On Guilt, Freedom, and the Power of Stories

My first encounter with Schinderhannes took place neither in the Hunsrück region, nor in a history book, nor on a theatre stage. It happened in a pub in Giessen, on a street called Alter Steinbacher Weg.

The pub stood directly opposite Gesamtschule Giessen-Ost, the school I attended from 1982 to 1987, right by the pedestrian crossing. For years, the name Schinderhannes was simply part of my familiar surroundings.

On one of the pub’s walls, visitors could read his story. He was portrayed as a kind of German Robin Hood, an outlaw who stood up to the powerful, robbed the rich, and helped the poor. Eventually, he was captured and broken on the wheel.

It was a lovely story. At least for those who prefer their heroes unambiguous and their historical facts suitably accommodating.

What particularly caught my attention was the breaking on the wheel. Not because I found anything appealing about this form of criminal justice, but because, as a child, I had absolutely no idea what it meant. So I had to find out.

Humanity has demonstrated remarkable ingenuity when it comes to inventing ways of killing other human beings. A fraction of that creativity might have been rather useful in developing peaceful ways of living together.

Many years later, I learned that Johannes Bückler, known as Schinderhannes, had not been broken on the wheel at all. He was executed by guillotine in Mainz on 21 November 1803.

So I had acquired my knowledge of breaking on the wheel because of a false claim. At least the knowledge itself was correct. It does not simply disappear when the original reason for acquiring it turns out to have been mistaken.

Looking back, that encounter was my first lesson in the difference between a good story and a historically accurate one. Quite unintentionally, the pub had provided me with a short introductory course in source criticism. The teaching material was somewhat gruesome, but at least it was free.

The pub no longer exists. Its own story has become history. But the name Schinderhannes lives on. And, apparently, so does the notion that he was broken on the wheel.

Only recently, I told an acquaintance that I was working on an essay about Schinderhannes. His immediate reaction was that Schinderhannes had surely been broken on the wheel and quartered.

So the legend had not merely survived. Somewhere along the way, it had acquired an additional method of execution. Apparently, the historical record had not been gruesome enough.

The name itself is well suited to causing misunderstandings. Someone hearing “Schinderhannes” might assume that this man tortured others, or that he himself was eventually tortured to death. In fact, the name refers to the knacker’s trade, with which his family was associated.

That does not establish whether the false story of his execution arose from such a misunderstanding. But it illustrates how easily an unfamiliar term can produce an explanation that seems perfectly plausible.

A supposition is passed on. By the next storyteller, it has become a certainty; by the one after that, an established historical fact. Eventually, it is enough to point out that everyone has always said so.

And there is, in fact, a connection between the historical Schinderhannes and Giessen. Not necessarily one you would wish upon a romantic outlaw hero: the guillotine used to execute Johannes Bückler in Mainz arrived in Giessen forty years later.

The man had long been dead. His execution device, however, had not yet reached the end of its career. While posterity increasingly turned the outlaw into a hero, the guillotine remained an instrument of state-administered justice.

One became a legend; the other remained a machine.

A remarkable division of labour between history and storytelling.

Just how far apart the two can drift becomes particularly apparent when writers take up historical figures. Carl Zuckmayer, born in 1896 in Nackenheim in the Rhenish Hesse region, drew upon a subject already deeply rooted in Rhineland folklore when he wrote his play Schinderhannes in 1927.

Johannes Bückler came from Miehlen, in what is now the Rhein-Lahn district, and became particularly notorious for his activities in the Hunsrück. Stories about him had long since spread beyond the places where he actually lived and operated.

Zuckmayer did not invent Schinderhannes. He took up a figure who had already been transformed by popular tales and songs. In doing so, he was dealing not only with history but also with the history of its retelling.

In the theatre publisher’s description, Zuckmayer’s Schinderhannes appears as an outlaw who robs the rich and supports the poor. Later film adaptations also embraced the romantic image of a German Robin Hood.

The audience is thus presented with a man who rises against injustice, outwits the powerful, and helps the poor. A thoroughly likeable character. One merely has to take care that the historical person does not get in the way of one’s enthusiasm for the hero.

Someone who grows up with a historical figure as part of their local folklore encounters that figure differently from someone who first reads about him in a court record. The familiar story creates a sense of belonging. Historical accuracy can easily become a secondary concern.

The invention of a hero often begins with the desire to discover something extraordinary in one’s own region. A famous outlaw apparently serves that purpose better than a conscientious municipal clerk, even if the latter caused his fellow citizens considerably less trouble.

