The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser

On 26th of May, 1828, a boy appeared standing in the town square of Nuremberg. He was holding a note addressed to a cavalry officer in a local regiment, saying that his name was Kaspar Hauser, and stating the wish that he would like to become a cavalryman, 'like his father'. The boy's claim was that he had been kept locked up from the outside world until that day, but had been taught to read and write, and had been instructed in scripture by his unknown captor. For the following five years Hauser led a checkered existence, being passed from one situation to another, all the while without the facts of his prior life ever becoming known. In December of 1833 he was found with a grievous stab wound, and died on the 17th of that month. Various claims have been made for the truth behind Hauser's origins, all without firm evidence coming to light. His existence prior to his release and discovery remains an unsolved mystery, as does the identity both of his original captor and his assailant - if indeed they were two different people.

The early history of Kaspar Hauser remained known only to himself, and his later history was brief enough. His biographers struggle to wrestle details free from the cloud of unknowing which surrounds them, as we at times are driven to strive to make some sense, to find some common thread, in our own personal histories. Whether we feel that we can detect a coherence, or whether that thread seems a tangled chaos, is perhaps only dependent upon the distance in time from which it is seen.

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