When the respected Austrian family man Josef Fritzl came under fire for raping his biological daughter Elisabeth over 3000 times, his wife and Elisabeth’s mother, Rosemarie, pleaded her
innocence. But just how much did she really know and was she complicit?
As if committing incest on the grandest scale wasn’t bad enough, Josef Fritzl beat, kicked, starved, deprived and imprisoned his daughter for 24 years. How and why did he commit this most horrendous of crimes and why didn’t Rosemarie stop him?
Josef Fritzl was born on 9th April 1935 in the Austrian city of Amstetten to Maria and Josef snr Fritzl. His mother allegedly beat Josef jnr. and made his life miserable from an early age. His father deserted the family when he was just four years old and later died in action during the Second World War.
Josef Fritzl married Rosemarie at the age of 21 with his new wife being four years his junior. By all accounts Josef was not a man to be messed with and showed his evil side when, in 1967, he broke into the home of a nurse and raped her while holding a knife to her throat. He had also been named as a suspect in the attempted rape of a second woman. Fritzl was sentenced to just 18 months for rape and served just 12 months before being released from
prison. Despite this violent rape, attempted rape and multiple other charges of indecent exposure, his wife Rosemarie stayed with him.
Why did Rosemarie stay? Was this a sign of her own willingness to turn a blind eye?
The couple had a total of seven children together; three sons and four daughters. Fritzl caused all his children pain in one way or another throughout their childhood and each of them couldn’t wait to escape as soon as they could. The same could be said for Elisabeth. She was sexually abused by her own father from the age of just 11. She attempted to run away several times, including the time as a 17 year old when she left with her friend to attend a waitressing course in the big city of Vienna. However, she was soon picked up by Austrian Police and returned to her family and abuser.
During the 1970s Fritzl began construction of a bunker underneath the family home. Around that time the Cold War was in full swing and the Government encouraged citizens to build their own nuclear shelters. Fritzl was even given a fairly large sum of money towards building costs. Officials approved his plans and he set to work on his bunker. However, the plans were a front for something much darker and more sinister. Fritzl had planned to build the ultimate dungeon, capable of keeping someone restrained with no hint of being discovered.
The construction was such a force, with such immense planning that there was a total of eight locked doors before reaching the dungeon where he was to carry out his torturing. The entrance to the labyrinth was a three foot tall gap in the wall which sat behind a shelving unit for extra security.
On 28th August 1984, the now 18 year old Elisabeth was requested by her father to help put the finishing touches to the bunker. As she made her way through the maze underneath her home she had no idea the fate which awaited
her. She stood inside the dungeon and helped secure the eighth door to it’s hinges. After the door was safely affixed, Fritzl covered Elisabeth’s nose and mouth with a towel doused in ether which was used to render her unconscious. This was Fritzl’s final plan and the entire reason for his building work.
When Elisabeth regained consciousness she would find her arms chained behind her back which was attached to a metal pole. She was brought food and water while being sexually abused by Fritzl several times per day. After a few days the chain was attached around her waist to give a little more freedom of movement. However, after six months he removed the chain altogether because it was ‘hindering his sexual activity with his daughter’.
Meanwhile, above ground level, concern had mounted for the whereabouts of the wayward Elisabeth. Of course, Fritzl knew exactly where she was, but his wife was worried and called the police to report her as a missing person. However, they were told that, because Elisabeth was 18 years old she was free to leave if she wished and, considering her previous attempts to run away, she was determined to be a ‘runaway’. Fritzl piped up that she had been focusing on cults and that’s probably where she had gone. A little while later, Rosemarie received a handwritten letter from Elisabeth confirming she had indeed just left home. Fritzl had forced her to write that letter. He then drove some 170km to Braunau to post the letter back home. To make it more convincing Fritzl produced some of Elisabeth’s old workbooks to show her handwriting. It was enough to convince everyone and the case was closed.
