{"id":1789696,"date":"2020-11-25T08:27:35","date_gmt":"2020-11-25T13:27:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/?p=1789696"},"modified":"2020-11-25T08:27:35","modified_gmt":"2020-11-25T13:27:35","slug":"germanys-elusive-map-thief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2020\/11\/germanys-elusive-map-thief\/","title":{"rendered":"Germany’s Elusive Map Thief"},"content":{"rendered":"

Writing at Atlas Obscura<\/em>, Jeffrey Arlo Brown has the frustrating story of a German map thief<\/a>\u2014the extraordinarily slippery eel Norbert Schild\u2014and the decades-long attempts by librarians to catch him, or when caught convict him, or when released stop him from stealing again.<\/p>\n

All over Germany, librarians waited for the Bonn state prosecutor\u2019s investigation to proceed. But they never filed charges against Schild. The evidence was largely circumstantial: While libraries could show that Schild used the damaged books, they couldn\u2019t necessarily prove that he was the one cutting out the pages. A search warrant executed at Schild\u2019s home on November 22, 2002, turned up \u201ctools of the trade,\u201d such as bibliographies and lists of historical materials at Germany libraries, but no actual stolen maps. Prosecutors in Bonn were busy, and the stakes may have seemed low\u2014old books, not human lives. The charges in Trier\u2014where Schild was caught red-handed\u2014were dropped due to negligibility, after damages were estimated at just \u20ac500. A spokesman for the prosecutor\u2019s office in Bonn declined to comment.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Astonishing. [Tony Campbell<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Writing at Atlas Obscura, Jeffrey Arlo Brown has the frustrating story of a German map thief\u2014the extraordinarily slippery eel Norbert Schild\u2014and the decades-long attempts by librarians to catch him, or when caught convict him, or… More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"link","meta":{"autoblue_enabled":true,"autoblue_custom_message":"","autoblue_shares":[],"autoblue_post_url":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[283,282,48,264],"class_list":["post-1789696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-link","hentry","category-antique-maps","tag-austria","tag-germany","tag-libraries","tag-map-thefts","post_format-post-format-link"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1350,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2016\/03\/apologetic-thief-returns-maps-to-msu\/","url_meta":{"origin":1789696,"position":0},"title":"Apologetic Thief Returns Maps to MSU","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"29 March 2016","format":"link","excerpt":"Michigan State University's Map Library received an anonymous package in the mail yesterday .\u00a0.\u00a0. https:\/\/twitter.com\/MSUMapLib\/status\/714522099277303810 There's a story here, and it'll almost certainly never be told.","rel":"","context":"In "Antique Maps"","block_context":{"text":"Antique Maps","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/antique-maps\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5780,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2014\/05\/review-the-map-thief\/","url_meta":{"origin":1789696,"position":1},"title":"Review: The Map Thief","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"29 May 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"E. Forbes Smiley III was a well-known and well-connected map dealer, an expert who helped build the Slaughter and Leventhal map collections. Then in 2005 he was caught\u2014on videotape\u2014stealing maps from Yale University's Beinecke Library. Libraries he had frequented scrambled to check their own holdings and found additional maps missing.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Antique Maps"","block_context":{"text":"Antique Maps","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/antique-maps\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/the-map-thief-199x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":781,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2016\/02\/the-stolen-champlain-maps-return-to-the-boston-public-library\/","url_meta":{"origin":1789696,"position":2},"title":"The Stolen Champlain Map’s Return to the Boston Public Library","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"9 February 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"After Forbes Smiley was sentenced to 3\u00bd years in prison for stealing nearly 100 maps from\u00a0a number of different libraries,\u00a0and maps\u00a0were returned to the libraries he stole them from,\u00a0there were still some\u00a0missing pieces to the puzzle. There were maps in Smiley's possession that had not been claimed; there were\u00a0maps missing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Antique Maps"","block_context":{"text":"Antique Maps","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/antique-maps\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"champlain-map","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/champlain-map-1024x600.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/champlain-map-1024x600.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/champlain-map-1024x600.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/champlain-map-1024x600.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5777,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2014\/05\/a-book-about-forbes-smiley\/","url_meta":{"origin":1789696,"position":3},"title":"A Book About the Forbes Smiley Affair","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"15 May 2014","format":"link","excerpt":"In 2005 and 2006 my map blog, The Map Room, was full of posts about one E. Forbes Smiley III, who had been caught stealing rare maps from the Beinecke Library at Yale University. As is often the case with map thieves, Smiley was found to be responsible for many\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Antique Maps"","block_context":{"text":"Antique Maps","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/antique-maps\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1300,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2016\/03\/talking-about-map-thefts\/","url_meta":{"origin":1789696,"position":4},"title":"Talking About Map Thefts","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"22 March 2016","format":"link","excerpt":"Here's a profile of Thomas Durrer, the University of Virginia detective assigned to the Gilbert Bland map theft case, in the spring 2016 issue of\u00a0Virginia, the university's alumni magazine. [via] Bland's career predated Forbes Smiley's (he lacked Smiley's ostensible pedigree) and was the focus of\u00a0Miles Harvey\u2019s 2000 book\u00a0The Island of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Antique Maps"","block_context":{"text":"Antique Maps","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/antique-maps\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"map-thief","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/map-thief-99x150.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1835443,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2024\/12\/online-exhibition-introduces-cincinnati-librarys-map-holdings\/","url_meta":{"origin":1789696,"position":5},"title":"Online Exhibition Introduces Cincinnati Library\u2019s Map Holdings","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"20 December 2024","format":"link","excerpt":"Plan of Cincinnati and Vicinity (S. Augustus Mitchell, 1860). Map, 24\u00d725 cm. CHPL. How many libraries host map collections that you might be unaware of? The Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library\u2019s online exhibition, Landscape and Layers, is an introduction to that library\u2019s map holdings, which per the blog post\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Antique Maps"","block_context":{"text":"Antique Maps","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/antique-maps\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/plan-cincinnati-1860.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/plan-cincinnati-1860.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/plan-cincinnati-1860.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/plan-cincinnati-1860.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/plan-cincinnati-1860.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/plan-cincinnati-1860.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1789696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1789696"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1789696\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1789699,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1789696\/revisions\/1789699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1789696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1789696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1789696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}