A photograph of Joseph Lawende in 1899

[Michael W Richards]

But is 'the Ripper profile' an accurate one?

I believe Scott that the "profile" of the person responsible has never been clearly articulated by any serious researcher, so there really is no single accepted "profile" as such. What is possible to know is what he does when he chooses a victim, if you are willing to use an apples to apples approach that is.

I dont believe this killer changed anything major from his first kill to his last, ..... I dont think that killers usually abandon their primary motivations for killing, though they may change the methodology.

[Scott Nelson]

Sorry John,

It was a question to RD.

The more one looks at Bachert, the more he feels like a man who fits into the Ripper profile.

[John Wheat]

But is 'the Ripper profile' an accurate one?

Hi Scott

Which profile are you talking about?

Cheers John

[Scott Nelson]

But is 'the Ripper profile' an accurate one?

[Debra A]

Hi Debra

Thank you for your post; you are course completely correct and it's something I failed to highlight in my post.
Albert and his siblings and parents were indeed all Lutheran Protestants; ergo, Christians.

It was Johann's mother's lineage who were descended from German Ashkenazi Jews, and so although Albert was indeed NOT Jewish in the sense that he was baptised as a Christian and his parents and his uncles/aunts were all Christian; his paternal grandmother and her ancestors were of Jewish descent.

Albert's paternal Grandmother being of Jewish descent is something that Bachert appears to have never accepted and this perhaps stems from his relationship with his father.

Jakob Weiss was Albert's Great Grandfather (his paternal Grandmother's father) and was of German Jewish descent.

But my post was misleading and I should have mentioned that Albert was absolutely a Lutheran Christian first and foremost.

Thank you for correcting me and highlighting a crucial point that is needed for accurate context.


RD

Hi Chris
Thanks for your reply.
I have only ever gone as far back as Albert's father, John/Johannes Lutheran baptism in 1832. The fact that he was baptised in a Lutheran church seems to suggest his mother was not a practicing Jew, even if she was of Jewish descent, which I don't know if she was or not.

[The Rookie Detective]

Hi RD
Just a quick note-
The Bacherts were Lutherans and Albert was baptised at the German Lutheran Church at Little Allie Street, Whitechapel, as were all his siblings. His father John/Johan gave his place of birth as Mecklenburg, Germany on the 1871 census. I believe that in this part of Germany the protestant Lutheran Church was the main church although there were much smaller numbers of Roman Catholics and Jews.

Hi Debra

Thank you for your post; you are course completely correct and it's something I failed to highlight in my post.
Albert and his siblings and parents were indeed all Lutheran Protestants; ergo, Christians.

It was Johann's mother's lineage who were descended from German Ashkenazi Jews, and so although Albert was indeed NOT Jewish in the sense that he was baptised as a Christian and his parents and his uncles/aunts were all Christian; his paternal grandmother and her ancestors were of Jewish descent.

Albert's paternal Grandmother being of Jewish descent is something that Bachert appears to have never accepted and this perhaps stems from his relationship with his father.

Jakob Weiss was Albert's Great Grandfather (his paternal Grandmother's father) and was of German Jewish descent.

But my post was misleading and I should have mentioned that Albert was absolutely a Lutheran Christian first and foremost.

Thank you for correcting me and highlighting a crucial point that is needed for accurate context.


RD

[Debra A]

Hi RD
Just a quick note-
The Bacherts were Lutherans and Albert was baptised at the German Lutheran Church at Little Allie Street, Whitechapel, as were all his siblings. His father John/Johan gave his place of birth as Mecklenburg, Germany on the 1871 census. I believe that in this part of Germany the protestant Lutheran Church was the main church although there were much smaller numbers of Roman Catholics and Jews. Bachert's mother was from Hanover in Germany.

[The Rookie Detective]

Where is the evidence that Johann Backert was of Jewish ancestry?

Albert's paternal Grandmother was a woman called Maria Weiss, whose father was named Jakob, or Jacob.

Weiss (White) is a common German Ashkinazi surname and when combined with the name "Jakob" it provides some context.

Albert's own Johann Gustav Jacob Bachert, had the name "Jacob' as a middle name, carried down through the family line.

Johann was described in the press as a Jewish Tailor, although Albert himself subsequently wrote to the newspaper and strongly refuted having anything to do with Jews.

Albert had an odd father complex; he stole from him and yet was openly forgiven by his father, and he provided an elaborately dramatic scenario for when he claimed his father had vanished without trace, by writing to the press for help...and yet his father returned safe and sound without any hint of the drama that Albert had pedalled for.

