十大神秘人物第七位——卡斯帕·豪泽尔
  
在1828年5月26日这一天,一名少年出现在德意志的纽伦堡的大街上。他身上带着一封信,是写给第六骑兵团一个队长的。这封信的匿名作者写道,这名男孩在1812年10月7日那天,还是一个婴儿的时候,他就开始照养着这名男孩。他说,他从来没让男孩离开过他房间一步。现在这个男孩想成为一个骑兵,所以队长应该收留他或是带着他。豪泽尔,也就是这名男孩,他说,他尽可能地能够回想起就是,他几乎整天孤单地呆在一间长2米宽1米高1·5米的暗黑小房子里面(小得不超过一张单人床的空间),合着一张仅铺着稻草的床睡觉,还有一个木马当作玩具。豪泽尔说,他第一个接触到的人很神秘莫测,就在他被释放出来的不久他见到这个人。这个人给他很大的关照但没有给他见到真实面相。据当时早在1829年的谣传说,卡斯帕·豪泽尔是巴登国的继位王子,生于1812年9月29日,而在一个月之后就夭折了。据说,这个王子被一个垂死的婴儿替换了。真正的卡斯帕·豪泽尔就是16年之后出现在纽伦堡的这个。后来,豪泽尔死于可能是由自己造成的胸上刺伤。据豪泽尔说,在他是婴儿的时候他曾被看管他的人刺伤过。

2002年,德国明斯特大学从一些声称是卡斯帕·豪泽尔的衣物和头发中,提取分析了头发和身体细胞。把他的DNA样品跟阿斯特丽德·范·米丁格的DNA片段对照。米丁格是斯蒂芬妮皇后的母性线上的后代,假如卡斯帕·豪泽尔真的是巴登国的继位王子,那么斯蒂芬妮皇后就应该是他的母亲。结果显示,DNA的序列是不一致的,但这种背离并不足以排除他们的关系,因为这个很可能是由基因突变引起的。

7 Kaspar Hauser

On May 26, 1828 a teenage boy appeared in the streets of Nuremberg, Germany. He carried a letter with him which was addressed to a captain of 6th cavalry regiment. The anonymous author said that the boy was given into his custody, as an infant, on the 7th October 1812, and that he had never let him “take a single step out of my house”. Now the boy would like to be a cavalryman, thus the captain should take him in or hang him. Hauser claimed that he had, for as long as he could think back, spent his life always totally alone in a darkened 2×1×1.5 metre cell (little more than the size of a one-person bed in area) with only a straw bed to sleep on and a horse carved out of wood for a toy. Hauser claimed that the first human being he ever had had contact with had been a mysterious man who had visited him not long before his release, always taking great care not to reveal his face to him. According to contemporary rumors - probably current as early as 1829 - Kaspar Hauser was the hereditary prince of Baden that was born on September 29, 1812 and had died within a month. It was claimed that this prince had been switched with a dying baby, and had indeed appeared 16 years later as “Kaspar Hauser” in Nuremberg. Hauser died after receiving a stab wound to the chest which was possible self-inflicted. He claimed he had been stabbed by the man who had kept him as an infant.

In 2002, the University of Münster analyzed hair and body cells from locks of hair and items of clothing that were alleged to belong to Kaspar Hauser. The DNA samples were compared to a DNA segment of Astrid von Medinger, a descendant in the female line of Stéphanie de Beauharnais, who would have been Kaspar Hauser’s mother if indeed he had been the hereditary prince of Baden. The sequences were not identical but the deviation observed is not large enough to exclude a relationship, as it could be caused by a mutation.