Sylvestre Matuschka

Background

Sylvestre Matuschka (born 1892, date of death unknown) (in Hungarian publications: Matuska Szilveszter) was a former officer in the Austro-Hungarian army.

Szilveszter Matuska (January 29, 1892, Csantavér (now Čantavir, Serbia) - disappeared circa 1945) was a Hungarian mass murderer and mechanical engineer who made two successful and at least two unsuccessful attempts to derail passenger trains in Hungary, Germany and Austria in 1930 and 1931.

Matuska reportedly served as an explosives expert during the latter stages of World War II. Rumours circulated that he appeared on the communist side in the Korean War, but there was no evidence to support this.

Matuska’s motives were reported to remain unclear. His first attack was initially thought to have been politically motivated.

The offence

Matuska was charged with arranging the derailment of several trains.

His most notorious crime was the derailment of the Vienna Express headed towards Vienna as it was crossing the Biatorbágy bridge near Budapest at 12.20am on 13 September 1931. The incident resulted in the death of 22 people and the wounding of 120 others, 17 of them severely.

Matuschka carried out his crime by blowing up a portion of the bridge, causing the engine and nine of the eleven coaches forming the train to plunge into a ravine 30 meters deep.

Matuska’s first successful crime was the derailment of the Berlin-Basel express train south of Berlin on August 8, 1931. Scores of people were injured, but there were no deaths. Because of the discovery of a defaced Nazi newspaper at the scene of the crime, among other things, the attack was believed to have been politically motivated.

Matuska’s second and more notorious successful crime was the derailment of the Vienna Express headed towards Vienna as it was crossing the Biatorbágy bridge near Budapest at 12.20am on 13 September 1931. 22 people died and 120 others were injured, 17 of them severely.

Matuska made at least two failed attempts to derail passenger trains in Hungary, Germany and Austria in 1930 and 1931. Crimes included two failed attempts to derail trains in Austria in December 1930 and January 1931.

A bounty of 100,000 reichsmark was put on the perpetrator.

It was reported that he achieved orgasm while watching the trains he had sabotaged crash. He was quoted as explaining his crimes by saying: "I wrecked trains because I like to see people die. I like to hear them scream." In the trial, Matuschka claimed to have been ordered to derail the express by God.

The rails were reported to have been blown up in front of the Orient Express as it crossed the bridge on the 12th September 1931, and the train fell into the abyss with 23 dead. The culprit was identified as Sylvester Matuschka (or, with Hungarian spelling, Szilveszter Matuska), described as a mine owner then with residence in Vienna, who served in a railway sabotage unit in Hungary during WWI and had explosives experience.

Investigation

Matuschka was discovered at the scene of the crime but, having passed himself off as a surviving passenger, he was only arrested one month later.

Investigators in the three countries were on his trail.

In Vienna, Austrian police was already looking for him in connection with two previous derailing attacks described as his “exercises” for the big one (the last day of 1930 at Anzbach near Vienna, and August 1931 between Jüterbog and Kloster Zinna near Berlin).

Arrest

Matuschka was arrested in October 1931 and charged with arranging the derailment of several trains.

He was discovered at the scene of the crime and released, but was arrested one month later, on 10 October 1931.

Matuska was arrested in Vienna on 10 October 1931, whereupon he soon confessed.

Trial

At his trial, Matuschka claimed to have been ordered to derail the express by God.

Matuska was tried and convicted in Austria for two unsuccessful attempts.

In the trial itself, Matuschka behaved in a very eccentric way, and after originally confessing to the crime, he began to blame an imaginary friend.

The expert conclusion then and now was that he was not insane, he was acting over-the-top.

Matuschka was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death.

Matuska was later extradited to Hungary on condition that he not be executed.

Sentencing

Matuschka was sentenced to death, but the sentence was commuted.

The sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment as agreed with Austria.

Appeals

No appeals were described in the provided material.

Outcome

Matuschka’s sentence of death was commuted to life in prison.

Matuska reportedly escaped from jail in Vác in 1944. He was never recaptured and his fate was unknown.

Disappearance during World War II was described with two versions: one had him staying in prison until the Russians came, when he would welcome the soldiers as the last inmate and then disappear; the other had him offering his bombing expertise to the army in November 1942, when the Russians began to push back the fascist invaders, and then disappearing or getting killed on the Eastern Front two years later.

Some people claimed that they met him in the seventies when he re-visited Hungary under a false name, while others speculated that he was taken by the Russians and made to work for them.

Aftermath

In 1990, Matuschka became the subject of a song, Sylvestre Matuschka, by the band Lard.

In 1982, a Hungarian/German TV film based on the case, titled The Viaduct, was broadcast.

A far-right ex-officers’ association was mentioned in connection with speculations of cover or an allowed escape.

Speculation included a theory from right-wing press that Matuschka was a super-secret communist agent, planted by the Soviets into a right-wing background years earlier. It was also described that, in the context of a state of emergency and a crackdown on communists, the two leaders of the communist party were executed while the real culprit’s trial went on in Austria, with eyewitnesses listened to only in a second trial. Misleading anonymous letters praising a “revolution” were mentioned as having left behind by Matuschka or police conspirators in some versions.

The viaduct was described as being disused two-three decades before 1982, when it was used in a spectacular re-creation of the trainwreck for the US-West German-Hungarian movie The Train Killer (Der Fall Matuschka Viadukt), starring Michael Sarrazin.