by John Glatt
“He was the caretaker,” she said. “If anything was broken, he would go straight to the cellar to fetch a replacement.”
According to Sabine, Fritzl’s portly son, then in his mid-thirties, was usually drunk.
“He always had a bottle in his hand,” said Sabine, “beer or wine.”
Alfred Dubanovsky had always been surprised that Fritzl’s son still lived at home, and was only allowed out of the house once a week.
“I certainly found that very strange,” he said.
Some nights, Dubanovsky would hear mysterious “knocking and banging” noises coming from the cellar, as well as objects being dropped. But when he asked what they were, Fritzl said it was the heating system, offering to move him to a larger apartment upstairs, but Dubanovsky declined.
Other than relatives and a few close friends, the Fritzls had few visitors. But on one occasion Fritzl introduced Dubanovsky to a plumber, who had been allowed into the cellar to help install a heavy toilet system.
Lina Angermeier, who rented a small apartment on the first floor, said everyone knew about Elisabeth Fritzl running away and abandoning her babies.
“That was no secret,” she told Spiegel. “We thought she was a bad mother who shirked her maternal responsibilities. You felt sorry for the Fritzl family, because of their bad fortune.”
When Angermeier moved into her apartment, which overlooked the inner courtyard, Rosemarie Fritzl told her there was no tenant storage space in the cellar, and that her husband never allowed tenants to go anywhere near it.
During the time she lived there, Angermeier always thought the Fritzls a happy family.
“They all seemed to get along well,” she recalled. “The other kids came to visit a lot. Josef and Rosemarie Fritzl were very loving, and doted over their grandchildren. Elisabeth was always portrayed as the black sheep of the family.”
That summer, Elisabeth Fritzl became pregnant for the fifth time. And on April 29, 1996, she delivered a set of male twins—Alex and Michael. Once again, their father was absent, apparently finding the idea of childbirth distasteful.
Soon after birth, Michael developed severe respiratory problems, and Elisabeth desperately battled to save his life, without any medical supplies. She pleaded with her father to take the baby to the hospital, but he refused, saying, “What will be, will be.” Then after three long days, he died in his mother’s arms, as Kerstin and Stefan looked on helplessly.
Josef Fritzl was furious. He picked up his dead son’s body and stormed over to the incinerator, used to dispose of the cellar garbage, and threw it in.
Twelve years later, he would admit burning baby Michael’s body, explaining that he had wanted to “get rid of it.”
Although the terrible toll on Kerstin and Stefan of witnessing their baby brother’s death may never be known, somehow their mother rose above it to survive. After Michael’s death, Josef Fritzl relaxed his regime even further. Each new baby had increased his control over Elisabeth, who now obeyed his every command for the sake of her children. He cunningly exploited this, bringing in a radio, television and a VCR. To brighten up the dingy cellar, he smuggled in old carpets, chairs, tables and second-hand kitchen utensils. He even acquired an aquarium for 7-year-old Stefan, who would spend hours just staring at the fish swimming around in it.
Over the next several years, Josef Fritzl completed several more rooms, providing a kitchen, a small lavatory with sink and makeshift shower, and two bedrooms for Elisabeth and her children to sleep in.
Elisabeth was now spending three hours a day educating her children. Although she had left school at 15, she was teaching Kerstin and Stefan basic math, history and geography, using textbooks her father bought.
And late at night, after their jailer had satisfied himself and finally left, Elisabeth would tell Kerstin and Stefan about the outside world, describing her own childhood before she had been brought down into the cellar, always careful never to let them know they were prisoners.
Their new television, which was now on day and night, had suddenly opened up the children’s narrow world. But they had no grasp of reality outside the cellar, so it was as if the television pictures they saw came from another planet. There was absolutely nothing for them to distinguish news programs from Hollywood fantasy movies.
