The Mysterious Case of the Fiat Lorry and Rudolf Lacher

[dolgoruky18]

Rudolf Lacher, when first approached, seemed unwilling to remember anything. But he did ask Anna A.'s lawyer to find out if she remembered "Rudolf" during her time in Ekaterinburg. He also indicated that his testimony was open to financial offers. That testimony was shot to ribbons during cross-examination at the A.A recognition trial in the 1960s. Before his death in 1973, Lacher said: "I served the Russians well. I kept my mouth shut."

Incidentally, an earllier poster mentioned an un-named "magyar" among the burial party. There have been persistent suggestions that this magyar was none other than Imre Nagy, the Hungarian prime minister killed by the Soviets after the Hungarian uprising in 1956.

[Alixz]

Fascinating.  All points and all information!

The story about Imre Nagy would make a great investigation if there were any way to get more information.

And I am always amazed that so many of the participants of that night lived well into the second half of the twentieth century and beyond!

[JStorey]

Oh Lexi, but you are a shrewd prosecutor!  Smoke and mirrors indeed!

As defense attorney, for the sake of my client I am compelled to remind you: the burden of proof is to place him in the cellar room at the time of the murder and no where else, a daunting task for which inferential evidence alone will not suffice.  Who says Netrebin considered an Austrian prisoner-of-war one of his comrades?

The most damning testimony against Mr. Lacher remains point 4: 

4. Lacher's room had only one small window with double panes of glass. The first palisade was attached to the east side of the house and beyond this, the main stairs, with high concrete peirs on either side. He could not have seen the bodies from his window. (FOTR p.591.)

I believe I have already proved he could have seen the bodies from the window, based on the correct placement of the Fiat lorry and close scrutiny of the line of sight truly visible from Lacher's window.  It was certainly not physically "impossible" as FOTR maintains.

I am quite concerned Mr. Lacher may not be prepared for my rather substantial bill - this has become quite a trial!

[Alixz]

So, after the family had been shot, they were carried back upstairs through the main floor and out the main front doorway of the house into the space created between the two palisades.

I don't know why, but I always thought that since one had to go outside to enter the basement room where they were executed, that they would have just taken the bodies out that way and into the side yard where the door to the basement was.

I know there are pictures of that side door on every Ipatiev house thread or site, but right now I don't have one to post.

Or do I have my architecture wrong?

From FOTR page 303:

They followed Yurovsky out of the double doors at the bottom of the staircase and into the courtyard at the side of the house.  He opened a second set of double doors and gestured the prisoners into the basement, down a short flight of steps, through a series of hallways and guardrooms, toward the opposite end of the house."
Page 305:

"Because of the steep slope of the courtyard, he decided to back the truck through the gate, leaving it at the top of the incline beneath the archway; once loaded, he worried that the weight of the corpses would prevent the truck from making its way back up the incline and out the gate.  This meant that the bodies would have to be taken from the murder room, at the opposite, southern end of the ground floor, through the labyrinth of basement rooms, up a short flight of stairs, out into the courtyard, then carried some forty feet up the incline to the waiting truck."

So JStorey - are you saying that the bodies weren't carried back through the labyrinth of basement rooms and back out through the basement door and into the courtyard a reversal of the way they came in?  That they were carried up onto the main floor and out the front door?  And loaded into the truck at the opposite end of the house from the courtyard and the basement door where they originally entered?

[JStorey]

I don't know why, but I always thought that since one had to go outside to enter the basement room where they were executed, that they would have just taken the bodies out that way and into the side yard where the door to the basement was.

From the cellar room, the only way to get out of the house was through the labrynth of rooms of the lower floor.  The door directly adjacent to the cellar room was enclosed by the first palisade (that's why they initially built the first palisade, to make the house essentially a "one entrance" fortress, and cancel out the back door.)

So JStorey - are you saying that the bodies weren't carried back through the labyrinth of basement rooms and back out through the basement door and into the courtyard a reversal of the way they came in?  That they were carried up onto the main floor and out the front door?  And loaded into the truck at the opposite end of the house from the courtyard and the basement door where they originally entered?

A good question.  I'm saying they WERE carried back through the labyrinth of basement rooms and out into the internal courtyard, but the lorry wasn't waiting there.  It was waiting outside the house gate in the artificial "courtyard" created by the second palisade (in the front of the house that was once a street - the narrow "Ipatiev" driveway adjacent to Vosnesensky prospect).  It just means they had to carry the bodies a bit further, and it means the lorry was in a position that Rudolf Lacher might have seen it.  I believe, given the turning radius required (the lorry would have had to been completely straight before even entering the gate), that it was impossible for a truck to park in that internal courtyard.  I hope that makes sense; I'm afraid a map is worth a thousand words so if you use my initial post as reference that should help...  - Jeff

[lexi4]

Alixz, Good points!

