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The Crimes of Josef Fritzl: Uncovering the Truth
The only inside account of the Fritzl case – Josef Fritzl's horrific incarceration of his daughter in a windowless dungeon for 24 years and the seven children he fathered with her – from the journalists who helped to break the story.
Until April 19 2008, Josef Fritzl seemed like an upstanding member of the community in the Austrian town of Amstetten: an ideal father and successful businessman who had worked his way up from humble beginnings to become a role model of respectability.
Yet for over two decades he had been living a double life of unimaginable and unparalleled horror. In 1984 he had drugged his 18-year-old daughter, Elisabeth, and dragged her into a purpose-made prison under the house that he had spent five years preparing. He held her captive there for 24 years and raped her frequently. Fritzl initially kept his daughter chained to a bed and forced her to re-enact scenes from pornographic films he projected in the cellar. Three months into her incarceration Elisabeth miscarried what would have been her first child. Over the next 18 years in the cellar she bore her father seven children - six of whom survived. Lisa, Monika and Alexander were taken 'upstairs' to live with their grandmother. Michael died after birth. Kerstin, Stefan and Felix were never to see daylight, trapped with their mother in the five-room cellar.
This bold and forensically-researched study sheds new light on the mind and the psychological development of the man who became one of the most unique and frightening criminals in history. It includes new information on the bizarre formative experiences that shaped his pathology and argues that his crimes, though unthinkable, were in many ways inevitable.
Stefanie Marsh and Bojan Pancevski were the first English-speaking reporters to break the case and were there as the police uncovered the dungeon. They draw on previously unreleased testimonies from the trial as well as exclusive interviews and documents including confidential official files on the case to give the only complete and authoritative account of the forces that drove Fritzl to create another world, far from the light, in which his fantasies of control could be played out.
Until April 19 2008, Josef Fritzl seemed like an upstanding member of the community in the Austrian town of Amstetten: an ideal father and successful businessman who had worked his way up from humble beginnings to become a role model of respectability.
Yet for over two decades he had been living a double life of unimaginable and unparalleled horror. In 1984 he had drugged his 18-year-old daughter, Elisabeth, and dragged her into a purpose-made prison under the house that he had spent five years preparing. He held her captive there for 24 years and raped her frequently. Fritzl initially kept his daughter chained to a bed and forced her to re-enact scenes from pornographic films he projected in the cellar. Three months into her incarceration Elisabeth miscarried what would have been her first child. Over the next 18 years in the cellar she bore her father seven children - six of whom survived. Lisa, Monika and Alexander were taken 'upstairs' to live with their grandmother. Michael died after birth. Kerstin, Stefan and Felix were never to see daylight, trapped with their mother in the five-room cellar.
This bold and forensically-researched study sheds new light on the mind and the psychological development of the man who became one of the most unique and frightening criminals in history. It includes new information on the bizarre formative experiences that shaped his pathology and argues that his crimes, though unthinkable, were in many ways inevitable.
Stefanie Marsh and Bojan Pancevski were the first English-speaking reporters to break the case and were there as the police uncovered the dungeon. They draw on previously unreleased testimonies from the trial as well as exclusive interviews and documents including confidential official files on the case to give the only complete and authoritative account of the forces that drove Fritzl to create another world, far from the light, in which his fantasies of control could be played out.
320 pages, Paperback
First published May 28, 2009
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March 5, 2011
The Crimes of Josef Fritzl / 978-0-00-730056-3
When the horrific news broke that a violent and psychotic father had been found keeping his daughter locked in his cellar for over two decades, and had frequently raped and beaten her, I - like many others - was shocked. In the aftermath of the horrifying incident, I assumed that the man was some kind of criminal mastermind, that his wife / children / neighbors (in short, all the people who would have been best poised to understand the situation and stop him) were all naive, simple, frightened, or - worse - openly complicit. In this terrifying account of the crime, however, authors Marsh and Pancevski make a compelling and sickening case that the complicity of the community was closed, rather than open - a complicity of failing to care, nor to take seriously crimes against women.
