of very recent reviews. I chose to discuss Gesche before I even knew about the film. But actually, the timing is perfect whether the film drew you to the podcast or the podcast draws you to the film.

There was another historical thriller called Gesches Gift released in 1997. I couldn’t find a trailer for this movie, but I would like to touch on the ‘Gift’ part of the name and a book that I found. The book is called “Gift—I made this for you.” By Sarah Bodman. Gift in German means poison. The book is a pamphlet style cookbook—think a cookbook that comes with a piece of kitchen equipment with some recipes in it—these recipes are modeled after the meals Gesche prepared to kill her victims. It’s 14 recipes for 15 people and the author actually made and photographed each meal for the book. It appears to be a fairly normal vintage find. I don’t think you would really be able to tell what the intent was unless you knew what you were looking for. The recipes are as follows; A hearty meat soup, Chicken in Mushroom and Spatlese Sauce with Almonds, Freus-und-Leid Kuchen (Joy and Sorrow Cake) made for Johanna, Assorted Dainty Cupcakes, Veal consume, Zwieback with butter and sugar, Prawns with garlic (made for Johann T, her brother), A way with seasonal vegetables, Chicken with Onion and Plums, Spiced apples with mixed fruits, Porridge Soup, Zwieback with good cheese and wine, Early cherry soup (for Beta and Elise), and a Ham Sandwich. The book is for sale on bookletlibrary.org if you’re interested in owning an unassuming creepy art piece.