Literature is free to shape characters, condense events, and heighten conflicts. It does not have to fulfil the duties of a historical biography. The problem begins when the qualities of a fictional character are subsequently treated as facts about the historical person.

The extent to which a story determines our perception is also evident in the people who appear alongside its famous protagonist. Julchen Blasius, Bückler’s partner, is still remembered primarily as the woman at his side. Even the familiar expression “Schinderhannes‘ Julchen” defines her through a man whose name posterity has preserved.

Yet she, too, had a life of her own, her own experiences, and her own decisions. But those who tell her story frequently follow the story of the outlaw. Her significance then arises from her proximity to him.

This is not a problem unique to this particular tradition. The memory of historical women has often been shaped by the biographies of famous men. What the women themselves wanted, how they perceived their circumstances, and what possibilities were open to them can easily disappear from view.

Where the sources fall silent, we must not simply fill the gaps with a pleasing story. But we can at least recognise that the gaps exist.

In the case of Schinderhannes himself, we can describe at least some of the social conditions in which he grew up. Johannes Bückler came from a family associated with the knacker’s trade. Knackers disposed of animal carcasses and made use of their remains. Their work was necessary, yet the occupation was traditionally considered “dishonourable”.

This did not imply personal dishonesty. “Dishonourable” referred to a social classification under which certain occupations were regarded as inferior and disreputable. The resulting contempt could extend to entire families and restrict their social opportunities.

Society needed this work while despising the people who performed it. A remarkable division of labour: some took care of the unpleasant tasks, while others enjoyed the pleasant feeling of being superior.

People were judged not only by how they behaved, but also by the families into which they had been born and the occupations of their relatives.

Such circumstances form part of Bückler’s life story. They did not, however, make his later choices inevitable.

Here lies a distinction without which any examination of Schinderhannes remains incomplete: trying to understand a person does not mean justifying their actions.

Bückler was not a criminal because he came from a knacker’s family. Nor did his crimes make the discrimination suffered by his family any more just. Social circumstances can shape a person’s opportunities without eliminating personal responsibility.

The historical Schinderhannes was certainly not a reliably documented benefactor who systematically robbed the rich in order to help the poor. The recorded activities of his circle included theft, robbery, extortion, and violence. His victims were by no means exclusively wealthy members of privileged social groups.

Particularly revealing is the presence of Jewish traders and itinerant merchants among his victims. These people were often themselves subject to social restrictions and prejudice. The romantic contrast between a poor outlaw and wealthy oppressors collapses when the outlaw threatens people who are themselves disadvantaged.

Experiencing exclusion does not automatically produce solidarity with others who are excluded.

Bückler could grow up under unjust social conditions and still commit injustices against other people. Both facts deserve attention. Anyone who sees only one overlooks the other.

Once we portray his crimes exclusively as an understandable reaction to social circumstances, the victims disappear from view. The perpetrator becomes an interesting personality with a difficult background, while the people he harmed become a statistical footnote.

And because an interesting personality makes a better story than a statistical footnote, it is the outlaw who eventually gets the monument.

A remarkable achievement of collective memory. Just not a particularly just one.

The historian Eric Hobsbawm also explored how such reinterpretations arise. He studied the phenomenon of so-called social banditry. By this he meant outlaws who were perceived by parts of the population not as ordinary criminals but as opponents of unjust authority.

The familiar image of Robin Hood offers a particularly vivid example. Whether the historical Robin Hood, assuming there was ever a single historical person behind that name, actually practised the redistribution of wealth is another question.

Hobsbawm’s approach was also critically debated. In 1972, the anthropologist Anton Blok argued that bandits frequently terrorised precisely the people from whose social classes they themselves had emerged.

This is what makes the concept relevant to Schinderhannes. The story of an outlaw who defies the powerful can express a longing for justice, even when his actual actions contradict that longing.

A hero, then, is created not merely by what he has done, but by what other people wish to recognise in his actions.

The myth can therefore tell us something about social injustice without its hero necessarily having acted justly himself.

The romantic outlaw embodies a freedom that initially seems attractive. He defies authority, crosses boundaries, and apparently refuses to let others dictate how he should live. He acts while others feel powerless.

That is part of his appeal. People want to experience their actions as meaningful. They do not want to feel helpless in the face of social circumstances.

But the ability to make things happen is not a moral virtue. Someone who harms others can pursue their goals with determination, too. What matters is not merely the ability to act, but also responsibility for the consequences.

Resistance to an unjust order does not automatically become just simply because it is resistance.

