World Prisons
All persons

Theo Berger

1941–2003

Nationality
Germany
Occupation
criminal

Theo Maximilian Berger (25 January 1941 – 20 November 2003) was a notorious Bavarian criminal, best known for his numerous escapes from prison.

Incarceration history

Facilities

  1. JVA Kaisheim
    Dates unknown

Biography

Theo Maximilian Berger (25 January 1941 – 20 November 2003) was a notorious Bavarian criminal, best known for his numerous escapes from prison. Despite escaping four times, Berger spent 39 years in jail and eventually committed suicide there. Berger had been sentenced to a collective 137 years in jail. In 1986, he became the subject of a documentary titled Der Al Capone vom Donaumoos (English: The Bavarian Al Capone) and later wrote his memoirs, which were smuggled out of Straubing prison. In 2006, he also became the subject of a theatre play in Neuburg an der Donau titled Bruchstücke (English: Shards). In his time, Berger received a number of nicknames, among them Al Capone vom Donaumoos, König der Ausbrecher (English:King of the jail breakers) or Der schöne Theo (English:The beautiful Theo). He was at times compared to some of the other legendary Bavarian criminals and robbers, the Räuber Kneißl and the Bayerische Hiasl.

Related people

Same nationality and era where possible; falls back to shared nationality or era.

  • Gert Schramm
    1928–2016Germany

    Gert Schramm (28 November 1928 – 18 April 2016) was a German survivor of Buchenwald concentration camp, where he was the youngest of six black prisoners.

  • Rolf Abrahamsohn
    Rolf Abrahamsohn
    1925–2021Germany
  • Hans Frankenthal
    1926–1999Germany

    Hans Frankenthal (15 July 1926 – 22 December 1999) was a German Jew who was deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp in occupied Poland in 1943.

  • Oliver Shanti
    1948–2016Germany
  • Rainer Rupp
    1945Germany
  • Rolf Kralovitz
    1925–2015Germany

External references