Josef Fritzl was not a criminal mastermind who kept his sexual violence carefully hidden. He was known to accost women in parks and was stopped on at least one occasion by the police for attempted rape - Josef was let off with a caution. When he methodically stalked a woman for months, broke into her home, and violently raped her at knife-point, he was incarcerated for all of 18 months. Ten years later, his record was completely expunged - the Austrian legal system having felt at the time that rapists rehabilitate themselves over time, in the face of mountains of evidence to the contrary.
Neighbors and family members were well aware that he beat his wife and children, and at least two major players in his daughter's life knew that he was sexually molesting her from a young age. When Elisabeth fled home at age 16, the police dragged her home to her father without investigating why she might have left; when she disappeared completely two years later, Josef's flimsy tale of a "cult" was taken at face value. When children started mysteriously showing up on the doorstep "from Elisabeth", social workers were uninterested in investigating; when "Elisabeth" began to mail letters to home, postmarked in cities less than 5 miles away, cities where Josef had frequent business, the police never questioned it.
And when the world turned upside-down and Elisabeth was finally found and her story told, the whole incident was immediately sewn up as secretly and tightly as possible. Most of Josef's family, including his wife, were never interviewed formally by the police; none of the police involved with Elisabeth's "disappearance" case were formally questioned. It was the adamant opinion of the authorities that "these things" - things like rape, murder, kidnapping, imprisonment, and torture - "just happen" and that there is nothing, really, that can be done to prevent it.
And that attitude will horrify you more than anything else to do with this case.
Documented in vivid detail, "The Crimes of Josef Fritzl" should be required reading not only for anyone interested in this horrific (yet not so unique as I had thought) case, but also for anyone interested in understanding why vigilance and prevention are at least as important crime-fighting tools as apprehension and incarceration. In closing, I would love to quote a passage near the end that sums all this more nicely than I ever could:
"In fact his life was a catalogue of violent, strange, and suspicious behaviour, much of which had attracted the attention of the police: he was known by a number of his friends to be a physically abusive husband and father; he had a conviction for violent rape, had twice more been arrested for sexual offenses, and had been suspected of arson...He had spent long periods of time in his cellar: his tenants and neighbours had seen him going down there late at night with a torch and bags of groceries...Even when everything had pointed to the fact that something very wrong was happening in the house in Ybbsstrasse, nobody had looked. But when, a few days before Josef Fritzl was tried, in the second week of March 2009, Austria's Minister of Justice was interviewed again, she was adamant: 'You can never really prevent these kinds of cases.'"
~ Ana Mardoll
When the horrific news broke that a violent and psychotic father had been found keeping his daughter locked in his cellar for over two decades, and had frequently raped and beaten her, I - like many others - was shocked. In the aftermath of the horrifying incident, I assumed that the man was some kind of criminal mastermind, that his wife / children / neighbors (in short, all the people who would have been best poised to understand the situation and stop him) were all naive, simple, frightened, or - worse - openly complicit. In this terrifying account of the crime, however, authors Marsh and Pancevski make a compelling and sickening case that the complicity of the community was closed, rather than open - a complicity of failing to care, nor to take seriously crimes against women.
Josef Fritzl was not a criminal mastermind who kept his sexual violence carefully hidden. He was known to accost women in parks and was stopped on at least one occasion by the police for attempted rape - Josef was let off with a caution. When he methodically stalked a woman for months, broke into her home, and violently raped her at knife-point, he was incarcerated for all of 18 months. Ten years later, his record was completely expunged - the Austrian legal system having felt at the time that rapists rehabilitate themselves over time, in the face of mountains of evidence to the contrary.
Neighbors and family members were well aware that he beat his wife and children, and at least two major players in his daughter's life knew that he was sexually molesting her from a young age. When Elisabeth fled home at age 16, the police dragged her home to her father without investigating why she might have left; when she disappeared completely two years later, Josef's flimsy tale of a "cult" was taken at face value. When children started mysteriously showing up on the doorstep "from Elisabeth", social workers were uninterested in investigating; when "Elisabeth" began to mail letters to home, postmarked in cities less than 5 miles away, cities where Josef had frequent business, the police never questioned it.