Bachert's father's mother was of Jewish descent and the claims made by Bachert that he and his family had nothing to do with the Jews is simply untrue.

Bachert may not have been/felt Jewish himself, but ethnically he was and so to deny that his father Johann the Tailor was the son of a German Jewish woman, was going against his own heritage.

When we put that into context and accept that Stride was murdered outside a radicalist/socialists Jewish club, then we have a place that was the complete antithesis of what Albert believed in.
He felt the Jews were beneath him in some way and he spent so much time pushing through his right wing Tory rhetoric, that he flew in the face of everything that he actually was; a working middle class ethnically German/German Jew, trying to be a middle class English man in a desperate bid to seek acceptance and fit into the narrative.

When we comsider that Eddowes, Stride and McKenzie were all non-Jewish women who worked for the Jews, the GSG, the Moab and Midian letter, the anti-Jewish rhetoric peddled through the press, the Police gearing towards the suspect being a Jew...it makes one wonder whether Bachert was the perfect storm.

Is it possible that a man who denied his heritage could have chosen to murder women who worked for the Jews, and who he saw as corrupting the honest Jewish man, and thus putting the blame onto the Jews by shaping the murder series in a way that made it look like a Jew was the killer?
(Bizarrely being both true and untrue at the same time)

We know that his father had a fair complexion and did not "look" Jewish.
But neither did Charles Reeves, and he most certainly was a Jew.

The more one looks at Bachert, the more he feels like a man who fits into the Ripper profile.



RD

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

So in a sense, he wasn't raised as Jewish, so in a way you are right, but still, his parents were of German (Ashkenazi?) Jewish heritage.

Where is the evidence that Johann Backert was of Jewish ancestry?

[The Rookie Detective]

Are you sure that John Backert / Bachert was Jewish?

I have read that he and his wife Georgina were German and his physical description, as given in one newspaper, seems typically German, which causes one to wonder why another newspaper would have described him as being of Jewish appearance:


Age 54, but looks 10 years younger; height 5ft. 7in., complexion fair, light hair, blue eyes, and heavy sandy moustache.

(Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper Sunday, 25th September, 1887)

Yes, I can confirm that Albert Bachert was Jewish.

He was also much younger than reported.

He was born in 1862 and so would have been around 26 at the time of the murders

He was born Albert Wilhelm Bachert, but Baptized on the 7th September 1862

He had several siblings, including an older brother called Wilhelm and another called Ludwig

His father was called John Bachert, a successful local businessman.

However, his father's full BIRTH name was...

Johann Gustav Jacob Bachert

And his mother was called Georgina (nee Fischer) but born...

Georgine Elise Emilie Dorette Fischer


Now because of his Baptism, it does strongly suggest that although he was ethnically Jewish, his parents were not practicing Jews and the fact they anglicized their names would also support this.

So in a sense, he wasn't raised as Jewish, so in a way you are right, but still, his parents were of German (Ashkenazi?) Jewish heritage.

Based on his physical appearance you are completely correct
And he wasn't raised as Jewish and so you are correct again

But his parents were both of Jewish Descent.

And so it highlights that appearances can be deceptive (quite literally).

Charles Reeves also didn't look Jewish IMO, but he was another member of the vigilance committee who certainly was Jewish.

In terms of the Ripper murders, I have always favoured Bachert as one of my top 10 suspects.

If you look closely at his life, he made a concerted and continued effort to be close to the investigation at every turn; similar to how a killer responsible for the abduction and murder of a child, would turn up at the street search party to try and look like they're helping as part of the community effort.

Bachert reminds me of a man who relished being in the limelight.
He even went to socialist rallies on Tower Hill...as an antagonist who riled up the crowd deliberately to cause trouble. He had a dislike for socialists, and it's fair to say that the idea of a Socialist Jewish movement like the club on Berner street, is somewhere he would have also despised.

The Jews from the Berner Street club were generally disliked by the more orthodox Jews, and the Conservative Jews like Bachert who appear to have abandoned their heritage for the sake of social acceptance within the English middle classes.

RD

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

For example, a certain Albert Bachert; the man who claimed to have replaced Lusk as head of the WVC in 1889
(despite the 1888 WVC having disbanded by this point, having morphed/reformed into the "Spitalfields & Whitechapel Vigilance Committe")

Albert himself seemed to have an issue with the idea of someone being described as looking Jewish.
So much so, that he wrote directly to a newspaper, to ask them to correct an article they'd previously published in their newspaper, in which they had "described" his father John as being/looking Jewish.
His father had gone missing and was presumed dead; although he later resurfaced alive and well.
In his letter (which was also published) he tells the newspaper that he has no connection to the Jews whatsoever, stating that his father wasn't Jewish, requesting they amend their mistake accordingly to print that his father wasn't a Jew after all.

