Ernst August Wagner

Ernst August Wagner
Ernst August Wagner in 1909
Born	Ernst August Wagner 22 September 1874 Eglosheim, German Empire
Died	27 April 1938 Winnenthal, Nazi Germany
Cause of death	Tuberculosis
Occupation	Teacher
Criminal penalty	Found not guilty by reason of insanity
Killings
Date	4 September 1913
Location(s)	Degerloch & Mühlhausen an der Enz, German Reich
Killed	14
Injured	11
Weapons	Blackjack Dagger Two Mauser C96

Ernst August Wagner (22 September 1874 – 27 April 1938) was a German mass murderer who, on 4 September 1913 killed his wife and four children in Degerloch. He subsequently drove to Mühlhausen an der Enz where he set several fires and shot 20 people, of whom at least 9 died, before he was beaten unconscious by furious villagers and left for dead.

He was the first person in Württemberg to be found not guilty by reason of insanity after several psychiatric assessments diagnosed him to suffer from paranoia. He was brought to an asylum in Winnenthal, where later he wrote several plays and dramas. He died there of tuberculosis in 1938.

Ernst August Wagner was born on 22 September 1874 in Eglosheim near Ludwigsburg as the ninth of ten children, as well as one half-brother and half-sister. Most of his siblings died early, so that in 1913 only two sisters and one brother remained. After his father, a poor peasant with drinking problems, died one day before Ernst Wagner's second birthday, the indebted family was forced to sell their farm. His mother tried to make a living by running a small shop; she soon remarried, but due to Mrs. Wagner's many affairs, the marriage ended in divorce when Ernst was seven years old.

Ernst Wagner, who was known as the "widow's boy" in the village, suffered from depression and suicidal thoughts, though he was quite intelligent and did well enough at school to earn a public stipend. In this way, despite his poverty, he was able to study and become a teacher. After his qualifying exam, he worked as an auxiliary teacher at several schools in Württemberg from 1894 to 1901, though in April 1900 he was suspended for six months because of "severe nervousness and irritability". He then went to Switzerland for two months, where he tried to sell some of his poems to newspapers.

In July 1901, Wagner was assigned a teaching position in Mühlhausen an der Enz, where he stayed until 1902. Sometime in the summer of 1901, while drunk, he sodomized an animal. He then became increasingly wary and suspicious that others might be aware of his deed, and began to see signs and hints that the villagers of Mühlhausen were mocking him for this act of bestiality. For this reason, he bought a revolver, which he always carried with him from that point on so that he could evade a potential arrest.