26.
March
Friday March 26th 2021
Author (s): Prisca Straub
Speaker: Johannes Hitzelberger
Illustration: Tobias Kubald
Editor: Frank Halbach
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By the time he was transferred to Alcatraz in leg irons and handcuffs, Robert Stroud was already a celebrity. Most recently, the violent criminal sat in the US Federal Prison Leavenworth in Kansas. Pinched lips, prominent sail ears – and a corpse-pale complexion. Robert Stroud, better known as “the bird man”, hadn’t seen much sunlight in his life. He was 52 years old and had been behind bars since he was 20.
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Inventory list of a lifelong man
A sigh of relief went down the Leavenworth prison corridors. They had long tried to get rid of the two-time killer. Stroud was considered an unbearable troublemaker. Psychiatrists had attested him to be unscrupulous, manipulative and dangerous. When you cleaned up your orphaned cell, you found, among other things, 14 packs of razor blades, two screwdrivers, a hand drill, a handsaw, several saw blades – and lots of pure alcohol. An almost insane outfit for a lifelong person in solitary confinement. But the real problem was the breathtaking dirt crusts from bird droppings, loads of textbooks, specialist magazines – and dozens of self-made bird cages. The double murderer Stroud had become an internationally known bird expert during his long imprisonment.
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Unparalleled career in the prison system
Canaries had been Robert Stroud’s whole life. At times, hundreds of them populated his cell. The notorious violent criminal had killed a man as a young man in Alaska and later seriously injured a fellow inmate.
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On March 26, 1916, in the packed dining room at Leavenworth, he had stabbed a guard in the heart of a guard – and narrowly escaped the death penalty. A short time later he filled the prison corridors with the twittering of birds. Allegedly the storm had blown a nest with helpless young sparrows in front of his feet while walking in the yard. He smuggled the chicks into his cell and got them through with a pulp of water, bread crust and pounded cockroaches. Stroud had discovered his weakness for aviculture.
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For around 20 years, the prisoner ran a flourishing canary industry in the poorly ventilated semi-darkness of his cell. At first the prison administration turned a blind eye, then Stroud’s bird kingdom became more and more of a nuisance. His sprawling correspondence with professionals and bird lovers – an administrative nightmare! The replenishment of laboratory equipment, food and fresh greens every day – the business got out of hand! When Stroud’s book on diseases in canaries appeared, the public bombarded the facility with letters of protest in favor of the unusual expert.
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Then in Alcatraz the ghost finally seemed to be over. In fact, Stroud was never supposed to keep a bird in his cell again. But the story of the Vogelmann didn’t let go of people. Years later, Stroud’s life was made into a film – with Hollywood star Burt Lancaster. Did Stroud recognize himself? – One does not know. He was never allowed to see the film.
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