Oskar Daubmann

Oskar Daubmann (originally Ignaz Karl Hummel; March 9, 1898 – January 20, 1954) was a Swiss-German con man whose case attracted international attention in 1932.

Biography Ignaz Karl Hummel was born in Oberwil, near Basel in Switzerland. They turned the letter over the local press, and the story quickly became known in German and international press. and the case inflamed the French-German relations for a while. The alleged wrongful imprisonment of a German national quickly became a German and even international sensation, and Hummel - now Daubmann - found international recognition. The German press found in him a welcome opportunity for stirring up "national passions", inciting a hate campaign against France, which was accused of hypocrisy and cruelty. In particular, he became a popular figure in the Nazi press. Joseph Goebbels, writing in the Nazi magazine , demanded a war of vengeance. The supposed last prisoner of World War I was welcomed in a homecoming ceremony on 29 May attended by more than 15,000 people in his "hometown" of Endingen. Amazingly, the parents of the real Oskar Daubmann accepted the impostor as their son - despite his different eye color and lack of known facial scar.

Anton Bumiller, an officer from Sigmaringen who had served with the real Daubmann in the same regiment, nonetheless decided to exploit the situation. Bumiller organized lecture tours, and the "hero Daubmann" held numerous lectures in the following weeks and received numerous awards. He received the honorary citizenship of 18 towns and was elected as an honorary president of the Society of Ex-War-Prisoners. Bumiller would sell Daubmann merchandise and wrote an adventure novel based on his "real story", and inquires were made about a movie. In the meantime, the Daubmann issue became a Nazi propaganda story, contributing to Nazi victory in the federal election in July that year.

However, the French issued an official note casting a doubt on the story on 5 September 1932, in which they reported that after a detailed search of their archives, they failed to find any evidence to support his story. The Nazi press dismissed the French report, but other German authorities investigated the claims, due to growing inconsistencies in Daubmann's story, as many former colleagues had failed to recognize him. Eventually, police identified his fingerprints as those of Karl Ignaz Hummel. He was arrested on 11 October 1932. (According to a more sensational version, he was recognized and denounced by his own real father). The sensational turn provided ammunition to opponents of the Nazi Party. On 12 July 1933, the District Court of Freiburg found him guilty of serious forgery and fraud and sentenced him to two and a half years in prison. After serving his sentence, Nazi authorities exacted revenge for their past embarrassment, persecuting him once more, and from 1938 till 1945, when he was freed by the American forces, Hummel was in preventive detention in Schwäbisch Hall. Afterward, he remained in Schwäbisch Hall, remarrying in 1946 and working as a tailor until his death in 1954.

His story resurfaced in 1998, when archived German police material was made public.