Don Heinrich Tolzmann - BOOK - I Am Innocent

Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (01:01):
Hey seven thirty here fifty five CARCD Talk Station. Moving
away from things political. Welcome back to the fifty five
Parase Morning Show, hair Don Heinrich Toltzman to talk about
this book that he actually was the editor of. I
Am Innocent Statement from the Death Cell, the Gate and
ze Herr Holtzmann Bill commend Morgan.

Speaker 3 (01:22):
Good Morgan, thank you, Brian. I. In the past, I've
come on and talked about a lot of different topics
relating to the German heritage, and one that I became
interested in was the trial of Bruno Richard Hauptmann. And
I had found by reading through the German American papers

(01:42):
that many, especially German Americans, felt that he did not
get a fair trial, that he'd been framed and reilroaded
during the trial for the Lindbergh kidnapping case. And when
I was in Germany and I happened to visit Hautman's
home town comments in Saxony, and I found that part

(02:04):
of his autobiography had been published in German, but it
was part of a larger manuscript that he had written.
And when I came back to the US, I founded
at the New Jersey State Police Museum, parts were missing.
The part that had published in Germany. So I translated
them into English and put together the full manuscript, and

(02:26):
I think it sheds light of the case, and I
added a lot of notes to it based on my research,
which I think clearly showed that he did not get
a fair trial. It was really an absolute farce. And
I should say too that the kidnapping that took place
in nineteen thirty two, it made international news.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
Was the first man to cross the Atlantic in an airplane.
I mean, he was a global hero.

Speaker 3 (02:58):
Today we take it for granted back and forth Europe,
but in nineteen twenty seven he flew the first NonStop
transatlantic flight and he was like John Glenn, who you know,
the man in the Moon. I mean, he was famous
beyond it was I mean, you're just incredible. So so

(03:21):
the kidnapping took place in nineteen thirty two, and we'll
go into some of the details. But after Haupmant was arrested,
the police beat him to a pulp tried to get
a confession from him, but they failed. He maintained his innocence.
The police there too, from their perspective, they were under

(03:46):
tremendous pressure. Been two and a half years after the kidnapping.
They had not found anybody, and they offered money to
Haupman if he would confess, They offered him and see,
but he maintained his innocent. So I edited the autobiography
and it gives him a posthumous opportunity to tell to

(04:09):
tell his story. And you know why is that important? Well,
it was called the crime of the century, and it
was you know, even then already people questioned that the
evidence was manufactured, witnesses were bribed and so on, and

(04:30):
you know a problem for the Hautman. That's time anti
German sentiment was right after World War One, anti German feeling.
Hitler just came to power. So here he was a
German immigrant and that made it difficult for him. There
was an underlying cause against him that was against him.

(04:54):
And also his lawyers totally incompetent. They met with him
very actually very few times, and uh they were incompetent.
Then you know, I wouldn't mention the witnesses. The witnesses
who testified him against him. One of the lead one

(05:16):
was John Condon and in a police lineup and then
in a meeting with Hautman for an hour, he denied
that Hautmant was the man he had spoken with when
ransom money was transferred.

Speaker 1 (05:34):
And I was going to ask you specifically about doctor
John Condon described as a key witness as the person
who acted as a mediator between Lindberg, who was the
alleged between Lindberg and the kidnappers. So Charles Lindberg still around,
he wants his son back. The kidnappers obviously, I guess
want their their money. They're they're they're there, they ransom demand.
How did this Condon guy end up being the liaison

(05:56):
between the kidnappers and the Lindberg family.

Speaker 3 (05:59):
He's really a strange person in the New York area.
He read about it. He contacted Lindbergh and said, could
I put a note in the paper asking the kidnapper
or kidnappers to contact me and I will act as
a mediator. And so he came out of nowhere. Was

(06:21):
he himself involved in the kidnapping, that is a question,
but he popped up into the case totally an unknown factor.
And then he met on two occasions with a person
to transmit ransom money to him, and he spoke with

(06:44):
it with that person, and later on then he met
with Hautmann in jail, but he denied that that was
the person he had spoken with, But then on the
during the trial he said he was a person.

