Martha Marek was sentenced to death in Vienna in May 1938, after Germany's annexation of Austria that March. Time magazine, reporting the verdict that month, said the court had found that she killed her small daughter, an aunt and the family seamstress in order to collect insurance. Her husband had fallen ill and died in 1932, and the police later concluded, according to the Austrian news magazine News, that he and the other three had all been poisoned with a rat poison that was then easy to buy in Vienna. She was beheaded by guillotine at the Vienna criminal court later in 1938.
Her case drew attention in two decades. In the 1920s she and her husband were at the center of a dispute with insurers after he lost a leg. In the 1930s a run of deaths among people close to her brought her money from life insurance and an inheritance, and she was treated with sympathy as a grieving widow and mother. Suspicion came only when the son of the woman whose home she shared went to the police.
Accounts of her early years are sparse. Women in World History, a biographical reference work, says she was born Martha Löwenstein in Vienna in 1904, grew up poor and was orphaned young. According to that work, a wealthy department store owner, Moritz Fritsch, took her in as his ward, paid for her schooling in France and England and became her lover. When he died she inherited his estate, and in 1924 she married Emil Marek.
The first case to bring the Mareks before the courts concerned Emil Marek's leg. Time reported in 1938 that he had lost the leg about eleven years earlier and that the couple had collected $42,875 in insurance, money intended to pay for an invention he was working on. The invention failed. Time wrote that it had in fact been his wife who caused the injury.
Women in World History gives a different outcome. It says the money from Fritsch had run out, that the couple staged the injury to claim on an accident policy, and that the claim failed. In its account the Mareks were convicted of bribery, not of fraud, and were jailed for four months. The two outcomes cannot both be right, and neither account quotes the judgment in the 1920s case.
Emil Marek fell ill and died in 1932, not long after the failure of his invention, according to Time. News, writing in 2022, says it was this death, in 1932, that began her poisonings. Their daughter, Ingeborg, died soon afterward. Time gave her age as three. No one suspected the mother at the time, News reported, and she received gifts of money from people who pitied her.
In 1934, according to News, an aunt made Martha Marek her sole heir, and the aunt died a short time later. Time named the aunt as Suzanne Loewenstein. Women in World History describes her as a wealthy aunt.
When the inheritance had been spent, News reported, Marek rented a room as a subtenant in the home of a master seamstress and persuaded her landlady to take out life insurance naming Marek as the beneficiary. The landlady then died. News names her as Felicitas Kittenberger; Time, in 1938, called her Anna Kittenberger, the family seamstress. In Time's words, the deaths of the daughter, the aunt and the seamstress followed in fairly rapid succession, and Martha Marek was present each time.
The seamstress's son grew suspicious about his mother's death and reported it to the police, according to News. Women in World History adds that Marek had also reported a number of insured paintings stolen, and that a detective, Ignatz Peters, found the paintings hidden in a warehouse. In its account this false claim was what led investigators to look again at the deaths around her.
According to Women in World History, the bodies were exhumed and thallium was found. News reports that the police established that all four of the dead, her husband, her daughter, her aunt and the seamstress, had been poisoned with the paste, which was sold under the name Zelio. Women in World History records that her son was found to have been poisoned as well and that he survived.
Marek was tried in Vienna in 1938 and maintained her innocence, according to Women in World History, which says that the testimony of a chemist who had sold her the poison helped to convict her. Time reported the judgment in its issue of May 30, 1938, saying the court had ruled the week before. It described the judge as a Nazi and said she was sentenced to death. Germany had annexed Austria in March 1938.
Time's report names the deaths the court attributed to her as those of her daughter, her aunt and the seamstress, all carried out, in its words, to collect insurance. Its report does not say whether her husband's death formed part of the verdict. News describes the case as involving all four deaths.
Marek was beheaded by guillotine at the Vienna criminal court, the Landesgericht, in 1938, News reported. Capital Punishment UK, a site that documents executions, gives the date as December 6, 1938, and says it is thought that she was the last woman put to death in Austria for murder after an ordinary jury trial. The same site estimates that about 100 women were executed by German executioners in Vienna and Graz between 1938 and 1945.
The Vienna criminal court became one of the main places of execution in Nazi-ruled Austria.
Several points about her life and case differ between accounts, and some remain uncertain.
Her year of birth, 1904, comes from Women in World History; the reports on her trial do not give it.
The outcome of the leg case is in dispute. Time in 1938 said the couple had collected the insurance; Women in World History says the claim failed and that they were convicted of bribery and served four months.
Her daughter's age, three, is given by Time; Women in World History does not state it.
The seamstress's first name is Anna in Time's 1938 report and Felicitas in News's 2022 article. Their accounts of the living arrangement differ as well: News says Marek rented a room in the seamstress's home, while Time calls the woman the family seamstress.
Whether her husband's death formed part of the 1938 conviction is not clear. Time's report of the verdict lists the daughter, the aunt and the seamstress. News reports that police found all four deaths were poisonings.
The poisoning of her son, and his survival, are recorded by Women in World History but were not mentioned in Time's 1938 report.
1904: born Martha Löwenstein in Vienna, according to Women in World History.
1924: marries Emil Marek (Women in World History).
Mid 1920s: Emil Marek loses a leg; a dispute with insurers follows. Time later reports that the couple collected $42,875; Women in World History says the claim failed and that both were convicted of bribery and served four months.
1932: Emil Marek dies. Their daughter, Ingeborg, dies soon afterward.
1934: an aunt who had made Martha Marek her heir dies (News).
Mid 1930s: the seamstress in whose home Marek rented a room, who had taken out life insurance in Marek's favor, dies. Her son goes to the police (News).
Mid 1930s: Marek reports insured paintings stolen; a detective finds them hidden (Women in World History).
Before the 1938 trial: exhumations (Women in World History); police conclude that four people were poisoned (News). Her son is found poisoned and survives (Women in World History).
March 1938: Germany annexes Austria.
May 1938: a Vienna court sentences her to death (Time, May 30, 1938).
December 6, 1938: executed by guillotine at the Vienna criminal court (date per Capital Punishment UK; place per News).