And when the world turned upside-down and Elisabeth was finally found and her story told, the whole incident was immediately sewn up as secretly and tightly as possible. Most of Josef's family, including his wife, were never interviewed formally by the police; none of the police involved with Elisabeth's "disappearance" case were formally questioned. It was the adamant opinion of the authorities that "these things" - things like rape, murder, kidnapping, imprisonment, and torture - "just happen" and that there is nothing, really, that can be done to prevent it.
And that attitude will horrify you more than anything else to do with this case.
Documented in vivid detail, "The Crimes of Josef Fritzl" should be required reading not only for anyone interested in this horrific (yet not so unique as I had thought) case, but also for anyone interested in understanding why vigilance and prevention are at least as important crime-fighting tools as apprehension and incarceration. In closing, I would love to quote a passage near the end that sums all this more nicely than I ever could:
"In fact his life was a catalogue of violent, strange, and suspicious behaviour, much of which had attracted the attention of the police: he was known by a number of his friends to be a physically abusive husband and father; he had a conviction for violent rape, had twice more been arrested for sexual offenses, and had been suspected of arson...He had spent long periods of time in his cellar: his tenants and neighbours had seen him going down there late at night with a torch and bags of groceries...Even when everything had pointed to the fact that something very wrong was happening in the house in Ybbsstrasse, nobody had looked. But when, a few days before Josef Fritzl was tried, in the second week of March 2009, Austria's Minister of Justice was interviewed again, she was adamant: 'You can never really prevent these kinds of cases.'"
~ Ana Mardoll
March 8, 2012
When this story broke in the media I was horrified, however found the reports disjointed and didn't feel like I was getting the whole story. How could someone imprison their daughter for 24 years in the cellar of their house, on a busy street, with neighbours, lodgers and their own family living above, and get away with it? Not only that, but they have 7 children with this daughter, no medical intervention, no help, and still no one notices. Three of these children come 'up stairs' and are miraculously found on the door step of this house in a busy street and again no one seems to bat an eyelid, not social services nor the police????
Hence when I found this book in a local charity shop I was intrigued. OK, so the narrative is repetitive and the book could have been half the length and still have covered all the relevant points (but then having seen some of the comments raised by the idiot masses on the subject, maybe repetition was required to actually get the points ac cross!!!), although on the whole it does give an insight into the events. No one but the victims will really know what went on in that cellar, but this does go a long way to provide a view point.
The book not only looks at the events of the actual imprisonment, but also a brief history of Austria and Josef's upbringing. This is presented to provide Josef with an alibi or present him as blameless, but to give you an insight into his irrational mind. I just wonder if this mind had been used for a more useful purpose what could have been?
Hence when I found this book in a local charity shop I was intrigued. OK, so the narrative is repetitive and the book could have been half the length and still have covered all the relevant points (but then having seen some of the comments raised by the idiot masses on the subject, maybe repetition was required to actually get the points ac cross!!!), although on the whole it does give an insight into the events. No one but the victims will really know what went on in that cellar, but this does go a long way to provide a view point.
The book not only looks at the events of the actual imprisonment, but also a brief history of Austria and Josef's upbringing. This is presented to provide Josef with an alibi or present him as blameless, but to give you an insight into his irrational mind. I just wonder if this mind had been used for a more useful purpose what could have been?
September 4, 2015
What I got and did not expect:
insightful chapters on postWWII Austria,the psyche of its inhabitants and how that effects this case.
What I expected but didn't get:
It's basically all hearsay. A few public servants get quoted, Fritzl's one friend is the only one close to the family that chose to talk to the authors.
The writing is messing, the structure even more so.
Obvious questions remain unanswered.
insightful chapters on postWWII Austria,the psyche of its inhabitants and how that effects this case.
What I expected but didn't get:
It's basically all hearsay. A few public servants get quoted, Fritzl's one friend is the only one close to the family that chose to talk to the authors.
The writing is messing, the structure even more so.