The cult of the hero also contains a peculiar contradiction. The hero acts on behalf of those who admire him. His audience shares in his triumph over authority without having to take the risks themselves.

That can be encouraging. But it can also relieve people of responsibility. Admiring a rebel is no substitute for engaging in society oneself.

A just society should not depend on the occasional appearance of a hero who acts on behalf of others. It should enable as many people as possible to represent their own interests and shape their living conditions together.

Romantic heroism is easy to admire from the audience. Genuine participation in society, by contrast, occasionally requires leaving one’s seat.

The musical tradition surrounding Schinderhannes shows how differently this longing can be expressed. His life ended with his execution, but his story did not. Historical events, popular embellishments, and moral interpretations increasingly merged.

A local dialect version from Semd, near Groß-Umstadt, known as the Semmer Schinderhannes-Lied, tells of him and Julchen with humour and a sense of local familiarity. The published version credits Christoph Ohl, Renate Filip, and Karlheinz Müller as its lyricists.

It shows how the Schinderhannes legend continues in more recent regional song culture. The dialect brings the outlaw, as it were, into the neighbourhood. At the same time, the song retains derogatory expressions. Here, Schinderhannes is not simply an impeccable hero, but a familiar and contradictory figure.

As early as 1803, a printed account of Schinderhannes‘ death sentence and execution appeared, accompanied by a farewell song. In it, the condemned man speaks in the first person, acknowledges guilt, and says goodbye.

The first-person voice lends the song a particular immediacy. Listening to it, one seems to encounter the condemned man’s final thoughts. Yet the voice of the song is not automatically the authentic voice of Johannes Bückler.

The storyteller puts words into the dead man’s mouth. And since the dead man can no longer object, his invented voice remains.

A modern interpretation can be found in the song “Schinderhannes” by the folk-rock band dArtagnan. Its lyrics challenge the romantic Robin Hood image. The outlaw appears not as a selfless benefactor but as a man who has incurred guilt.

What is interesting here is the relationship between words and music. While the lyrics criticise the myth, the powerful musical arrangement can still convey precisely the defiant grandeur that the words seek to deny their protagonist.

A legend can be criticised and, at the same time, perpetuated by the manner in which it is presented.

The three songs demonstrate how differently the same historical figure can be portrayed: as a familiar rogue, a repentant condemned man, and a guilty outlaw. They tell us not only about Schinderhannes. They also reveal what their respective storytellers and audiences wish to see in him.

The same applies to theatre, film, and other forms of historical storytelling. Each chooses different means to bring a figure to life. Historical research, by contrast, asks for verifiable evidence. Its sources, too, may contain errors and reflect particular interests, but its claims must be open to justification and correction.

It is precisely this possibility of correction that matters. A story may lose some of its appeal when it turns out to be untrue. But it may also become more interesting.

The story of Schinderhannes demonstrates this particularly clearly. His name can still be found on hiking trails, pubs, at cultural events, and on monuments. He forms part of regional memory, although the historical person has long since receded behind the stories told about him.

Yet a society never remembers everything equally. It makes a selection.

In the case of Schinderhannes, the clever outlaw, the daring escape artist, and the carefree outsider frequently take centre stage. The people he robbed or threatened, by contrast, usually remain nameless.

Extraordinary perpetrators often have stories that can be told to dramatic effect. They act, decide, flee, fight, and fail. Their victims appear merely as elements of the plot.

This does not mean that historical perpetrators should disappear from memory. Their lives can help us understand social conditions and human behaviour. But the way we remember is not a matter of indifference.

Anyone who highlights only an outlaw’s courage, wit, or independence changes the moral perspective of his story. And anyone who leaves out his victims deprives them of part of their significance in collective memory as well.

The history of Schinderhannes also contains a remarkable irony. After his execution, his remains were used for anatomical studies. Later, the skeletons preserved in a collection were mistakenly identified.

In March 2025, Heidelberg University Hospital announced that the remains of Johannes Bückler had been identified through genetic analysis. A DNA comparison with a descendant had made the identification possible.

It turned out that the skeleton previously labelled “Black Jonas” (Schwarzer Jonas) actually belonged to Bückler. The skeleton formerly exhibited as Schinderhannes belonged neither to him nor, as far as could be established, to Black Jonas. The whereabouts of Black Jonas’s actual remains remain unknown.

By then, the name Schinderhannes had survived for more than two centuries. It had been sung, printed, performed, and retold. It had found its way onto pub signs, hiking trails, and monuments. Yet the actual body of the man who had borne that name had, in the meantime, been incorrectly identified.