Throughout the next 24 years, Elisabeth suffered horrendous brutality at the hands of her own father. Imprisoned in a cave-like dungeon, she was raped over 3000 times while also being beaten into submission to ensure she obeyed Fritzl. When she wasn’t being raped or beaten, she was being starved and when she wasn’t being starved she was
suffered light deprivation when he switched the electrics off to punish her. She lived in conditions unfit for any sort of living being; rats scurrying across the dark damp ground, water gushing through the walls and sauna-like conditions in the summer.
The abuse was not only daily but it was many times daily. Fritzl enjoyed the control and would lash out if Elisabeth dared step out of line. During the course of a 14 year period Fritzl fathered SEVEN children with her biological daughter. Let that sink in.
When Elisabeth became pregnant, her father could not allow her to give birth above ground so the birth needed to happen in their hovel. He gave her a tatty old pregnancy book to prepare along with a dirty pair of scissors. Despite this, Elisabeth gave birth to her first born on 30th August 1988, a baby girl they named Kerstin. Little did the newborn know but the next nineteen years of her life was going to be a living hell.
The second baby came along less than two years later on 1st April 1990, the first boy called Stefan. Lisa became the third child to be born underground on 29th August 1992. However, it seems Fritzl wasn’t keen on having an overcrowded ‘home’ so it was decided that Lisa would go upstairs to live in the other family’s home. Fritzl came up
with a cunning plan to integrate the baby into his life with his wife Rosemarie. He left the baby on the doorstep upstairs with a handwritten note which he forced his daughter to write, stating that she couldn’t look after her baby.
The plan worked, Rosemarie was taken in by the lie and she and Fritzl adopted the baby as their own. She was in fact Fritzl’s own. Authorities allowed this to happen. Austrian law dictates that you cannot adopt if you have a criminal
record. How did Fritzl get away with it despite his previous conviction for rape more than twenty years ago? Austrian law also dictates that any convictions are quashed after fifteen years so there was no record of him ever committing a criminal offence.
On 26th February 1994 another baby girl made an appearance. However, Monika was also not allowed to remain underground with her mother. She was also left on the doorstep. This time Elisabeth was forced to record a taped message explaining why she was leaving her baby this time. Fritzl played the recorded message over the phone to his wife Rosemarie. Initially she thought it was a prank call as it was clearly a recording so she hung up. However, Fritzl persevered and called back, playing the exact same message.
Rosemarie did report this incident to the police, expressing bewilderment that Elisabeth should know their knew phone number which they had not publicised. However, it was not enough to put her off accepting the recording as true and taking Monika into her family home.
Did Rosemarie really not suspect anything?
This time the baby was fostered into the family instead of being adopted and Fritzl continued with his upstairs family and his downstairs family.
Two years later on 28th May 1996, Elisabeth gave birth to twin boys; Alexander who also found his way onto the doorstep upstairs and Michael who sadly passed away shortly after birth. Fritzl, the loving father and grandfather, simply tossed the poor baby’s lifeless body into the furnace.
The seventh and final baby was born some six years later on 16th December 2002 whom they named Felix. He was allowed to remain downstairs with his mother.
Despite having their children downstairs with them, the rapes and abuse did not end.
“When I did not agree to have sex, then the kids would suffer. We knew he would kick us or be bad to us.” (London Evening Standard)
Fritzl even made his daughter watch violent sex films and forced her to re-enact his fantasies, while the children watched in what was the ultimate depraved act imaginable.
Fritzl was horrible to his family. If they did not do what he wanted, in the way he wanted or spoke back to him or did anything he was not happy with, he would either beat them, kick them or threaten to leave them to rot and die in that underground squalor.
“He said he could close the door whenever he wanted and then we would see how soon we survived.” (London Evening Standard)
Fritzl ensured the family never even attempted to escape by saying if they touched the doors they would be electrocuted and a gas would be released killing them all.
Elisabeth tried best she could to give her children as much normalcy as possible. She would teach them to read and write and live out a normal life. When their abuser was gone, upstairs being with the upstairs family and keeping up
the pretence of being an upstanding member of the community, the downstairs family were happy, calm and did as normal things as they possibly could. The minute Fritzl returned, the atmosphere became tense, quiet and they tried their best to not upset him.