Their father now began turning his cellar visits into grotesquely distorted family occasions. He’d arrive bearing small presents for the children, as well as the sexy silk lingerie for their mother that so pleased him. He would buy Elisabeth’s underwear and evening gowns mail order, using a credit card he’d registered in her name. And over the years, dozens of parcels would arrive at Ybbsstrasse 40, addressed to Elisabeth Fritzl, somehow never attracting any attention.
After Elisabeth had dressed up for him, her children would retreat into their bedroom while he forced her to view hardcore pornographic tapes on the VCR. He would then force her to reenact his favorite perverted scenes in a special rubber-padded room.
Afterwards, Elisabeth would go into the kitchen to cook dinner on the ancient oven he’d installed, as they discussed Kerstin and Stefan’s upbringing. Then after dinner, while Elisabeth cleaned up, he would settle down in front of the television with his children, watching soccer matches, martial arts movies or Formula 1 racing.
On special occasions, he would show them photographs of their siblings upstairs, proudly recounting how well they were doing at school, and the various exciting trips they had been taking.
Then early the next morning he’d leave, going upstairs to resume his other life with his other family.
Living their lives in artificial light in such a confined space affected the children’s balance and coordination. Stefan, who grew to be 5 feet, 9 inches, would be permanently crippled after years of never being able to stand up straight because of the low ceilings.
They all suffered unimaginable sensory deprivation, as well as vitamin deficiencies and problems with their immune systems.
The four rooms they eventually occupied were connected by long narrow passageways, just two feet wide. There was little oxygen and the damp cellar walls were covered in mildew, causing continuing fungal infections.
It was a miserable existence, but despite the overwhelming odds, Elisabeth always tried to make life exciting for her children. To relieve the boredom, she taught them games, encouraging them to decorate the gloomy rooms to make them more livable. Together they painted a yellow snail with a green shell, purple octopuses, flowers and fish on the dirty white bathroom tiles. And they covered the damp ceilings with colorful decals of the sun and stars in the heavens.
But the children had never seen anything outside the cellar with their own eyes, having to rely on book illustrations or digital television images.
On August 3, 1997, after forcing Elisabeth to write yet another note, Josef Fritzl brought Michael’s 15-month-old twin brother Alexander upstairs, depositing him on the doorstep. Once again he went through the charade of his daughter thoughtlessly abandoning yet another baby for him and his wife to raise.
“When Elisabeth’s third child was laid at the door, we asked Sepp if maybe he shouldn’t try to find out about this sect,” recalled his sister-in-law Christine. “His answer was, ‘No point.’ ”
Horst Herlbauer, who is married to Fritzl’s second-oldest daughter Rosemarie, said the family always believed Elisabeth had run away.
“That was the truth to us,” he explained, “and we didn’t question it, even when some of her children appeared and were adopted into the family.”
Once again the story was reported in the Kronen Zeitung newspaper, and Elisabeth’s irresponsible behavior was the subject of much discussion in Amstetten.
The authorities also did little to try to find Elisabeth. And after another routine inspection of Ybbsstrasse 40 by Amstetten social workers, Josef Fritzl was soon receiving another $1,500-a-month government check for his new foster son.
By all accounts, life for the three children lucky enough
to have escaped the cellar was good. Their doting grandmother Rosemarie took good care of them, and their grandfather always insisted they call them “Mama” and “Papa.”
Lisa and Monika went to the local school in Amstetten, where they were reportedly excellent students. Monika had suffered from a congenital heart condition which had required surgery, but was now fully recovered.
Upstairs, they lived a mirror life of their unfortunate brother and sister two floors below, having no idea that Kerstin and Stefan even existed. They dressed well and were allowed to have friends over to the house to use the new swimming pool that their grandfather had recently built on the roof.
They studied different musical instruments, played ice hockey and other sports, took summer vacations to Italy and Greece with Rosemarie.
“She made a lot of sacrifices,” said Lina Angermeier, “for the sake of her grandchildren.”