Obvious questions remain unanswered.
August 6, 2025
Horrific! How can this ever happen?
March 29, 2017
It is shocking that a crime like this was committed and continued for 24 years, with nobody else suspecting a thing. It just goes to show how convincing, and also how much of a psycho, Josef Fritzl actually was.
March 7, 2018
In februari 2009 verscheen De kelderkinderen, een indrukwekkend boek van John Glatt over 'de zaak Josef Fritzl'. Nu is daar De patriarch, over diezelfde Josef Fritzl, maar nu van de hand van Stefanie Marsh, journaliste bij The Times, en Bojan Pancevski, correspondent voor verscheidene Britse kranten.
Marsh en Pancevski hebben heel veel mensen uit de directe omgeving van Fritzl geïnterviewd, maar het boek is niet in de vorm van letterlijke verslagen van deze interviews. Door kunstig de reacties van de geïnterviewden door de uit de media bekende feiten te vlechten, is een verhaal ontstaan dat niet zozeer anders is dan De kelderkinderen, maar een verhaal dat iets toevoegt aan dit vreselijke verhaal.
Marsh en Pancevski gaan diep in op het karakter en de beweegredenen van Josef Fritzl en daarnaast pogen zij meer inzicht te geven in de gedachten en beweegredenen van Elisabeth zelf en Josef’s vrouw Rosemarie. Alle karakters worden bijzonder beeldend beschreven en het boek leest, hoe akelig ook, als een trein.
Verbijsterend is het om te lezen hoe de Oostenrijkse autoriteiten kans zien om de hele zaak met een sneltreinvaart in de doofpot te stoppen. Is er tijdens de 24 jaar van Elisabeths' verdwijning al niet veel gedaan, na de ontdekking van de werkelijkheid roepen de partijen om het hardst dat ze het allemaal niet hadden kunnen weten, dat Josef Fritzl de boel keurig om de tuin heeft geleid.
De patriarch is in veel opzichten een boek dat complementair is aan De kelderkinderen. De patriarch gaat minder in op de details van het leven van Elisabeth vóór zij opgesloten werd, en meer op het leven van Josef. Datzelfde geldt voor de tijd vlak nadat de hele zaak in de openbaarheid kwam: De kelderkinderen legt de nadruk op het leven van Elisabeth en haar kinderen na hun vrijkomen terwijl De patriarch de nadruk legt op het hele mediacircus en op Josef zelf. De patriarch is een gedegen neergezet boek, dat niet pretendeert een uitputtende analyse van Fritzl en zijn gruweldaden te geven; de lezer zal echter na lezing wel degelijk meer inzicht hebben... en nog meer meevoelen met Elisabeth, een bijzonder sterke en moedige vrouw.
Marsh en Pancevski hebben heel veel mensen uit de directe omgeving van Fritzl geïnterviewd, maar het boek is niet in de vorm van letterlijke verslagen van deze interviews. Door kunstig de reacties van de geïnterviewden door de uit de media bekende feiten te vlechten, is een verhaal ontstaan dat niet zozeer anders is dan De kelderkinderen, maar een verhaal dat iets toevoegt aan dit vreselijke verhaal.
Marsh en Pancevski gaan diep in op het karakter en de beweegredenen van Josef Fritzl en daarnaast pogen zij meer inzicht te geven in de gedachten en beweegredenen van Elisabeth zelf en Josef’s vrouw Rosemarie. Alle karakters worden bijzonder beeldend beschreven en het boek leest, hoe akelig ook, als een trein.
Verbijsterend is het om te lezen hoe de Oostenrijkse autoriteiten kans zien om de hele zaak met een sneltreinvaart in de doofpot te stoppen. Is er tijdens de 24 jaar van Elisabeths' verdwijning al niet veel gedaan, na de ontdekking van de werkelijkheid roepen de partijen om het hardst dat ze het allemaal niet hadden kunnen weten, dat Josef Fritzl de boel keurig om de tuin heeft geleid.
