On Sunday evening, 21 November 1909, at around half past nine, a young man was killed at the beginning of Dijkstraat. Four boys and two girls were standing there talking to one another when 23-year-old coppersmith Bernardus Rietberg from Dale joined the group. He began harassing one of the girls, and an altercation ensued. Rietberg then stabbed one of the boys, 20-year-old factory worker Johann Heinrich Kalberg from Liedern (near Bocholt), in the chest with a knife.
While the perpetrator walked home in cold blood, according to newspaper reports, the victim managed to stagger a short distance into Kerkstraat before collapsing. His companions, including his younger brother, carried him inside Bauhuis’s café (Dijkstraat 1). Doctor Van Leuven was summoned in great haste to assist him. However, Kahlberg had been struck in his right lung so severely that nothing more could be done. The badly wounded youth was transported to the hospital on a cart. There, half an hour later and after receiving the Holy Sacraments, he drew his last breath. He had bled to death.
Court case
Rietberg was roused from his bed by the police that very same night and taken to prison. The following day, judicial officials from Zutphen arrived in Aalten to investigate. At the end of the afternoon, they returned on the six o’clock train, this time accompanied by the handcuffed suspect. As the train departed, the assembled crowd voiced its fury with loud shouting.
The suspect initially denied that he was the perpetrator and also stated that he did not know the victim. The latter claim was highly doubted. A few days later, De Twentsche Courant reported that Rietberg allegedly had his eye on a sister of Kalberg, but that the latter had opposed it. This was considered a potential motive. However, whether this was a fact or merely a rumour remains unclear. The report of the trial in De Graafschapbode of 15 January 1910 makes no mention of it whatsoever.
Newspapers at the time were able to report that Rietberg had already run afoul of the law in Germany. He had also been previously convicted of assault. It is therefore hardly surprising that he was known in Aalten as an ‘extremely unfavourable’ character. He had reportedly been thrown out of Bauhuis’s café at nine o’clock on the evening of the crime. According to witnesses, however, he did not appear to be under the influence of alcohol.
On 19 January 1910, Rietberg was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment for taking the life of Johann Heinrich Kalberg.
National news
The murder in Aalten was national news at the time. The snippets below provide a fairly comprehensive picture of what was published.