Speaker 1 (07:00):
Oh, change your heart there, No, that's not the guy. Yes,
it is the guy. There's a red flag. Harr Holtzman.
Let's pause. We'll bring you back to talk about some
more of the interesting details of this case. Seven point
thirty six. Right now, fifty five kre ce Detalk station.
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(08:27):
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You see how dot Com sevebound seventy five crews continue
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(09:15):
five krc the talk station.

Speaker 1 (09:19):
It's seven forty fifty five KRCD talk station Broent Thomas
with Don Henry Toltzman with a really fascinating story. He's
the editor of the book. We're talking about I Am Innocent,
A statement from the death cell. We're talking about the
alleged killer of Charles Lindberg Junior, the son of the
great Charles Lindberg, first person to fly across the Atlantic,

(09:40):
A real, genuine, true world global hero. A picture on
the front of all the newspapers around the globe. For
a long period of time. They're just the very famous
man he was. So of course his son being kidnapped
and ultimately murdered drew the attention of the American people.
And this guy, the person who was convicted, Bruno Richard
how wrote a book in German and that's what Harr

(10:03):
Toltzman has uh has translated into English, so it's his words.
But also the commentaries were learning from Don Toltzman about
why this was probably a total farce, this trial. And
as I read your notes, Don Man, this guy was
he was railroaded.

Speaker 3 (10:22):
Oh, absolutely, he was completely railroaded. And I said also
earlier he had been severely beaten, almost beaten to death,
and attempted to be bribed. And the witnesses were, uh,
Condon was completely in the main witness was unreliable. Other
witnesses one said he had seen Houtmann near the Lindbergh Home,

(10:44):
but he was partially blind in one eye.

Speaker 1 (10:47):
Reasonable.

Speaker 3 (10:48):
Another witness was paid for by his testimony by the police.
And another witness said they had seen him, you know,
the Lindbergh Home in a green car, but Helpman had
a blue car. Now, there were other witnesses that said
Hotman testified that he had picked up his wife, as

(11:11):
per usual, from a bakery in New York. There were
several testified he was there. They were completely blown away
and ignored. And so the whole thing about the witnesses
was absurd. And I think maybe you, as a lawyer
could understand that readily.

Speaker 1 (11:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (11:33):
And the ransom notes another thing. They said that the
so called experts said that he had written them. Well,
the police told him to exactly copy the ransom notes.
He was supposed to exactly meet him a whole day,
night and day to copy them looked exactly like the

(11:55):
ransom notes. Then they had the so called experts say,
look what he wrote the same as the ransom notes,
but that.

Speaker 1 (12:03):
He did what he was instructed to do, which was
mimic the handwriting in the ransom notes rather than penned
in his own hand. Yes, oh that's insane. Now, you know,
any effective lawyer would have blown these witnesses away on
cross examination. You could create reasonable doubts so easily. What
the hell was this? What was the deal with Edward J. Riley,
his attorney.

Speaker 3 (12:25):
Well, the Riley was really incompetent. He spent a total
of about forty minutes, only forty minutes. Most of the
meetings with Hautman last at five minutes. He was often intoxicated,
He was a big blow hard, and it was completely incompetent.
So his lawyers were also, you know, there was an

(12:49):
assistant lawner, but they were really incompetent. And then there
was other evidence. One thing that they talked about was
the wooden ladder that was used. Yeah, well, when they
first searched Houtman's garage, they couldn't find they didn't find anything,
But then later they found a board that they said

(13:13):
matched the wood used on the ladder. Well, it obviously
looks to have been planted there by the police. And
when you looked at the ladder, it did not even
reach the window of the Lindbergh home. And also it
wouldn't have held somebody of haut Month's weight. I think

(13:34):
there was a test done on and one of the
lower rungs of the ladder broke. And also it was
about two feet below the window of the second floor
of the Lindbergh home. And so how somebody could have
crawled out of the window carrying a like a thirty

(13:54):
pound infant and get down there was incredibly you know.
And also Lindberg's her Heutman's fingerprints were found nowhere, and
so the whole case really looks like a farce. And

(14:14):
also I alluded to a recent research by Lisa Pearlman
who has a book called The Lindbergh Kidnapping Suspect Number One,
The Man Who Got Away.

Speaker 1 (14:27):
And she.

