The curious case of the arsonists and the clairvoyant
In 1948, a former luxury hotel on Mount Rigi was bought at auction by a garage owner from Zurich. Ten days later, it burned to the ground. The subsequent trial for arson and insurance fraud captivated the nation – not least because a clairvoyant played a key role in the investigations.
Adi Kälin
Adi Kälin is a historian and freelance journalist.
The hotel’s highly colourful history was no doubt one of the reasons for the great interest shown in the story. And the adventurous life of the accused was almost certainly another. The Hotel First had opened in 1875, shortly after the inauguration of the Vitznau-Rigi mountain railway, the first of its kind in Europe. At this time, tourists were literally flocking to the mountain in droves, creating something akin to a gold rush atmosphere. A company named Regina Montium constructed several new railway lines and hotels, including the one at Rigi First, in record time. But, having overstretched its finances, it soon had to file for bankruptcy.
The auction had taken place on 15 July 1948. During the night of 25 July, the watchman, who lived in the neighbouring annex, spotted the fire, which was quickly spreading through the empty hotel. When the fire brigade from nearby Kaltbad arrived at the scene 20 minutes later, it was already too late: the hotel, capable of accommodating 160 guests, was fully ablaze. The watchman was keen to try and save some of the valuable silver, but the thickening smoke made any kind of salvage operation impossible. Even so, he claimed to have seen a chianti bottle containing petrol and traces of the fire accelerant on the carpet. However, when later questioned about it in court, the man embroiled himself in a tangle of contradictions.
The court of first instance convicted Dubs, inter alia, because one witness claimed to have seen him hand over money to two men in Walchwil on Lake Zug – obviously as recompense for starting the fire. The witness had recognised the accused due to his characteristic facial tics and heard the three men conversing in whispers.
A clairvoyant for the prosecution
First séance: the clairvoyant fell into a trance. A photo of Dubs was placed on his stomach. The clairvoyant described the man and his car, saying that he had something to do with the blaze. But the actual fire had been raised by two people, who had been carrying canisters filled with fuel.
Second séance: what had Dubs been doing on 26 July 1948? The clairvoyant hinted at the meeting in Walchwil, seeing visions of a sign bearing the words ‘Prima Fischküche’ (‘excellent fish dishes’). A short man, a farmer, who lived near the railway line was believed to have been in the restaurant at the same time. The police later established that there was only one restaurant with a promotional sign matching the description. A short man had in fact been there on that evening, but he was a local roofer and not a farmer.
This particular individual was eventually tracked down by the police and questioned. Two months after the fire. The fact that the clairvoyant had been brought on board by the very insurance companies that would have to pay out for the fire damage did little to aid the prosecution’s credibility. Its failure to mention the clairvoyant in any of its case files weakened its position even further.
Acquitted due to lack of evidence
Then another man was brought in, escorted by a police officer. The witness identified him as Dubs. But this time it was a person chosen at random, who happened to look a bit like the garage owner from Zurich. Then Karl Dubs himself appeared. Yes, that was quite definitely him, stated the witness. Having discredited the key witness’s testimony in this way, the court had no other option but to rule that there was insufficient evidence for a conviction. The “supernatural” methods adopted by the private prosecutors had ultimately been of no use.
Just three years later yet another hotel on Mount Rigi, the Grand Hotel Kaltbad, was ravaged by fire. There were 180 guests and 60 employees on the premises when disaster struck on 9 February 1961. One of the fire fighters later described the scene to the NZZ newspaper as one of “endless panic”. Countless people at the front of the building were still cowering by their windows while the flames were already bursting through the windows at the back. Many were able to save themselves by jumping out into the deep snow, but the fire claimed the lives of 11 people. Much later, it emerged that this too had been a case of deliberate fire-raising: an apparently frustrated employee had set the hotel’s mattress store alight.