Jeff,
We have a statement from an eye witness that your client was among the shooters.
You have offered no evidence, only speculation, about the location of the lorry.
We also know that items, belonging to the IF, were found in Lacher's possession. We know that the men took items belonging to the IF that night and that Yurovsky forced them to return those items.
And most incredibly you are asking us to beleive that your client, assuming he was locked in his room, could see the bodies from his window. Are we to believe he has x-ray vision? To do that he would have had to be able to see through the concrete piers!

Lexi aka the Devil's advocate. 

[JStorey]

You bring up very good points, Lexi.  And I won't pretend to have the answers to them all, except to say it is pretty inferential stuff, hardly enough to condemn a man for murder.  Let me say this:  I'm not remotely convinced Lacher wasn't one of the shooters, all I'm trying to say is there is simply not enough evidence to say he was. 

I did find some actual testimony about the location of the lorry. 

"On the street, the truck waited with a pile of jumbled bodies for Yurovsky. He jumped in and drove off with one old man, driving through the gates of the house." - Netrebin, "Memoirs of the Destruction of the Romanovs"

"Gates of the house" means the palisade gates.  Every reference to "courtyard" means the front of the house enclosed by the palisades; all the testimony makes a great deal more sense when viewed as such.

As far as the piers:

And most incredibly you are asking us to beleive that your client, assuming he was locked in his room, could see the bodies from his window. Are we to believe he has x-ray vision? To do that he would have had to be able to see through the concrete piers!

References to the concrete piers refer to the two small, knee-high "piers" on each side of the steps leading up to the front of the house.  You can see them clearly here: 



They would have certainly obscured a small portion of the view, but I don't think much more.  I factored in these piers when I made my "line of sight" diagram in my earlier post.

[lexi4]

Jeff,
I don't have the answers either, but the discussion has been fun.
Lexi

[JStorey]

I agree - it has been fun!  - Jeff

[lexi4]

We'll have to come up with something else.

[Tania]

Your excellent presentation of facts already allows us as readers to agree with your statement as posted on Rudolf Lacher :

"First of all, he was a real person; if he has any relatives, they carry with them the burden of the accusation of murder, a burden I hope to dispel, or at least cast all that should be necessary to exonorate him:  REASONABLE DOUBT", that you will be very successful in possibly exonerating him. You are very thorough and complete.

Thank you most kindly for all you have offered to post as well enlighten us as readers. I look forward in days ahead to what new information you will bring to light.

Tatiana+

[dolgoruky18]

I have always suspected Lacher of having written the altered quotation from Heine on the wall of he half-cellar in the Ipatiev House.

[Alixz]

This thread has lead me to do more research on Ipatiev House.

But I still have one question that I have asked on other threads as well.  Facing the front of the house.  The "carriage gate" is to the right of the front or main door.  What is the building that is on the other side of the gate?

From the overhead photos, one can see that it is not connected to the main house.  It does form one side of the courtyard.

Great topic with many interesting points!

[lexi4]

I have always suspected Lacher of having written the altered quotation from Heine on the wall of he half-cellar in the Ipatiev House.

That is interesting. Any particular reason for why you have suspected Lacher of doing so???

[dolgoruky18]

Re Rudolf Lacher and the quotation from Heine:

Rudolf Lacher was an Austrian  -  or, to be more precise  -  a subject of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at war with Russia from 1914. He was a prisoner-of-war and, for whatever reason, was living and co-operating with the Soviet authority in Ekaterinburg in 1918. He was identified by lawyers acting for Anna A. from grafitti scribbled on one of the walls of the Ipatiev House recording the name of his regiment. The educational level of the average guard at the Ipatiev House being low and the chances of their being acquainted with the works of Heine being almost zero (still less them having the ability to modify the quote with a fairly sophisticated pun), that leaves us with Lacher, well-educated by their standards.

Contrary to belief, the White Russian investigators did find human bodies in the mines around the Ganin pit. They were identified as "Austrians". Presumably they were either deserters or prisoners-of-war shot by the Soviets. Why this was done is anyone's guess  -  but it is strange that Lacher survived to be called as a witness in the A.A. recognition trial in the 1960s. Furthermore, he was, according to another poster, in possession of 'souvenirs from the Ipatiev House.