Hans-Joachim Bohlmann

Hans-Joachim Bohlmann (20 September 1937 – 19 January 2009) was a German serial vandal who primarily targeted artworks at public exhibitions. Between 1977 and 2006, he damaged over 50 paintings worth more than 270 million Deutsche Marks (about 138 million euro) by such artists as Rubens, Rembrandt and Dürer.

Life Bohlmann was born in Breslau (modern Wrocław).

Since his youth, Bohlmann suffered from a serious personality disorder. At the age of 16, he voluntarily went to the psychiatric clinic of the University of Kiel and underwent electric shock and insulin treatments. Around that time, he was a plumber apprentice, but could not focus on a single occupation and was doing various jobs. He had several therapy courses involving tranquilizers, antidepressants, antipsychotic drugs, behavior therapy and group therapy, but with very limited success. It was followed by other attacks in Hamburg, Lübeck, Lüneburg, Essen, Dortmund, Hannover, Bochum, Kassel, Düsseldorf and Hamelin. On 16 August 1977, he poured sulfuric acid on several artworks including portraits of Martin Luther and his wife Katharina von Bora by Lucas Cranach the Elder in the Lower Saxony State Museum of Hanover. On 24 August 1977, he damaged the painting Archduke Albrecht by Rubens in Düsseldorf and on 7 October 1977 four paintings in Schloss Wilhelmshöhe in Kassel, estimated at more than 25 million euros, among them Rembrandt's Jacob blessing Joseph's second son, 1656, a self-portrait by Rembrandt and Willem Drost's Noli me tangere. In his attacks, Bohlmann was primarily targeting the faces of the personages, trying to inflict maximum damage. Bohlmann's activity was not restricted to paintings and museums; he ignited an altar in Lübeck and sprayed hundreds of tombstones with swastikas at night in Hamburg. The resultant outrage in the press encouraged him. As he felt he was becoming a celebrity, he abandoned the antidepressant drugs he had been taking. After release from prison, Bohlmann resumed vandalism. He was then banned from buying acid and instead committed arson at a construction site near Hamburg inflicting damage estimated at 65,000 euros. For this crime, the Hamburg Regional Court sentenced him to three years ending on 5 May 1986. A part of his pension was seized for the damage done to Ruben's Archduke Albrecht, and in the autumn of 1987 he went for treatment in the psychiatric department of the Hospital Hamburg-Eilbek. inflicting damage estimated at 35 million euros. Immediately after the attacks, he was arrested and held in the psychiatric hospital of Haar, Bavaria. In 1989 he was convicted by the Munich District Court to a two-year imprisonment, concurrent with treatment as long as necessary in a psychiatric hospital, and in March 1990 transferred to the clinic in Hamburg-Ochsenzoll. Bohlmann escaped from the facility in January 1998 and after being at large for two days he was found at a subway station, possibly on the way back to the hospital. On 30 July 2001 he escaped again but returned to hospital the next morning.