Of Two Minds About the Death Penalty: Hippel's Account of a Case of Infanticide

O f Tw o M inds A bout the D eathzyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTS P enalty: H ippel’s A ccount o f a C ase o f Infanticide H A M IL T O N B E C K u y rQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA I ou had to die. ...” These words begin the last sentence of a text by Theodor Gottlieb von Hippel (1741-1796), the Mayor of Konigsberg, Chief of Police, judge on the H ofhalsgericht, and author of novels and essays on women’s rights. In 1791 he published a work of about eighty pages in length entitled A ccount o f the C ase o f von K a , with the subtitle A n E ssay on C rim e and P unishm ent.' This work is of unusual interest, first because it deals with two of the most important topics in late eighteenth-century literature and law, namely infanticide and the death penalty; second because of Hippel’s unorthodox method of presenting his material. Some of Hippel’s con­ temporaries also addressed themselves not to their legal colleagues but to a lay audience and had accordingly written straightforward narratives, ones that gave the facts of the case in chronological order without indulg­ ing in the baroque rhetorical traditions of seventeenth-century criminal literature.2 These works, which have been largely ignored not only by legal historians but also by social and literary historians, achieved a number of aims: first, their authors enlightened the public about unusual cases of intrinsic interest; second, they acquainted this audience with detailed aspects of the law; third, and most important, they educated readers morally by providing them with narratives that were at the same time entertaining, true, and instructive.3 123 124 / BECK Hippel’s procedure, regarded as a whole, is quite different in that it is much more involved and complex in its stucture. In one respect, though, it is similar: Hippel also provides as part of his work a relatively straight­ forward account of the facts of the case. Let us examine just this part, the story of Hippel’s essay or ZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA N achricht. Margaretha von Kawatschinska was born in July 1761 in the West Prussian village of Skurgiens. Her father died when she was still young, and she was raised by her mother and given religious instruction by a priest. (Hippel makes special note of this to underline his point that von Kawatschinska was not an uneducated woman.) Other than this Hippel tells us nothing about her youth. Some events of interest fall in the succeeding years, however; the first is Frederick the Great’s edict against infanticide (E dikt w ider den M ord neugebohrner uneheticher K inder, V erheim lichung der Schw angerschaft, und N iederkunft) of 8 February 1765, the statute under which von Kawatschinska was later to be sentenced.4 Frederick notes in the pream­ ble to this law that it is a more stringent law to combat a crime that is occurring more frequently than ever before.5 Eleven years later came the publication of Wagner’s D ie K inderm orderin. Wagner’s play describes the events leading up to and motivating an infanticide; Hippel’s account complements this (involuntarily, to be sure) by dealing with the legal consequences subsequent to an infanticide. Pestalozzi, in his U ber G esetzgebung und K inderm ord (1783), took what was for the time a radical view: if illegitimate birth were decriminalized, the chief motive for infanticide would be eliminated. Hippel made no mention of either Wagner or Pestalozzi.6 Hippel’s account skips now to 1784, when von Kawatschinska became pregnant. The father’s identity is not known. Von Kawatschinska was living at home with her widowed mother and sleeping in the same room with some of the servant women. At ten in the evening of 24 November she left her room and, about thirty steps from the house, gave birth to a child. Two of the servant women had become suspicious and followed her; they discovered her and the child, and, against the protests of von Kawatschinska, brought the child back to the house. Here the child’s cries awakened von Kawatschinska’s mother, who had...