“When he went away we led our own lives. When he was down here it was all silence. When he came down to the cellar we just tried to survive. He was all-powerful.” (London Evening Standard)
When the underground home became too cramped with their growing family Fritzl agreed to expand the space from 35 square metres to 55 square metres. Whereas the initial planning was done with the consent of the council authorities, the expansion was not. As such he did not hire any additional equipment or diggers to construct the extra space.
How did he dig to create the expansion?
Easy. He had Elisabeth and the children use their hands to dig soil and shovel it away. Of course he made them do it. Why wouldn’t he?
There was literally nothing Fritzl was not capable of and nothing he did not do to make his life easier and make things the way he wanted them.
What sort of man could kidnap, imprison, rape, abuse, beat up and impregnate his very own daughter?
Josef Fritzl. That’s who. The very same man who, in 1986, was investigated in the murder of 17 year old Martina Posch. Her body was found wrapped in tarpaulin in the lake, which was opposite where Fritzl ran a campsite with his wife at the time. Fritzl was also investigated as a possible suspect in the 1966 murder of 17 year old Anna Neumayer and for a third time suspected of murder. This time after a 42 year old prostitute, Gabriela Supeková, was found dead in 2007.
That is the man who is capable of committing such heinous acts to his own daughter.
The question should be ‘why was the disappearance of Elisabeth not looked into further given his alleged and suspected involvement in three other murders?’
On 19th April 2008 Elisabeth’s eldest child, now 19 years of age, Kerstin fell gravely unconscious. Contrary to Fritzl’s usual stance on helping his family, he agreed to seek medical assistance for her. Elisabeth was allowed to see the outside world for the first time in 24 years to help get Kerstin outside before she was bundled back in the bunker. Fritzl took the extremely sick teenager to hospital where she was diagnosed with life-threatening kidney failure. Doctors were very very concerned about the condition that Kerstin was brought to them in; Ashen-faced, teeth falling out, skin white as a ghost. There was clearly something wrong but they couldn’t pinpoint it. They furiously searched for Kerstin’s medical history to find out what was going on with her. However, as she had never been to a doctor or hospital, she was even born underground, there was no record of her ever existing. Medics pressed Fritzl for answers, after which he produced a recent letter from the mother Elisabeth which stated she was in a cult. Nothing added up for the doctors who brought police assistance in. They in turn brought in expert help in the form of a ‘cult expert’ who had very strong doubts over the legitimacy of the letter. It seemed dictated and he expressed doubt over the existence of the cult which Elisabeth claimed to be a part of.
As concern grew over the condition of Kerstin, news outlets began pleading for her mother to show herself. Elisabeth watched the news on the television she was ‘kindly’ given by her father as she was repeatedly called for to attend the bedside of her ailing daughter. In turn she pleaded with her father to allow her to go. Fritzl relented and took Elisabeth to the hospital. However, the moment they arrived they were both held by police officers. Elisabeth was questioned on suspicion of neglect against her daughter.
Police officers were not ready for the story they were about to hear. Elisabeth told them she would only reveal the truth if they promised she would never have to set eyes on her father ever again. After she was assured she would never look upon Fritzl again, she proceeded to tell them a tale so incredible you’d be forgiven for thinking she was making it up. However, unfortunately she was not making it all up. She really did get raped over 3000 times by her own father. She really did birth seven children with her own father. She really was held captive underground for 24 years. It was all real.
After Fritzl agreed to hand over the electronic key he had for the bunker, police saw for the themselves the inhumane conditions that Elisabeth and her three children were forced to live in. The tiny five foot tall ceilings forcing the inhabitants to crouch down, the rat infested rooms, the damp and dusty air.
During the trial in March 2009 Fritzl attempted to paint himself as ‘not the monster he has been portrayed as’. He was being charged with enslavement, incest, rape, coercion, false imprisonment and murder by negligence of the twin who died. According to Fritzl, though, that was not the whole truth. He was only trying to protect her by locking her away from the outside world. Drugs, drink and bad company had threatened to drag her down. It was all for her own protection. He also did not treat her as bad as the media made out. Fritzl took a Christmas tree down to his underground family, as well as school books, toys for the children, an aquarium and even a canary. Yes, a canary. He used the fact the canary survived in the dungeon as proof that the air was not as toxic as was said.