De patriarch is in veel opzichten een boek dat complementair is aan De kelderkinderen. De patriarch gaat minder in op de details van het leven van Elisabeth vóór zij opgesloten werd, en meer op het leven van Josef. Datzelfde geldt voor de tijd vlak nadat de hele zaak in de openbaarheid kwam: De kelderkinderen legt de nadruk op het leven van Elisabeth en haar kinderen na hun vrijkomen terwijl De patriarch de nadruk legt op het hele mediacircus en op Josef zelf. De patriarch is een gedegen neergezet boek, dat niet pretendeert een uitputtende analyse van Fritzl en zijn gruweldaden te geven; de lezer zal echter na lezing wel degelijk meer inzicht hebben... en nog meer meevoelen met Elisabeth, een bijzonder sterke en moedige vrouw.
April 2, 2024
I have this on my shelf, it's moved from place to place and back again around my house...I just can't seem to get into it right now. I really wanted to read the story after a friend told me about the documentary.
I kinda know the basis, but I just can’t do this one any further right now, i’ll have to come back to it.
Well, 2 ½ years later I watched the t.v drama and I don’t think I need to read the book any further. I will be passing this one on to my local book swap shop. . And that’s that. 😶
I kinda know the basis, but I just can’t do this one any further right now, i’ll have to come back to it.
Well, 2 ½ years later I watched the t.v drama and I don’t think I need to read the book any further. I will be passing this one on to my local book swap shop. . And that’s that. 😶
October 10, 2012
I felt rather guilty just reading this book, as if it was wrong to want to know the details of this grisly story. But the authors tell it straightforwardly and fully. They are critical of the Austrian state for failing to examine its own shortcomings.
February 1, 2016
This was well written and documented and it chilled me to the bone! Imagining what his daughter and her children went through at the hands of this man is unbelievable.
A bullet to the head would be wasted on this pathetic excuse of a human being!
A bullet to the head would be wasted on this pathetic excuse of a human being!
April 11, 2010
Very disturbing book about the well-known case
Upsetting but incredibly interesting
A must read for true crime fans
Upsetting but incredibly interesting
A must read for true crime fans
July 10, 2010
This book is not good story but I just wanted to know the details of what isn't good is.
Yes, Josef Fritzl is REAL monster!!!!
Yes, Josef Fritzl is REAL monster!!!!
October 12, 2010
Fascinating read, a real insight into the mind of a very very disturbed individual.
August 22, 2011
What a creepy, creepy guy!
Was an interesting read though, I couldn't put it down!
Was an interesting read though, I couldn't put it down!
March 5, 2012
this book was so so intresting, not to sound wierd but i am really into reading this kind of topic!
March 8, 2015
Disturbing. I don't know how all this passed me by at the time when what happened was finally discovered.
October 28, 2009
umm... he's really fucked up.
July 10, 2012
Rigtig spændende og hvor er han sindsyg! God research
September 4, 2018
I don't know what I can say about this one. Did I enjoy it? Yes and no. The subject matter is horrifying but the book is very well researched and the writing was perfect. This book is absolutely packed with information about Josef Fritzl, going right back to his childhood and his disfunctional (to say the least) relationship with his mother.
I didn't realise the full extent of Fritzl's evil and although I was well aware of the case surrounding the imprisonment of his daughter in the cellar, his crimes stretch way back to his younger years when he was stalking women in Austria and his eventual sexual assault of a woman at knifepoint.
I think we're all well aware of what happened to his daughter Elisabeth Fritzl, when he tricked her into the Cellar by asking her to help him carry a door and then locked her in there for over 2 decades. The cruelty she faced is absolutely unthinkable. I just can't imagine what must have gone through her mind throughout her time in isolation. Giving birth to 7 children all alone, with no medical help at all, must have been terrifying enough but for the children to be fathered by her own, and for him to pick and choose which children stayed down in the cellar and which ones he would bring to live upstairs, she must have been so desperate.
