Secrets in the Cellar (8 page)

Pillar of the Community

In 1995, Josef Fritzl turned 60 years old and was living the good life. He had recently bought a new silver-gray Mercedes-Benz sports car and dressed in expensive tailor-made Italian suits, favoring shiny crocodile shoes.

Most mornings at 5:30 a.m., after spending the night in the dungeon, he would drive through Amstetten to have a close shave and his mustache trimmed at his favorite barber shop in Waidhofner Strasse.

“He was always well-dressed,” said a bakery owner in Ybbsstrasse, where Fritzl bought his bread. “When he came into the shop we talked about the news, the weather. He seemed like a normal person.”

He was now taking several vacations to Thailand and the Far East each year, as well as spending freely on hookers at his favorite brothels nearer home. But in Amstetten he and his wife were considered well-respected citizens.

He was now assiduously cultivating influential friends in high places, to help oil the wheels of his increasingly ambitious real estate deals. One of them was Leopold Styetz, the vice mayor of Lasberg, a small town near Amstetten, who he occasionally socialized with.

“For me,” recalled Styetz, “Sepp seemed an intelligent and successful man.”

Apart from the two houses in Amstetten, Fritzl also owned properties in St. Polten and Waidhofen an der Ybbs, which were also rented out to tenants. These provided the cover necessary for his twice-weekly long-distance shopping trips, buying food, diapers and furniture for his dungeon family.

Although he appeared to be a successful property entrepreneur, investigators would later discover he had fraudulently re-mortgaged his five rental properties several times over. For a time, he would keep one step ahead of the banks, but eventually they would catch up with him.

That year Alfred Dubanovsky, who had been in Elisabeth Fritzl’s class at school, moved into Ybbsstrasse 40. For the next twelve years he rented a small room just a few feet above the dungeon.

Before he was allowed to move in, his new landlord read him a strict set of house rules that had to be observed.

“Such a strange guy,” recalled Dubanovsky, who worked at a local gas station. “Only he alone was allowed to go into the cellar. He told us that the cellar was protected with a sophisticated alarm system, and that whoever went there would have their contract cancelled without notice. He was very strict about that.”

Josef Fritzl had divided the first floor of the large house into eight apartments, which he rented out. He and his family occupied the top two storys.

Over the years he lived there, Dubanovsky tried to avoid his landlord whenever possible, but noticed his frequent visits to the cellar.

“He went there almost every day,” he said. “I thought it was a bit strange, but I didn’t find it suspicious.”

Dubanovsky’s bedroom window looked out onto the back garden, and some nights he watched Fritzl ferrying food and other supplies from his car into the cellar with a wheelbarrow.

“But I never saw him bring any out,” he said. “And it was always at night.”

Another tenant, who moved into the house several years later, told
Der Spiegel
magazine that Fritzl’s youngest son Josef Jr. also had a key to the cellar.

“He acted as though he was the building’s superintendent,” said the tenant, only identified as Christian B, “but he never did very much. He had a key to the cellar.”

Sabine Kirschbichler, 25, who lived on the second floor with her brother Thomas in a $675-a-month apartment from 2001 to 2003, confirmed that Josef Jr. had a key, and frequently went down to the cellar.

“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.