The world still knew who Schinderhannes was.

Only his bones bore the wrong name.

Science can resolve such a mix-up. What it cannot fully reconstruct are the thoughts, feelings, and motives of a person who lived more than two hundred years ago.

Despite all the research, the historical Johannes Bückler remains only partially accessible. His literary counterpart, however, continues to speak. He speaks on stage, in songs, and in stories. And he often tells us more about those who give him a voice than about the man whose name he bears.

With every new means of storytelling, the number of these voices grows. Ballad singers and authors of early outlaw tales already turned recorded events into vivid narratives. They selected, embellished, and dramatised in order to reach their audiences.

Today, similar narratives can be produced in a short time with the help of artificial intelligence and distributed through digital media.

During my own exploration of Schinderhannes, I came across one such production: an approximately ninety-minute historical narrative on the YouTube channel Schlummerchronik, identified as AI-generated.

The narrative presents Bückler’s life as a continuous story, but it also explicitly acknowledges conflicting sources at certain points. For example, it mentions differing accounts of his date of birth.

That is precisely what makes it interesting. A presentation can acknowledge historical uncertainties and still, through its seamless narrative style, create the impression that we can almost follow the life of someone from the distant past as it unfolded.

Where the sources leave gaps, listeners do not necessarily encounter a gap. They encounter a scene.

This is not an entirely new problem. Earlier storytellers, too, could present conjecture so convincingly that their audiences mistook it for fact. What is new is primarily the speed, volume, and reach of such presentations.

Artificial intelligence can make historical information accessible and awaken curiosity. But it can also smooth over uncertainties through language and turn possibilities into apparent certainties.

The crucial question therefore remains the same as it was for the ballad singer: where does documented history end, and where does artistic invention begin?

The difference between a compelling story and a reliably documented one is not always audible. Anyone who tells history bears responsibility for making that distinction clear.

The fascination of Schinderhannes seems to lie less in the historical person than in what later generations wished to recognise in him: the nonconformist, the courageous man, the individual who defies authority and refuses to be intimidated.

These are qualities that can deserve admiration. But courage is not the same as justice. Independence is not the same as responsibility. And resistance to authority is not morally right merely because it is resistance.

Heroic figures simplify a complicated world. They embody hopes that are difficult to realise in everyday social life. They give abstract desires for freedom, justice, and self-determination a human face.

But this simplification comes at a price. Human beings are contradictory. They can be courageous and cruel, experience injustice themselves and inflict it on others, appear likeable and still be guilty of wrongdoing.

Anyone wishing to turn such a person into a hero must deal with these contradictions. They can examine them and learn to live with them. Or they can remove them from the story.

The myth of Schinderhannes shows how easily the second option becomes the preferred one.

Johannes Bückler lived only a few decades. He grew up under socially disadvantageous conditions, committed crimes, was arrested, convicted, and executed. That is one part of his story.

Another began during his lifetime and continued after his death.

Johannes Bückler became Schinderhannes. Schinderhannes became a figure of popular folklore, the figure became a literary hero, and the hero became part of regional memory.

It would be misguided to criticise literature for not being historical biography. It would be equally misguided to confuse literary invention with historical reality.

We need neither declare Schinderhannes a hero after the fact nor reduce him entirely to his crimes. We can try to understand the man within his social circumstances, take his responsibility seriously, and at the same time examine why later generations wanted to see so much more in him.

For ultimately, the story of Schinderhannes tells us more than something about an outlaw who lived around the year 1800. It also tells us about our longing for freedom and justice, about the temptation of simple answers, and about our willingness to admire people whose actions we would have to condemn upon closer examination.

And that brings me back to the pub on Alter Steinbacher Weg.

Back then, I stood before a wall on which a story was written. It was vivid, memorable, and wrong on one crucial point. Nevertheless, it had made me curious. I wanted to know what breaking on the wheel meant. Later, I wanted to know what had actually happened to Schinderhannes.

The false claim had prompted the right question.

I did not have to forget the story in order to recognise its error. I merely had to be willing to reconsider what I thought I knew.

Perhaps that is precisely the appropriate way to deal with our heroes. We do not have to give up stories that move us, entertain us, or make us think. We should simply not demand that reality conform to them.

For the crucial question is not whether we need good stories. Of course we do.

The question is what we do when a good story and the truth do not agree.

Do we want to know who a person really was? Or do we mainly want to believe in what we would like to see in them?

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