I find it hard to fathom how Fritzl had lodgers in the very house where his secret family were trapped underground. His wife and children lived in that house and absolutely nobody reported the noises they heared in the cellar - Fritzl would write it off as the old boiler rattling. Even when Fritzl would "discover Elisabeth's babies on his doorstep" no red flags were raised, and it wasn't until her 19 year old daughter Kirsten became so ill and needed a trip to hospital, that the doctors became curious of her condition and Fritzl finally allowed Elisabeth out of the cellar to speak to them.
I give this book 5 stars out of 5 because it does everything a true crime book should. It's well researched, it has plenty of information and background. It has photograph plates in there and doesn't sensationalise the crime at all.
I didn't realise the full extent of Fritzl's evil and although I was well aware of the case surrounding the imprisonment of his daughter in the cellar, his crimes stretch way back to his younger years when he was stalking women in Austria and his eventual sexual assault of a woman at knifepoint.
I think we're all well aware of what happened to his daughter Elisabeth Fritzl, when he tricked her into the Cellar by asking her to help him carry a door and then locked her in there for over 2 decades. The cruelty she faced is absolutely unthinkable. I just can't imagine what must have gone through her mind throughout her time in isolation. Giving birth to 7 children all alone, with no medical help at all, must have been terrifying enough but for the children to be fathered by her own, and for him to pick and choose which children stayed down in the cellar and which ones he would bring to live upstairs, she must have been so desperate.
I find it hard to fathom how Fritzl had lodgers in the very house where his secret family were trapped underground. His wife and children lived in that house and absolutely nobody reported the noises they heared in the cellar - Fritzl would write it off as the old boiler rattling. Even when Fritzl would "discover Elisabeth's babies on his doorstep" no red flags were raised, and it wasn't until her 19 year old daughter Kirsten became so ill and needed a trip to hospital, that the doctors became curious of her condition and Fritzl finally allowed Elisabeth out of the cellar to speak to them.
I give this book 5 stars out of 5 because it does everything a true crime book should. It's well researched, it has plenty of information and background. It has photograph plates in there and doesn't sensationalise the crime at all.
February 24, 2018
This is a very in- depth look into a very disturbing story and the man behind it, Josef Fritzl. His abuse and treatment of his daughter, Elizabeth and the seven children he fathered with her is horrendous and beyond comprehension. Elizabeth was only 18 when her father imprisoned her in a horrible basement that he had set up for the sole purpose of controlling her and making her his sexual prisoner. Her life is this dark, dank place for 24 years is filled with sadness and horrors that are hard to stomach. She is even left to birth her children on her own with only a book about childbirth to guide her. Josef does allow 3 of the children to move upstairs where his other family lived oblivious to the fact Elizabeth and her other children are below living in squalor. One baby, a twin boy, dies shortly after birth. How his mind worked is why I find stories like this fascinating. How someone can inflict such pain on another human being, let alone your daughter and children/grandchildren, all the while justifying it and living their life as if nothing is wrong, is heinous. The author gathered their facts and presented it in a very readable way which couldn't have been easy working with such revolting and repulsive information.
November 1, 2022
Absolutely heartbreaking!
This tells the story of a brave woman who survived 24 years of captivity and abuse in a cellar by the monster who fathered her. I don't even want to call him her father with the trauma she suffered because of him.
It's almost a 5-star book, except that it told too much about Josef Fritzl and had inadequate accounts on Elisabeth. I also noticed that this book must not have undergone thorough proofreading. Nevertheless, this book kept me up on the seventh night.
I cried for what Elisabeth had to go through at the hands of that evil man. My heart broke for her and the innocence and freedom that he selfishly stole from her. My heart went out to her while reading through her horrifying experience in that cellar.
I hope she's living the best life out there. I hope she has all the good things life has to offer. I hope she's basking in the sunlight and bathing in the rain that she was deprived of for more than two decades. It may be a lifetime process, but I really do hope she will achieve peace and happiness after that ordeal.
This tells the story of a brave woman who survived 24 years of captivity and abuse in a cellar by the monster who fathered her. I don't even want to call him her father with the trauma she suffered because of him.
It's almost a 5-star book, except that it told too much about Josef Fritzl and had inadequate accounts on Elisabeth. I also noticed that this book must not have undergone thorough proofreading. Nevertheless, this book kept me up on the seventh night.