The problem was...Albert Bachert WAS Jewish.

His father was also a Jew

Are you sure that John Backert / Bachert was Jewish?

I have read that he and his wife Georgina were German and his physical description, as given in one newspaper, seems typically German, which causes one to wonder why another newspaper would have described him as being of Jewish appearance:


Age 54, but looks 10 years younger; height 5ft. 7in., complexion fair, light hair, blue eyes, and heavy sandy moustache.

(Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper Sunday, 25th September, 1887)

[The Rookie Detective]

I would say that it is not a question of whether one thinks that a person looked Jewish but how he would have looked in London at that time.

In Whitechapel, it seems to have been quite obvious who was and who was not Jewish, and there was no political correctness at that time to inhibit people from noting the differences in their writings.

I see your point and I agree to a certain extent.

But I feel there's more to it than that and it's more of a grey area than just a simple case of black and white.

It's important to note that there were different social classes of Jews in the area, and it would be misleading to place all of the same Jews into the same social category.

This is relevant contextually because I don't believe that it was as obvious as you suggest.

For example, a certain Albert Bachert; the man who claimed to have replaced Lusk as head of the WVC in 1889
(despite the 1888 WVC having disbanded by this point, having morphed/reformed into the "Spitalfields & Whitechapel Vigilance Committe")

Albert himself seemed to have an issue with the idea of someone being described as looking Jewish.
So much so, that he wrote directly to a newspaper, to ask them to correct an article they'd previously published in their newspaper, in which they had "described" his father John as being/looking Jewish.
His father had gone missing and was presumed dead; although he later resurfaced alive and well.
In his letter (which was also published) he tells the newspaper that he has no connection to the Jews whatsoever, stating that his father wasn't Jewish, requesting they amend their mistake accordingly to print that his father wasn't a Jew after all.

The problem was...Albert Bachert WAS Jewish.

His father was also a Jew

Bachert was a German Jew with mixed ethnic heritage.

However; and this is the point; he was staunchly conservative in his political leaning, and the idea of him or his father being described as Jewish; or looking Jewish, seemed to be a real issue for him.
It suggests that he didn't want to be associated with being Jewish, despite him being Jewish.

In fact, many of the members of the original WVC were also Jewish.
e.g. Charles Reeves, one of the founding members, was a Jewish actor who changed his name from Samuel Isaacs, to sound more English.

So we have Jews seemingly denying their heritage, just for the sake of not being tarnished with the same brush.

And this is why it's relevant to the Ripper case.

The Ripper may have been Jewish, but it doesn't mean he LOOKED Jewish.

It is not accurate to suggest that all Jews were easily identifiable, because that has implications on the process of trying to identify potential suspects.

The interesting thing about Albert Bachert, is that being Germanic, he didn't necessarily "look" Jewish... but he WAS a Jew, regardless of his attempts to disassociate himself from his own heritage.
Being a staunch conservative, he was against the Socialist movement; in particular the idea that Jews should be Socialists...the EXACT discussion that was being held in the club the night Stride was murdered.

I find it rather fascinating that Stride, a Scandinavian Non-Jew who could speak Yiddish, was murdered outside a Socialist club filled with Jews who represented everything that Bachert resented in Jews.
And then after Eddowes is murdered; another Non-Jew who had connections with the Jewish community, we find the Goulston Street graffiti...

Now if you ever wanted an example of the kind of man who could have written the GSG...

Albert Bachert is your perfect candidate.

Now I am not saying that Bachert was the Ripper, but he did subsequently fantasize about the Ripper sending him letters, and he was proven to have had an unhealthy obsession with the Ripper case.
I just find it interesting that Bachert; a Jew who disliked Jews, in the context of the Ripper crimes, is something that could be more relevant than we realize.

RD

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

I would say that it is not a question of whether one thinks that a person looked Jewish but how he would have looked in London at that time.

In Whitechapel, it seems to have been quite obvious who was and who was not Jewish, and there was no political correctness at that time to inhibit people from noting the differences in their writings.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I’d say that the guy in the middle looks Jewish but the other two don’t. And even at a distance I would expect the guy in the centre to have been identified as Jewish every time (especially in poor lighting…or at a quick glance)

[The Rookie Detective]

Such an excellent photo and brings the past to life.

In the wedding photo, he does have rather unusual eyes IMO. Quite piercing and distinct.

His left eye in particular.

May just be the shadow from his hat.

interesting...


RD