Neighbor Regina Penz was always impressed by how well Rosemarie Fritzl was raising her new set of children, though she pitied her for the strain it must have caused.
“Frau Fritzl already had seven children,” she said. “And now she had to bring up grandchildren as well. Terrible.”
In summer 1996, Josef Fritzl sold his boarding house at Lake Mondsee, giving up the campsite after almost twenty-five years. To celebrate, he went to the Munich Oktoberfest with his old friend Paul Hoerer, who later stayed a couple of days at the Fritzl house with his girlfriend Andrea Schmitt.
Hoerer remembers his friend being the perfect host, entertaining them by his roof garden pool, immaculately set with white marble tiles.
“We got on really well,” he remembered. “He was great company and seemed to be the picture-book head of the family. Looking back, I suppose it was a bit strange that the only garden we were ever allowed to use was the one on the roof.”
Hoerer said he was aware the cellar was “totally out of bounds,” but had no reason to go there.
“We never went down to the garden,” he said. “But sat on the terrace garden, looking down. I always thought it was a wonderful family. The children were well-mannered and so well-behaved.”
After dinner, the two friends adjourned to Fritzl’s media room, watching his favorite Bugs Bunny and Tom and Jerry television cartoons, which made him laugh hysterically.
Fritzl’s grown-up daughter Gabrielle spent three years living at Ybbsstrasse 40 with her husband Jergen Helm. During that time, Helm got close to his father-in-law, often sharing an evening drink and a chat on the roof terrace by the pool.
“There was always a relaxed atmosphere,” he told the German newspaper Heute. “There was never any indication of anything wrong.”
He said he had been in the cellar on at least one occasion, never noticing anything untoward.
“It was scattered with junk,” he recalled. “And I had no idea that a few meters away this family were living.”
CHAPTER 13
A Double Life
Even though he kept his daughter Elisabeth as his personal sex slave, Josef Fritzl’s libido was insatiable. He had discovered Viagra and other similar prescription drugs, and his esoteric tastes in deviant sex were becoming stranger and stranger. Villa Ostende owner Peter Stolz was becoming increasingly concerned about his long-time customer’s demands.
“He was a strange, stingy character,” remembered Stolz. “He liked trips to the dungeon”—the brothel’s underground lair—“with young girls he had selected personally.”
One of the few Villa Ostende girls still willing to accept him as a client told London’s Sun newspaper how he liked to tie her to a cross with manacles in the dungeon. The 36-year-old blonde prostitute, who charged Fritzl $220 an hour, said he was often violent and bad-tempered, punching her during sex.
“I was hired by him many times,” she told a reporter, refusing to give her name. “And he was sick beyond imagination.”
She said he especially liked her because she was young, plump and submissive.
“I had to call him ‘teacher,’ ” she remembered, “and was not allowed to engage in conversation with him. He would pay to have sex inside the brothel dungeon, which I hated. It was dark and sinister, but his favorite place.
“Once I asked him about his family and he told me, ‘I have none.’ I thought he was a lonely man.”
By Christmas 1998, Josef Fritzl seemed to have everything under control. He now lived his complicated double life with military precision, getting an extra thrill out of beating the system for thousands of dollars every month in government benefits.
He felt so secure, he was now planning another month-long “boys’ trip” to Thailand, to be immediately followed by a two-week Italian vacation. In anticipation of being away so long, once again he began stockpiling large amounts of food in a spare room in the cellar.
In the weeks up to Christmas, he had driven to various supermarkets around a fifty-mile radius of Amstetten. He often shopped at the Metro superstore in Linz, near the Villa Ostende, refueling afterwards at the gas station next door.
“He went shopping almost every week,” recalled a gas pump attendant, who served him regularly over a fifteen-year period. “Sometimes his wife was with him.”
The attendant, who wished to remain anonymous, said Fritzl was stingy, and never left a tip.
After his shopping expeditions, he would arrive home between 10 and 11 at night, using his wheelbarrow to transfer the large plastic bags full of groceries across the garden and into the cellar.