Elisabeth gave video testimony to the jurors. Eleven full hours of torturous testimony detailing every last horrific thing she was subjected to.
Rosemarie refused to testify during the trial which is very interesting as she seems to constantly be unwilling to go against her husband even in the face of the most horrendous acts imaginable.
On 19th March 2009 the four day trial concluded with Fritzl pleading guilty to all charges and being sentanced to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole after fifteen years. Was this fifteen years a massive slap in the face for his victims? 3000 rapes for 15 years? Incest? Death? Imprisonment? All for just 15 years!
After the trial it emerged that Elisabeth and her children had to receive extensive therapy to adjust to life outside their prison. They were all also offered new identities which they could either accept or not.
Fritzl is an horrendous individual who caused unimaginable pain and suffering to his own daughter (and subsequent children with his daughter) as well as fear and terror to everyone who came into contact with him. The rape victim whereby he spent a year in jail, the three suspected murders at his hands, plus the incredible suffering he caused his own mother….
Yes his mother.
Fritzl told of how his mother was awful to him when he was a child, beating him, calling him Satan and much more. However, as time went on, the tables were turned and Fritzl became the abuser and his mother feared him. She lived with him and his wife. He locked his mother in their attic and boarded up the window. Fritzl told the locals that his mother had died, when in fact she was locked in the attic until she eventually did die in 1980. Nobody knows exactly how long she had been locked away for but some outlets report it could be up to twenty years.
That is how Josef Fritzl has always been.
But that begs the question, ‘surely Rosemarie knew about her husband’s mother being locked in their attic?’
If she knew about this and was okay with it, what else was she okay with? She knew about and was okay with her husband raping that poor nurse. She knew about and was okay with her husband possibly murdering three women. She refused to testify against her husband in court after he had subjected her daughter to such horrendous acts. She remained married to her husband for another four years after he was arrested.
What was wrong with her?
Burning Questions
Why did Rosemarie stay with Josef after he was convicted of rape as far back as 1967?
It takes either a hard-nosed or frightened woman to remain with a man who is capable of rape. Which one was Rosemarie? Given limited information about her personality it’s hard to judge her character. However, on the basis of what we do know about Josef, it’s probably a fair assumption that Rosemarie was likely terrified of him or was in fact the subject of his abuse. That said, 12 months in prison would have given her ample time to leave him. However, in that era and with little income, life knowledge, places to go, it’s possible she felt unable to leave him and when he was released, he simple swanned back into her life as if nothing happened.
Did Rosemarie know about Josef’s mother being locked away in their attic?
There is absolutely no way on earth that she could not have known about the abuse Josef’s mother had suffered. She was locked in her attic which she will have had access to. It wouldn’t have been a secret or hidden like the underground bunker. How she was okay with this is another question that I don’t think any of us are qualified to understand! 100% she was complicit in this crime. Turning a blind eye is not a defence.
Why was Rosemarie not concerned about Josef’s possible involvement in Elisabeth’s disappearance?
Surely Rosemarie must have wondered. There were signs. The recorded message phone call. She even reported it to the police. The fact babies kept turning up on her doorstep. The cult? She never heard any mention of Elisabeth’s cult obsession until her husband suggested it. The fact he was being investigated for three murders, two of whom were 17 year old girls. She already knew that he was not an angel as he’d been convicted of rape. She must have had her suspicions. Surely?
Did Rosemarie know about the underground dungeon?
That’s the big question. Plenty think she must have known. However, I’m not so sure she did. I believe she must have had an idea that Josef knew more about Isabelle’s disappearance than he let on but does that mean she knew about the downstairs prison? Not necessarily. It’s a big leap from knowing or even being responsible for their daughter’s disappearance to thinking ‘oh he’s built an underground dungeon and he’s keeping our daughter in their as his sex slave’. Not to mention the babies. How could her mind even comprehend her husband being the father of her daughter’s babies. That’s fucked up. So no i don’t believe she knew, but she knew something was wrong. I believe that much.