Speaker 3 (14:30):
Convincingly argues that it was Charles Lindberg who masterminded the
whole kidnapping, that he was behind it.

Speaker 1 (14:39):
Base of all, I don't go down too too far
down that Lisa Pearlman rabbit hole. But based upon what
why would Lindbergh want to have his own son kidnapped?

Speaker 3 (14:50):
His son had Ricketts, which a disease re lots were
results in bowed legs. He was considered had mentally deficient.
Lindbergh believed in eugenics and genetic superiority and purity.

Speaker 1 (15:11):
And he was an anti He was an anti semi too,
if I recall my history correctly.

Speaker 3 (15:17):
It was an anti semi. He went to Nazi Germany
and he received an award from the Nazi regime. He
was criticized for it, but he refused to return the reward.
Whereas I should say from my research, other German Americans
would not accept any medal or award from Nazi Germany. Now,

(15:42):
when they did the autopsy of the of the infant,
they found that parts of it were organs had been
removed surgically. And in this recent publication I mentioned it
was found that Lindberg was in tough with a surgeon
and it thought that the baby was operated on to

(16:08):
investigate what was the cause of his of the Ricketts
and the disease. And this related to Lindbergh's in the
same belief in eugenics. He couldn't understand that he fathered
a a physically diseased child.

Speaker 1 (16:27):
So it's in case itself.

Speaker 3 (16:31):
I mean, the trial was an absolute farce. It wasn't
he was, and he he was browbeaten to during Houtman
during the trial, wasn't given a chance to tell his story.
So that's why I edited his autobiography, which he wrote
in a jail cell, and to give him a chance

(16:52):
to listen to what he had to say, because he
didn't get a chance. He was mocked and browbeaten and
physically beaten.

Speaker 1 (17:01):
And so I got a couple of questions though considering
all of this damning evidence in so far as the
prosecution and the in the in the prosecutorial conduct from
law enforcement all the way through trial. First off, real
quick here, harr Holman, uh Toltsman, how did they finger
Houtman as the guy the suspect? I mean, what brought

(17:22):
him into the field division of law enforcement in the
first place? Given all this you know, exculpatory evidence that's floating.

Speaker 3 (17:27):
Around, the reason that he was arrested was that he
uh the the ransom money that had been given to
the person that Condon met at a cemetery at the
serial numbers haven't copied. Well, a couple of years later

(17:49):
than Hautmann had gone to a gas station and he
had paid for a gasoline with one of the bank
notes and it was what was called a silver certificate,
and they were being turned in at that time, and

(18:10):
so the serial numbers were copied and when the attendant
there noticed that, and he contacted the police about it,
and he had copied on the license number on Haupmann's car,
and so they traced it to him and that's the
way he identified it.

Speaker 1 (18:30):
But given years later though that it's a possibility that
the actual ransom recipient had passed those notes around and
he just ended up with one in his pocket.

Speaker 3 (18:40):
Well, that's true. And the ransom money also was turned
in at various banks around the country, even in the Midwest.
Three thousand dollars were turned in at a bank in
New York City and none of these notes had any connection.

Speaker 1 (18:59):
To He wasn't there when.

Speaker 3 (19:03):
He said that it had been given to him to
a business associate who had returned to Germany where he died.

Speaker 1 (19:11):
And all right, so and his.

Speaker 3 (19:14):
Name happened to be fish and the police mocked that
story that that his round had given him when they
called it a fishy story. So well, all the way
around he was.

Speaker 1 (19:28):
He was railroad. Yeah, clearly, clearly Diehartols were out of time.
It's fascinating what you've done here. And of course, obviously
the extent of the wrongdoing against the defendant, who ultimately
paid the ultimate price. They executed him, and apparently while
he was waiting execution, they offered him lean seeing he
turned it down because I'm not going to confess to
a crime I didn't do. So it sounds like getting

(19:49):
nail on his on the head here, don Heindrich Toltzman
I appreciate you doing the translating and doing the commentary
on the book, and I know my listeners is going
to want to get it, which they can do. Got
a fifty five krs dot com where Joe's got a
link to the book on the page. Don It's always
great talking with you, my friend. Keep up the great work.
I'll look forward to having you back on. We have
other German things to talk about. Seven fifty one. Right now,
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