STOLEN ARCHIVES

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 101, 2 May 1925, Page 16

STOLEN ARCHIVES

A HISTORIAN'S THIRTY YEARS OF PILFERING.

A strange gift oi self-hypnotisation, under the influence of which he believed himself to bo other people, but by preference King Edward VII., is given by the historian, Karl Hauck, as an excuse for plundering half the State archives of Europe, states the Berlin correspondent of the "Daily Telegraph." H was his custom to sit in rapt contemplation in the privacy of his study before the autograph of ono of tho eminent historical characters whom he loved to personate until the lines of the signature had fixed themselves in his brain. Then he would try to imitate it, and as he did so he felt that his own personality was gradually being transfused into that of the great man whose name he was writing. Unfortunately for Herr Hauck he did not confine the use of the documents le had stolen to this fanatstic diversion. Some of them he also sold to dealers, and when, the head of the Prussian State archives at Charlottenburg saw advertised for sale a famous historical manuscript which he knew should be iv the custody of his colleague at Vienna he made inquiries, and learned that it had been stolen. This discovery eventually took the police to Hauck's flat in Berlin, where a room was found

"filled to tho ceiling" with similar pilferings. .

This extraordinary collection is still being sorted, but already it is known to contain letters of ■ King Edward, Frederick, the Great, William of Orange, and Prince Gortchakoff, for all of whom the learned thief seems to have had a special weakness; many signed photographs, numerous impressions of historical seals, quantities of manuscript, and the texts and scores of famous poets and musicians. To many of these spoils Hauck had added monographs and commentaries of his own composition. Hauck is now 57 years of age, and said that he had been engaged in his depredations for thirty years. Under the pretence—which seems to have been not altogether false—that he was writing a comprehensive "History of German Culture," he obtained admission to many of tho most famous collections of historical manuscripts. He is known to have been allowed to work in the State archives at London, Vienna, Brussels, The Hague, Madrid, and the Vatican. His visit to London, however, took place some years before the war.

Although the thief appears to have published nothing worthy of notice, lie was well known among collectors, and claims to have been on terms of friendship with Hugo Stinnes.