Adele Spitzeder

Bad Gays

Huw Lemmey & Ben Miller

History

4.6 • 842 Ratings

🗓️ 19 February 2025

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Adele Spitzeder, born into operatic royalty, washed up when she tried a career on the stage: so instead, she started accepting bank deposits for 10% monthly interest, and paying old customers with new customers' money. In three years, she amassed deposits of 38 million Gulden, or the equivalent of more than 500,000,000 euros: the world’s first Ponzi scheme. Attempts to squirrel away some money by smuggling it with her girlfriend went about as well as expected. Subscribe to Extra Bad Gays for monthly episodes, our advice segments, and to support our work. Check out our new merch, including hats, shirts, and socks. ----more---- SOURCES: “Adele Spitzeder.” Accessed February 18, 2025. https://www.literaturportal-bayern.de/themen?task=lpbtheme.default&id=697. “Betty Vio – Biographische Informationen aus der WeGA.” Accessed February 18, 2025. https://weber-gesamtausgabe.de/de/A008536.html. “‘Die Zehn Gebote Der Adele Spitzeder’, Bild 1 von 14 | MDZ.” Accessed February 18, 2025. https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/view/bsb10999593?q=%28adele+spitzeder%29&page=1. “Digitale Bibliothek - Münchener Digitalisierungszentrum.” Accessed February 18, 2025. https://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/0006/bsb00067974/images/index.html?fip=193.174.98.30&id=00067974&seite=1000. Dokumentation, Österreichisches Biographisches Lexikon und biographische. “Spitzeder, (Johann) Josef.” Text. ISBN 978-3-7001-3213-4. Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2003. https://www.biographien.ac.at/oebl/oebl_S/Spitzeder_Josef_1794_1832.xml. Freiberger, Harald. “Geld - Adele Spitzeder und ihr Schneeballsystem.” Süddeutsche.de, November 11, 2017. https://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/schneeballsystem-es-begann-in-der-au-1.3743735. “Germany - Metternich, Unification, 1815-71 | Britannica,” February 18, 2025. https://www.britannica.com/place/Germany/The-age-of-Metternich-and-the-era-of-unification-1815-71. Schumann, Dirk. “Der Fall Adele Spitzeder 1872: Eine Studie Zur Mentalität Der ‘Kleinen Leute’ in Der Grübderzeut.” Zeitschrift Für Bayerische Landesgeschichte 58, no. 2/3 (1995): 991–1025. Spitzeder, Adele. Geschichte meines Lebens. Stuttgarter Verlagscomptoir, 1878. Zeno. “Lexikoneintrag zu »Spitzeder-Vio, Betty«. Damen Conversations Lexikon, Band 9. [o.O.] ...” Accessed February 18, 2025. http://www.zeno.org/DamenConvLex-1834/A/Spitzeder-Vio,+Betty. Our intro music is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrien. Our outro music is by DJ Michaeloswell Graphicdesigner. Image via.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to season 8, episode 9 of Budgays, a podcast all about evil and complicated queer people in history.
0:22.4	My name's Hugh Lemmy. I'm a writer and author. And I'm Ben Miller, a writer and historian currently
0:27.4	at work on a biography of the fashion designer Rudy Gernrick.
0:32.2	So last week we talked about the 19th century lesbian and landowner and Lister. Who are we
0:37.0	talking about this week, Ben? Well, we're staying in the 19th century, Hugh, and we're staying in the 19th century lesbian and landowner and Lister. Who are we talking about this week, Ben?
0:39.0	Well, we're staying in the 19th century, Hugh, and we're staying with lesbians. In the year 1878,
0:45.5	a woman named Adele Spitz-Eda published the story of her life. She began her memoir,
0:51.7	thusly, these are all my translations, from the German.
0:55.8	How much has not been written about my person, about the so-called Dahauer Bank, and about my
1:01.4	sensational trial, without the borders between truth and distortion being to some extent respected?
1:07.7	What one writes, the other repeats without thinking, and the biographies and the
1:11.5	news reports about me make rounds around the civilized world, and not a single person thinks
1:16.4	it's important to separate wheat from chaff or to research how much distortion is at the source,
1:21.6	end quote. Now, news of Adele's exploits had traveled around the world since her spectacular arrest in 1872.
1:30.2	That year, authorities in Munich finally managed to close her three-year-old Dahauer Bank,
1:36.5	which since its opening had amassed deposits of 38 million golden, which is the equivalent of
1:43.5	more than 500 million euros in today's money.
1:47.5	Oh, wow. So by her bank, you don't mean the bank that she used, but you were talking about a bank that she owned?
1:53.2	I mean, a bank that she created from scratch, and in three years, she had 500 million euros in supposed deposits.
2:00.0	What?
2:02.0	She was, by most accounts, the richest woman in Bavaria.
2:05.3	But when authorities closed her bank, her depositors learned something shocking and unpleasant,
	...

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