At Magdeburg, the family table became the scene of a judicial inquiry. A sweetmeat prepared for an ailing aunt, a white powder whose purpose none yet suspected, and then a retrospective glance at the earlier death of Bernhard Hartung’s second wife: suspicions assumed definitive form only after the merchant himself had recounted, and subsequently retracted, a portion of the tale. At trial, it was not merely a question of discovering whose hand had touched the phial. It was necessary to determine which deaths could be laid to the charge of murder, and which remained beyond the reach of the tribunal.
Hartung was a merchant by trade. The account in the Neue Pitaval depicts him as an educated man, prosperous in his dealings and capable of composing at the pianoforte; his family held him in no light esteem as a stranger. Emma Schröder, his aunt and his mother’s sister, was a frequent visitor to the household and shared their board. She was forty-two years of age. The reminiscences preserved by the compiler show her to have been beloved of her kinsfolk, though these pages were penned after the catastrophe, blending depositions, judicial exhibits, and the author’s reflections. It is with this reservation that one must trace the circumstances of the first demise.
In January 1852, Emma fell indisposed. On the 21st, she was served a confection that Hartung had prepared with his own hands, offering it as a restorative. The text describes a sweet cream or pastry paste, termed in the narrative a “Baiser,” into which arsenic had been introduced. The company sat unconscious that a lethal substance had been mingled with the dish. Emma partook of it; shortly thereafter, her condition struck alarm into those about her. The chronicle records the anxious appeals addressed to the aunt and the frantic efforts to comprehend her sudden seizure, yet these details stem from the retrospective narration of the Pitaval: they must not be converted into positive dialogue beyond what the source warrants.
Emma expired on the following day, 22 January. In the beginning, natural malady might still have furnished an ordinary explanation; legal medicine altered the entire complexion of the affair. Post-mortem examination of the remains disclosed unmistakable hallmarks of arsenical poisoning. The magistrates re-examined the domestic meals, the callers, and the private dealings of the house. Hartung was presently brought in for questioning. He confessed to having mixed poison into the confection. Yet this initial avowal did not silence the prevailing enigmas: why this particular aunt, why at that juncture, and was he seeking to possess himself of her estate? The narrative links the deed to pecuniary interests and life policies, but a line must be drawn between what the judicial record establishes and the psychological conjectures supplied by the chronicler.
A portion of the financial background was revealed in correspondence antedating the crime. Following the decease of Marie in July 1850, Hartung had applied to the insurance underwriter for the settlement of her policy, pressing vigorously for an immediate advance of five hundred thalers. The letters reveal a man debating clauses and delays with the punctilious acumen of a trader; the compiler further observes that he dunned the company until full satisfaction was obtained. This was not, in itself, proof of guilt. Yet when the magistrates later uncovered Hartung’s commercial engagements and pressing need of ready funds, these epistles took on a graver significance: they lent verifiable context to the hypothesis of a motive, without in themselves establishing the poisoning of either woman.
Hartung had subsequently retired from one enterprise and sold his dwelling. He entered into a second marriage with Alwine Schütze, and subsequently entered into a partnership with Haßfurth to assume control of a business concern. He was bound to provide several thousand thalers by a stipulated date. The chronicle places the demise of Emma precisely as this obligation approached and Hartung’s pecuniary embarrassments had once more intensified. The prosecution was thus enabled to tender a motive; the defence was equally entitled to reply that financial distress does not constitute murder. This distinction, so frequently eclipsed in accounts of celebrated causes, remained the very core of the proof: the court sat in judgment upon established acts, not upon a character already condemned in the public prints.
Emma’s poisoning having been medically determined, the inquiry was carried back to an antecedent death. Marie Braconier, Hartung’s second wife, had passed away in July 1850 after a period of sickness. Her remains were exhumed and submitted to anatomical examination. The physicians noted appearances compatible with arsenical poisoning, yet the crux of the matter lay in the very difficulty that was to sway the jury: a trace of arsenic and a corpse were insufficient to establish that the poison had directly induced the dissolution. The record indicates that Hartung had, in an earlier confession, admitted to having poisoned both her and the unborn child she carried; this deposition was subsequently challenged and withdrawn. At the bar, the Crown was required to produce an order of proof that the post-mortem findings did not supply with the same certitude as in the case of Emma.
The months of imprisonment brought forth shifting declarations. Hartung submitted written memorials, explanations, here an avowal of guilt, there a vehement protestation of innocence. He asserted that the examining magistrates had suggested the replies to him, and that he had ultimately yielded to them the very narrative they solicited. He argued further that his aunt’s demise might be traced to an entirely distinct cause. The tribunal could not hold these conflicting versions to be simultaneously true; yet neither could it sweep aside the inherent obscurities of the medical evidence. The confession was no mere conclusion to the inquiry: it had itself become the subject of the trial.
The prosecution set forth the successive deaths, the toxic agents discovered, Hartung’s relations with the two deceased women, and the depositions gathered during the preliminary instruction. Great stress was laid upon intention and potential pecuniary advantage. The defence, for its part, assailed the reliability of the confessions and the medical attribution of Marie’s decease. Upon this second casualty, the distinction proved momentous. To the third question, the jurors returned an affirmative verdict: Hartung had administered poison to Marie with the premeditated design to kill her. They added, however, that it was not legally proven that she had died of the poison. The court accordingly acquitted him of the capital charge regarding his wife. For the murder of Emma, conversely, the jury returned a verdict of premeditated murder accompanied by aggravating circumstances.
The verdict did not, therefore, pronounce equal condemnation upon all the counts. Hartung was found guilty of the murder of Emma Schröder. In the matter of Marie Braconier, the jury affirmed the premeditated administration of poison, yet found it unproven that death had supervened therefrom; the court thereupon cleared him of the murder of his wife. The first death fell into a chain of circumstances and material observations that satisfied the jurors' minds. The second remained medically problematical, notwithstanding the earlier avowal preserved in the compilation. The rumours of other victims that multiplied about the docket never hardened into a train of convictions: the text expressly notes that these suspicions remained unestablished at the bar.
The tribunal pronounced sentence of death for the murder of Emma. The decree was transmitted for royal confirmation, in conformity with Prussian jurisprudence. Hartung continued to importune the authorities and maintain his version of events; these petitions availed nothing against the confirmation of the sentence. On 2 December 1853, he was executed by decapitation at Magdeburg. The chronicle relates that he preserved his composure to the scaffold, where he acknowledged the murder of his aunt; the circumstances surrounding this final confession belong to the testimony of the Pitaval and must be weighed accordingly.
The table where Emma had tasted the confection did not yield up the entire judicial truth unaided. Nearly two years of suspicion, exhumation, expert analyses, and retracted avowals were required to part two deaths that the prosecution had sought to bind together. Condemnation was pronounced for the murder of Emma. In the case of Marie, the premeditated administration of poison was found by the jurors, yet dissolution by that agency remained unproven; the court acquitted Hartung of his wife's murder. Justice did not transmute rumour into fact. It reached, however, in the person of Emma, a degree of certitude sufficient to send a man to the block.