HINTERKAIFECK

Opening

On the night of 31 March 1922, six people were killed at Hinterkaifeck, a small, isolated farm about 70 kilometres north of Munich, between Schrobenhausen and Ingolstadt in Bavaria. They were Andreas Gruber, 63, his wife Cäzilia, 72, their widowed daughter Viktoria Gabriel, 35, Viktoria's children Cäzilia, 7, and Josef, 2, and the new maid, Maria Baumgartner, 44, who had arrived only that afternoon. Four were killed in the barn, likely lured there one by one, and two in the house. The weapon was a mattock.

In the days before, Gruber had talked in town about footsteps in the attic, a newspaper nobody nearby took, and tracks in the snow that led to the farm and not away. After the killings, someone stayed: the stove was lit, food was eaten and the animals were fed. Neighbours found the bodies four days later. More than a century on, nobody has been charged.

Timeline

About 1863The farm is built near the village of Waidhofen.

12 December 1914Viktoria's husband, Karl Gabriel, is reported killed in the First World War. His body is never recovered.

1915Andreas Gruber and Viktoria are convicted of an incestuous relationship between 1907 and 1910, part of why the village did not love the household.

Autumn 1921The maid, Kreszenz Rieger, leaves, reportedly after hearing noises she believed came from the attic. For six months the farm has no maid.

March 1922Gruber finds a Munich newspaper on the property that no one in the area subscribes to. He reports footprints in the snow leading to the farm, none leading away, and a door with a broken lock. A house key goes missing. He mentions the strange happenings in town.

31 March, afternoonMaria Baumgartner arrives with her sister, Franziska Schaefer, who leaves after about an hour, probably the last outsider to see the family alive.

31 March, eveningBetween about 19:30 and 21:00, by later reconstruction, the killings take place: the barn first, then the house.

1 to 3 AprilSmoke is seen from the chimney. Little Cäzilia is missing from school. Visitors who call on 1 April notice nothing beyond an open gate.

4 AprilA mechanic, Albert Hofner, works at the farm that day without seeing anyone. Later, a neighbour, Lorenz Schlittenbauer, and two others go in and find four bodies stacked in the barn under straw and two in the house.

5 AprilThe court physician, Johann Baptist Aumüller, performs the autopsies in the yard, on a door laid over trestles. The skulls are sent to Munich.

1922 onwardsInvestigator Georg Reingruber of the Munich police leads the inquiry. Robbery is soon ruled out, because a large sum of money is found in the house. A reward of 100,000 marks is offered.

1923The farm is demolished. In the attic, workers find a mattock that had been hidden there, and in the barn a penknife.

1951 to 1955A prosecutor reopens the case and questions new suspects, but the proceedings are dropped. The case is officially closed in 1955.

1986The last interviews take place.

2007Students at the police academy in Fürstenfeldbruck review it as a cold case.

Key figures

The six dead are the record: Andreas, Cäzilia, Viktoria, little Cäzilia, Josef and Maria. Maria had been on the farm a few hours. Josef was two.

Franziska Schaefer, Maria's sister, is the last friendly visitor who left alive.

Lorenz Schlittenbauer and the neighbours who found the bodies were the first to see the farm that had been running without its family.

Georg Reingruber led the investigation. The Bavarian police have kept a long unsolved file ever since. More than a hundred suspects have been questioned over the decades, and no conviction has ever been obtained.

Physical and documentary trail

What exists: the six victims, the mattock found in the attic in 1923, believed to be the weapon; Gruber's reports, before the killings, of attic noises, the strange newspaper and tracks that came in and did not leave; the signs that someone remained afterwards, with fire, food and fed animals; the discovery on 4 April; the yard autopsies; and the investigation files, which run for decades.

What is missing is the modern evidence. Onlookers trampled the scene before police arrived, and no fingerprints were taken. The skulls were later lost during the Second World War. There is no confession that a court kept, and no surviving original autopsy report that later researchers can quote in full.

Things you might not know

• The previous maid had quit. Kreszenz Rieger left the farm about six months before the murders, reportedly because of noises she believed came from the attic.
• More than 100 suspects were questioned. Interviews went on for decades, as late as 1986, but no one was ever arrested.
• Money ruled out robbery. A large sum was found untouched in the house.
• A police academy took it on in 2007. Students at Fürstenfeldbruck praised the original detectives but noted they had not used basic forensics such as fingerprinting. The original evidence was lost or too degraded to help.
• The skulls went missing in the war. After the autopsies the victims' skulls were sent to Munich, where clairvoyants were reportedly consulted without result. They were lost during the Second World War.
• The farm is gone, but there is a memorial. The farm was demolished in 1923. The six victims are buried in Waidhofen, where a memorial stands in the graveyard.

Competing explanations

A known enemy of the house. The family's history gave the village reasons to dislike Andreas, and motives are easy to write. A name that holds up in court has never arrived.

A stranger who used the attic first. The inbound tracks, the strange newspaper, the missing key and the noises fit someone already hiding on the farm. It does not give him a face.

Robbery that became a massacre. Money talk sits in the record, but the cash left in the house works against it.

Later life of the case

Hinterkaifeck is one of Germany's most famous unsolved crimes. A 1981 documentary and a 1991 play revived interest, and Andrea Maria Schenkel's 2006 novel Tannöd, published in English as The Murder Farm, moved the story to the 1950s, sold more than a million copies and was filmed in 2009. The case reached a new audience in a 2018 episode of the series Lore. The 2007 police academy review is the closest it has come to a modern investigation. For another farmhouse massacre that has never been solved, see Villisca.

Finding

Six people were killed at Hinterkaifeck on 31 March 1922, and whoever did it stayed long enough to keep the place running while the little girl missed school. The warnings beforehand, the footprints, the newspaper and the attic noises, suggest the killer was there before the family knew it. A century of investigation has produced suspects but no answer.

What still will not resolve: a name that a prosecutor can take to court, or a surviving original autopsy report that later hands have not rewritten. Rest in peace, Andreas, Cäzilia, Viktoria, little Cäzilia, Josef and Maria. 🕯️