page_title: Kaspar Hauser
section_title: Hauser's story about his life in a dungeon
hierarchical_section_title: Kaspar Hauser / History / First appearance / Hauser's story about his life in a dungeon
caption_attribution_description: English: pencil drawing by Kaspar Hauser
context_page_description: Kaspar Hauser was a German youth who claimed to have grown up in the total isolation of a darkened cell. Hauser's claims, and his subsequent death by stabbing, sparked much debate and controversy. Theories propounded at the time linked him with the grand ducal House of Baden and proposed his birth had been hidden as part of royal intrigue. These opinions in many ways have been documented by later investigation. and many argued during and after Hauser's life that he was most likely a fraud.
context_section_description: At first it was assumed that he was raised half-wild in forests, but during many conversations with Mayor Binder, Hauser told a different version of his past life, which he later also wrote down in more detail. According to this story, for as long as he could remember he spent his life totally alone in a darkened cell about two metres long, one metre wide and one and a half high with only a straw bed to sleep on and two horses and a dog carved out of wood for toys.
  He claimed that he found rye bread and water next to his bed each morning. Periodically the water would taste bitter and drinking it would cause him to sleep more heavily than usual. On such occasions, when he awakened, his straw had been changed and his hair and nails cut. Hauser claimed that the first human being with whom he ever had contact was a mysterious man who visited him not long before his release, always taking great care not to reveal his face to him. This man, Hauser said, taught him to write his name by leading his hand. After learning to stand and walk, he was brought to Nuremberg. Furthermore, the stranger allegedly taught him to say the phrase "I want to be a cavalryman, as my father was" (in Old Bavarian dialect), but Hauser claimed that he did not understand what these words meant.
  This tale aroused great curiosity and made Hauser an object of international attention. Rumours arose that he was of princely parentage, possibly of Baden origin, but there were also claims that he was an impostor.
caption: Pencil drawing by Kaspar Hauser, 1829
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