You are looking at Absurd but true Don’t miss other content of Geopop
Everyone knows the Hansel and Gretel fairy talewritten in the nineteenth century by Grimm brothers: To be clear, that of the two children abandoned by the parents in the woods who find a marzipan house in which a old woman lives that wants to calm children. Not everyone knows, however, that behind the story, a much more chilling true story could be hidden. According to the reconstructions carried out by the archaeologist Georg Consaggin fact, the fairy tale would be inspired by the story of two adult people pushed to the murder from hunger for power in Germany. His discoveries were published in a book drawn up by the journalist Hans Traxler but, as often happens, behind this story there is much more than it seems.
Who is Professor Georg Bon
The protagonist of our history is Professor Georg Consag. Born in Prague the May 21, 1919 in the city of Golem, From an early age he lives in the Spessart region, in the black forest. It is a place with a magical atmosphere and for this reason he loves to read fairy tales, so much so that his grandparents give him an illustrated volume of the Grimm brothers. Due to the war, Consagg is forced to move to other areas of Germany, also living in Frankfurt For a period and being able to return home only in 1962. Here he feels voices of peasants who claim that, still today, in the woods, there are the remains of the ancient woods of the witches … What if there was the real house of the witch told in Hansel and Gretel there?
Of course, it looked like a crazy idea .. at least until, walking through the woods, he reached a glimpse that seemed familiar to him … but of course, the landscape he was seeing was the same as shown on the fairytale book given to him by his grandparents when he was small! It was located in the right point, and The search was ready to start.
Real crime theory of Consagg
Based on that illustration he first managed to identify the Hansel and Gretel’s parents’ houseor at least, where it would have to arise, given that in its place there was now A motorway. Analyzing the registers of the Rohrbrunn railway office found a cause between the old owner of a property that stood here, such Georg Scheidtbauerand the federal administration of the motorways. This was the proof that there was a house here before! And in all likelihood it was the house he was looking for. Taking this hypothesis for good, he began to follow what was told by the Grimm brothers.
For example, he had to look for a clearing, given that in the fairy tale the two children, before being abandoned, light a fire with the father, and the best place to do it is a clearing. CONSEGS then took some children, filled his pockets of him Sassolini And he tried to make him travel various paths, but nobody managed to reach any clearing. The professor then had a flash of genius: he filled his own pockets of stones and sowing them at regular time intervals, he managed to end them exactly inside a clearing. What did this mean? That in all probability Hansel and Gretel were not children, but adults.
In this clearing he also found a tree present in the story. In history, the father linked a rope around a tree, and he noticed that one of the trees around the clearing, at approximately 25 meters highhad a sort of scar in the shape of crescent: that was nothing more than the sign of the rope which, over time, had been incorporated by the tree itself. He then bought the tree of the land owner, made him break down, and managed to count how many rings they were around the rope, managing to understand that that was tied about 315 years earlierthat is, in 1647. Here is the second great discovery, the date, which as we will see will be essential to discover the truth.
However, after finding the clearing he continued as per story and inspected every possible area where the house could be found. It took weeks to beat every corner of the forest, until the turning day, the July 10, 1962.
The discovery of the house
That day he found in the woods the remains of a small home with a wall just high 2 meters and 20 Made with stones, clay and oak beams. The house consisted of a single room and there were four ovens inside. In the following days he inspected it in every corner, finding one sweet mold and, hidden behind a wall, even some ancient recipes! But it’s not over, he also discovered more chilling details: the entrance door had gods cornerstone forcedas if someone had raided at home and analyzing the ovens, on July 25, realized that inside one of these there was one skeleton. Immediately he contacted the Prof. Vermeulen of the anthropological institute of the University of Leida who began to examine the body and returned to the professor a clear picture of the incident.
It was the skeleton of a young woman from Massimo 35 years, tall 1.67 meters And without any kind of physical deformity. So a very different person than the witch of the Grimm. According to the analysis of the skeleton, the bones were only partially charred – since the ovens were not designed for that – and it seems that the woman when she was thrown in the oven was already dead. Perhaps because of a strangulation, Obba writes in his diary. Here we are, this was the third great revelation found by Bloom, that is, how the “witch” died.
At this point only one thing was missing: the motive.
The truth about Hansel and Gretel
As we said, we know in what years the story took place and with this data the professor began to squeeze the documents present in the archive of the nearby city of Harzfinding the transcription of an interrogation that took place July 15, 1647. The protagonist of the document is Katharina Schraderin, nicknamed there Witch of the oven. She was a pastry chef in Nuremberg, the best of the city. One day during the market he was approached by the court baker of the king who tried to woo it so that he could steal his very secret recipe of the custody and become even more important in the eyes of the sovereign. But she understood his intentions and refused but he of all response began to persecute her, even going so far as to report her as a witch.
She was then captured, questioned, tortured, but never confessed to be a witch, and so she was freed. After being released from Katharina, a house was built in the woods, where to work in peace … but what she didn’t know is that the cook had not finished with her. In fact, one day he went there with his sister and together they decided to kill her. We do not know exactly how this happened, but what we know for sure is that they tried to burn the evidence of their gesture by throwing the body into one of the ovens. They put the house upside down to look for the recipe but nothing, they didn’t find it. It is precisely for this reason that the manuscripts were still hidden today Behind the wall!
But we have not said the even more interesting revelation. Do you know what the two killers were called? The name of the cook was Hans Metzler and that of his sister Grete. Hans and Grete. Hansel and Gretel. Finally the professor had reconstructed all the story! In the document it is also said that the two criminals were tried but that in the end – it is not specified as – they were acquitted, closing this story with a Dolceamara note.
The publication of the book
It seems absurd to have managed to solve an old centuries murder, and Consagg was so enthusiastic to contact immediately Hans Taxler, At the time author for Frankfurt magazine Pardonto tell him all the story. In the end this incredible story was published for the first time in 1963 with the name of “The truth about Hansel and Gretel“. The text in a very short time became one of the best sellers in West Germany and was acclaimed both by the critics and by the academics of the time, becoming famous even abroad.
So everything ended up for the best, wasn’t it? Well, not exactly. Because about a year after the publication of the book jumped out that everything he had been told was actually false. Its author, Hans Taxler, made a statement that shook public opinion: There was no professor Consagg And all the tests reported in the book were falsified from himself. The intent of the book had never been to tell the true story of Hansel and Gretel, but rather that of make fun of the media and academicswho took this text as a gold -cooked gold without checking the data on which it was based.
At the time, few believed him, it was thought to be a way to attract attention to himself – and above all no one wanted to make the figure of the stupid to have believed such a thing … but soon it was understood that he was not saying a lie. All the studies and finds found were nothing more than false facts for artincluding the alleged archive documents in which the stories of Katsrina, Hans and Grete were told.
