COLLECTOR’S CRIME

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LVI, 19 January 1926, Page 6

COLLECTOR’S CRIME

It- would be difficult to find in the chronicles of crime a case quite parallel ' with that of Dr. Karl llatick. who was ' sentenced at Berlin to .18 months im prisomnenl fo ■■ stealing documents from tile hinge archives :n Vienna and Her f lit; md other German capital.-, (writes a . correspondent, of the Duly ‘1 elegrip:.; Tint j censed w ts so gw. >:-il!v nvogms M - ployed i.\ the Prussian Ministry of 1 Finance to diaw up a report on the family possessions of Hie I lohenzollerns I IT r Hie purposes of a pending settlement between the Slate and the e\ King. It ' | was while doing this work that many of ! j his pilf’cririgs were committed. I lie 1 exact number of the documents stolen by Dr. llauck was not established, hut from Hie L’hariotteiihurg archive alone he took 1382. anil in Vienna 537. In his flat the police found many boxes and baskets stuffed with this curious plunder. The more valuable examples he kept in safes in Vienna and Berlin banks. The Court- accepted llauck's state mem that bis thefts were primarily and mainly the result of “collectors' mania.” 1 In his evidence lie stated that the signatures of historical personages exercised an extraordinary glamour over him. and threw him into a condition of tranen or transport, in which he was no longer conscious of Hie moral hearings ot his

own actions. The signatures of Queen ! Victoria. King Edward VII.. Bismarck, | and Frederick the (treat were those j which most strongly affected him in this way. lie claimed to have bought dur- ! ing his lifetime 14.0C0 autographs. The | market value of those which lie stole was. set down roughly at 200.000 marks.