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Adele Spitzeder

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Adele Spitzeder's tombstone at Munich's old south cemetery

Adele Spitzeder, also known as Adele Vio, (9. November 1832 in Berlin als Adelheid Spitzeder; † 27. Oktober 1895 in München) was a German actress, singer and con artist.

Life

Spitzeder was born Adelheid Spitzeder on 9 November 1832 in Berlin. Her parents were the actors and singers Josef Spitzeder and Betty Spitzeder-Vio. She went to expensive private schools and was at home in the high society. In 1856, she debuted as an actress in Coburg and went on to work in Mannheim, Munich, Brno, Nuremberg,Frankfurt, Karlsruhe and Altona. She had multiple girlfriends. ==Spitzedersche Privatbank==Spitzeder had no apartment but lived in hotels and inns and employed a personal servant. Because her acting career was unable to pay for all her expenses, she devised a different way to pay for her lifestyle. Completely broke, she guaranteed a carpenter an investment of ten percent per month on a sum of 100 Guilder and paid said interest for two months in advance.

Soon more people were interested in her services, so she founded a banking house in 1869 with her girlfriend Emilie Stier in the Dachauer Straße in Munich. She continued to pay interest in cash which was not common and thus lead to some word of mouth advertising. The "Spitzedersche Privatbank" (English: Spitzeder Private Bank) quickly rose from being an insider tip to a large company.

In 1871, Spitzeder moved from a basic hotel in a house in the Schönfeld Street No. 9 in one of Munich's best areas which she had bought for 54,000 Guilder and renovated intensively for her use. Her house including the bank had 40 employees.

Her business practices and accounting was not only unconventional but downright chaotic. Money was deposited in large sacks in her house and in the safe of a hairdresser. Her employees, all without training in accounting, regularly took money and the accounting was restricted to recording who had paid how much. Her method was a ponzi scheme, the first recorded in Germany and possibly ever.[1]

Spitzeder knew about the advantages of good public relations. She bribed multiple journalists with sums up thousands of Guilders for good reports and also published her own newspaper for a while. Brokers received a bonus of five to seven perfect of the sum people invested. With generous donations and a sometimes resolute, sometimes pious demeanor she managed to gain the public's confidence and to be hailed as a benefactor. For example, she opened the public kitchen in the Orlando house at the Platzl.

Due to her customer base consisting mostly of farmers from the northern outskirts of Munich, her bank was also called „Dachauer Bank“. Farmers often sold their farms because they believed they could live on the interest alone. Spitzeder soon expanded her business and started buying and selling houses and land in all of Bavaria.

Bankruptcy and criminal charges

Spitzeder was able to withstand the public pressure levied against her by the government, some banks and newspapers for a while but when her enemies managed to organize 60 customers who all wanted to retrieve their investments at the same time, the company collapsed. Spitzeder was not solvent and arrested on 12 November 1872 on fraud charges.

During the two years of her bank's existence, some 32,000 customers were defrauded of 38 million Guilder (roughly 400 million euro).[2] Some customers killed themselves. Additionally some towns and banks collapsed.

Adele Spitzeder was sentenced to three years in prison. In her favor, the court took into account the lack of legal requirements for accounting as well as her not ever having advertised any securities. She was incarcerated in the prison in the Baader Street in Munich for health reasons where she also wrote her memoirs.

After prison

After her release, Spizeder went abroad since no one wanted to hire her as an actress in Germany anymore. She returned to Munich in 1878 where she published Geschichten meine Lebens (English: Stories of my life).In 1880 she tried to open a new bank but was immediately arrested for a lack of permits.Later she performed as a folk singer under the name Adele Vio and was able to live thanks to help from friends and sponsors. She died on 27 October 1895 aged 62 in Munich from cardiac arrest. She is buried

She was buried on Munich's Alten Südlichen Friedhof.[3] The tombstone does not have her name on it since she was buried anonymously.

Works about Spitzeder

Soon after her arrest, on 12 February 1873, the Königsberg municipal theater performed a play written by Cäsar Beck entitled Adele Spitzeder als Ehehinderniß, oder: Die aufgehobene Dachauerbank und der unterbrochene Kaffeeklatsch (English: Adele Spitzeder as a detriment to marriage, or: The abolished Dachau bank and the interrupted coffee klatsch).

Adele Spitzeder's story was brought to the stage as a marionette play by Gabriel Gailler and in 1966 the comedy book Das Gold von Bayern by Reinhard Raffalt was published. In 1972,  Martin Sperr wrote a TV movie which was directed by Peer Raben with Ruth Drexel starring as Spitzeder. The play Die Spitzeder von Sperr was first performed on 11 September 1977.


1992 the Bayerische Rundfunk aired the documentary Adele Spitzeder oder das Märchen von den Zinsen (English: Adele Spitzeder or the fairy tale about the interest) by Hannes Spring.

2010 the story was again the basis for a TV movie produced by the Bayerische Rundfunk and the ORF with Birgit Minichmayr as Adele Spitzeder under the name Die Verführerin Adele Spitzeder (English: The Temptress Adele Spitzeder). It was first broadcast on 11 January 2012.

Literature about Spitzeder

  • Adele Spitzeder: Geschichte meines Lebens. Stuttgarter Verlagscomptoir, Stuttgart 1878, (Nachdruck: Buchendorfer Verlag, München 1996, ISBN 3-927984-54-X, (Historische Originaltexte zur Geschichte Münchens)).
  • Puppentheatermuseum München (Hrsg.): Adele Spitzeder. Marionettenspiel um einen Münchner Finanzskandal im Jahre 1873. Wortgetreue Wiedergabe einer alten Handschrift. Mit einem Vorwort von Irena Raithel-Živsa. Puppentheatermuseum, München 1981, (Schriftenreihe des Münchner Puppentheatermuseums H. 2).
  • Dirk Schumann: Der Fall Adele Spitzeder 1872. Eine Studie zur Mentalität der „kleinen Leute“ in der Gründerzeit. In: Zeitschrift für Bayerische Landesgeschichte 58. Jg. 1995, S. 991–1026 (Digitalisat).
  • Christine Spöcker: Das Geldmensch. Ein tragikomisches Stück über den kapitalistischen Exzess der Adele Spitzeder, Bankfrau zu München, die 1872 durch Bankrott ihrer Dachauer Bank 30860 Gläubiger ins Unglück trieb. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1973, ISBN 3-10-074201-X, (Theater im S.-Fischer-Verlag).
  • Karl Weinberger: Adele Spitzeder. Roman einer seltsamen Frau. Maindruck, Frankfurt am Main 1956.
  • Heidi Rehn: Tod im englischen Garten. Historischer Kriminalroman. Emons Verlag, Köln 2008. [Spitzeders Kreditpraxis bildet den Hintergrund einer Mordgeschichte.]
  • Richard Winkler:Richard Winkler (2010), "Spitzeder, Adele Luise Luise", Neue Deutsche Biographie (in German), vol. 24, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, pp. 717–718; (full text online)
  • Julian Nebel: Adele Spitzeder: Der größte Bankenbetrug aller Zeiten, FinanzBuch Verlag, München 2017, ISBN 978-3-959720-48-9.
  • Harald Freiberger: Diese Frau hat den Betrug per „Schneeballsystem“ groß gemacht. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. 11. November 2017

References

  1. ^ {{cite book}}: Empty citation (help)
  2. ^ Diese Frau hat den Betrug per "Schneeballsystem" groß gemacht.
  3. ^ knerger.de: Das Grab von Adele Spitzeder
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