Alfred Dubanovsky would later claim to have seen Rosemarie Fritzl assist him on several occasions.
“The amount was far too much for Josef, his wife and the three kids still at home,” said Dubanovsky. “Rosemarie must have noticed. In fact, she often helped him unload things.”
Dubanovsky said another tenant also once expressed surprise about the enormous amounts of food regularly being taken into the cellar.
“Looking back,” he said, “I suppose this must have been shortly before he went on holiday.”
Walter Werner, who lived near the Fritzls for eleven years, also observed the mysterious food runs into the cellar, but never said anything.
“In retrospect,” he would later say, “I have to say I found it strange that they used to carry so many groceries into the house, they needed a wheelbarrow to transport them.”
Over the Christmas holidays, Josef Fritzl held his annual family reunion at Ybbsstrasse 40. Ironically, he had a sentimental streak, delighting in celebrating birthdays and holidays separately with both his upstairs and downstairs families, although they might have been on different planets.
Over the holiday period, all the grown-up Fritzl children returned with their spouses for a lavish festive meal. As usual, the family patriarch sat at the head of the table, presiding over everything. Sometimes the conversation turned to Elisabeth and where she could possibly be.
“We went back for family occasions,” said Fritzl’s son-in-law Horst Herlbauer. “Josef seemed to be a normal dad and family man. He was always working hard [at] his job or on the house. There never appeared to be any problems at home.”
But although Herlbauer found his father-in-law “outgoing” and “friendly,” other members of the family did not. Rosemarie Fritzl’s younger sister Christine had detested her brother-in-law ever since his 1967 rape imprisonment, and she made no secret of it when they met at family reunions.
When Fritzl would mock his wife at the dinner table, saying, “Chubby women are below my standard,” Christine would gamely reply, “Better to be chubby than bald.”
It had been after one of these exchanges that he had secretly gone to Vienna for an expensive hair transplant.
Throughout family meals, he would crack off-color jokes in front of the children, embarrassing everyone as he laughed heartily. Rosemarie was often the butt of his savage humor, and he appeared to take pleasure in publicly humiliating her.
“He was relaxed and sociable with everyone in the family apart from Rosi,” sai
d Christine. “He used to tell her off in front of the others. The worst things were his crude, dirty jokes, which he used to laugh loudly about. This was embarrassing for everyone, because we all knew that the two of them hadn’t had sex for twenty years. He would always say, ‘My wife is much too chubby for me.’ ”
Then later, after his family had left, he’d sneak down into the cellar to celebrate Christmas with Elisabeth and his secret family, bearing cakes and little presents. One year he even arrived with a small Christmas tree, which Kerstin and Stefan decorated.
On Tuesday, January 6, 1998, Josef Fritzl flew to Pattaya, Thailand, for a month-long beach vacation. Before leaving, he had told Elisabeth he would be back on February 3, leaving enough food for her and the children. As he’d left, he’d repeated his warning that any attempt to escape would release deadly gas into the cellar.
Paul Hoerer, his girlfriend Andrea Schmitt and stepfather Rainer Wieczorak accompanied him. Over the next four weeks, while Elisabeth and the children languished underground, Fritzl sunbathed, swam in the deep blue sea and took boat trips to the nearby island Ko Lan. Then at night he went off by himself, indulging in sex with both male and female Thai hookers.
“He traveled alone without his wife. He told me she had to look after the children,” said Hoerer.
“The first time he really admitted to me that he was not the perfect family man was in Thailand,” Hoerer recalled. “He obviously liked women, and good-looking women at that. But I know his wife was not his type.”
Hoerer had brought along a camcorder, shooting video of Josef Fritzl enjoying himself. The paunchy senior citizen is seen lying on the beach, wearing a skimpy zebra-striped Speedo and receiving a back massage from a young Thai masseur. After the massage, he gets up, walks toward the camera and gives a peace sign with a big smile on his face.