I cried for what Elisabeth had to go through at the hands of that evil man. My heart broke for her and the innocence and freedom that he selfishly stole from her. My heart went out to her while reading through her horrifying experience in that cellar.
I hope she's living the best life out there. I hope she has all the good things life has to offer. I hope she's basking in the sunlight and bathing in the rain that she was deprived of for more than two decades. It may be a lifetime process, but I really do hope she will achieve peace and happiness after that ordeal.
July 8, 2021
This book was a shocking look into Josef Fritzl’s crimes. I found the book interesting, easy to follow and a real page turner. I particularly appreciated the detail of the state of Austria during Fritzl’s life, which was later attributed by the defence as a contributing factor to his crimes.
Whilst I understand it is hard to summarise Fritzl’s life, crimes and trial in one book, I found that the book glossed over a lot of important information. At times, it felt like the authors were rushing to provide information in 300 pages. I’m not sure if this book has been translated to English, but
I did notice quiet a few spelling and punctuation errors (which is my pet peeve when reading published books).
Overall, this book gave me some insight into facts about this case I didn’t know, and really set the scene of the horrible conditions that Elisabeth and her children endured. I would definitely recommend this book for anyone who is a true crime fan.
Whilst I understand it is hard to summarise Fritzl’s life, crimes and trial in one book, I found that the book glossed over a lot of important information. At times, it felt like the authors were rushing to provide information in 300 pages. I’m not sure if this book has been translated to English, but
I did notice quiet a few spelling and punctuation errors (which is my pet peeve when reading published books).
Overall, this book gave me some insight into facts about this case I didn’t know, and really set the scene of the horrible conditions that Elisabeth and her children endured. I would definitely recommend this book for anyone who is a true crime fan.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 6, 2026
This terrible crime defies belief and with so much salacious media coverage over the years I was put off reading any book on the subject lest it be too traumatic and too dismissive of the actual human suffering involved.
This book examines Fritzl’s disturbing past, including an upbringing amid abuse, familial mental illness and Nazi death camps*, as well as Austria's broader WWII atrocities. Despite its relatively short length of 300 pages, it provides insight into the country’s struggles with self-analysis and admission of Holocaust complicity. This, according to the authors, fostered a collective acceptance of toxic paternity/masculinity, which ultimately enabled a father's horrific abuse of his daughter and their children for nearly a quarter of a century.
NB can be read in a day
*The family was Catholic, but Fritzl's mother was imprisoned in Mauthausen-Gusen for a time.
This book examines Fritzl’s disturbing past, including an upbringing amid abuse, familial mental illness and Nazi death camps*, as well as Austria's broader WWII atrocities. Despite its relatively short length of 300 pages, it provides insight into the country’s struggles with self-analysis and admission of Holocaust complicity. This, according to the authors, fostered a collective acceptance of toxic paternity/masculinity, which ultimately enabled a father's horrific abuse of his daughter and their children for nearly a quarter of a century.
NB can be read in a day
*The family was Catholic, but Fritzl's mother was imprisoned in Mauthausen-Gusen for a time.
December 15, 2024
I found this book incredibly hard to read, he is such a vile man and his picture disgusts me. It was interesting to learn more of his upbringing, and the rest of his children’s lives, but what he did was incredibly vile and he got what he deserved, his poor daughter will never recover from her life sentence.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 5, 2020
Er worden veel foto's tot in detail beschreven, maar het boek was beter geweest als deze foto's er ook daadwerkelijk in zaten.
December 8, 2023
Very interesting account of Josef Fritzl and his life before ‘the incident’ and during. Surprising why he wasn’t on the authorities watch list
March 28, 2025
Exactly what I was looking for tbh! Very well written couldn’t fault it! I read it all in one night just couldn’t put it down as it was exactly the kind of book I was searching for!
August 11, 2024
The book takes a really really long time to get into anything that actually happened, but when it does, you can’t stop reading
December 22, 2023
Absolutely horrifying.
Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews