As a man of outstanding character, Cornelius Hubsch was revered by his fellow soldiers for his strength. However, in 18th-century Europe, the secret that the courageous young man carried was quite perilous. Hundreds of thousands of lives had already been lost during the seven-year War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714), in which Private Hubsch had participated.
During the winter of 1712, the German soldier endured daily agony and starvation, but he was more afraid of the enemy's cannons and swords. Being discovered was Cornelius Hubsch's greatest fear.
Just a few days ago, Hubsch was ordered to run the gauntlet for getting into a fight with fellow Hessian army soldiers. Every member of his company would line up in two rows, and he would have to cautiously make his way between them as they all hit him on the back with sticks.
Just thinking about getting beaten was enough to make Hubsch queasy, but he knew the cop would take off his shirt first, leaving just his back exposed. When it happened, it would be obvious to everyone that Cornelius Hubsch was really a woman.
A Curirass Covers Her Bust
Known as Catharina Margaretha Linck, Cornelius Hubsch came into this world on May 15, 1687. She was born in a small town in eastern Germany, close to Leipzig. It is probable that the church register only used the phrase "a soldier's wife from Erfurt" to describe Linck's mother, who was actually a prostitute, and left her father's identity undisclosed.
After spending her childhood in an orphanage, Catharina got a job making buttons when she was fourteen years old. The motivation for Catharina Linck's decision to assume a male identity once she reached maturity remains a mystery. One possible explanation is that there were more possibilities available to men in life.
Men had more privileges than women, including running the household, holding higher social status, and the ability to make a livelihood as artisans. In Germany's network of autonomous duchies, counties, and kingdoms, men could also enlist as soldiers, and their services were in high demand. In 1701, the War of the Spanish Succession broke out and extended throughout most of Europe. The German states, like the rest of Europe, dispatched mercenaries to fight in this conflict.
To battle France in 1705, Linck enlisted as an infantryman in the army of the Electorate of Hanover and marched to the Netherlands. She embarked with short hair, a musket, and a sword, going by the name of Anastasius Beuerlein.
As a woman, Linck had to be very cunning to hide her gender from the other soldiers in the cramped six-man tents where she lived. She concealed her bust with a cuirass, a sort of breastplate.
Although cuirasses were normally worn by cavalry in the 18th century, Linck asserted that the metal armour shielded her from assailants' gunfire when questioned about it.
Of course, soldiers peed while standing up, and Linck stowed a leather funnel to evade capture. She peed like a man whenever she felt the need to use the funnel, which she inserted into her pants and held against her body at the broad end. Linck went to brothels with her pals and, to keep her identity hidden, brought a leather dildo she had fashioned herself.
She used the leather device to arouse numerous prostitutes when she was a soldier. Later, witnesses who were shocked to hear this testimony stated that she would sometimes travel long distances just to spend all her savings on a gorgeous woman.
Execution Averted by a Priest
Before she became weary of the trials of battle, Linck flawlessly portrayed the character of a hardened soldier for three years. Her bright crimson Hanoverian army clothing made her desert in late May 1708 easy to spot. She was taken into custody and then hanged as a punishment.
Linck felt she had no choice but to come clean about her gender as the dreaded procession to the hangman's noos drew near. With unwavering resolve, she lifted her shirt to reveal her breasts to the priest who had come to say a final prayer for the condemned.
Linck pleaded with the priest in hushed tones, telling him she belonged to a noble family and begging him to promise she would never tell anybody about the shame of her public execution.
The priest was persuaded by the false narrative, who then successfully prevented the execution by appealing to an officer. Linck was released after weeks of being chained. Despite being kicked out of her organization, she was far from finished serving her country. With three other German armies, she returned to the battlefield before the war ended, maybe motivated by financial desperation or a thirst for adventure.
During the last years of the war, she served in the Hessian army as Cornelius Hubsch. A quarrel broke out between her and fellow soldiers from another Hessian company in 1714. She was ordered to run the gauntlet as a penalty for causing a disturbance. In order to conceal her gender, Linck escaped before the punishment could be administered.
Union and Public Disclosure
Following the conclusion of the war in 1715, Linck took on the persona of an artisan and went door-to-door as a printer and dyer. She made Halberstadt, a trading post between Hanover and Berlin, her permanent home in 1717. She started creating Halberstadt's famous stockings under the name Anastasius Lagrantius Rosenstengel.
There, Linck crossed paths with Catharina Mühlhahn, a 19-year-old. It was love at first sight between the young man and the dashing craftsman. They were wed on September 12, 1717, a few months later, at Halberstadt's St. Paul's Church. At initially, the couple got along famously, but problems with Linck's mother-in-law surfaced after a while.
The widow Mühlhahn pushed her daughter for information about her husband's sexual abilities because she was desperate for grandchildren. The pair lied to Catharina, saying she was pregnant, so she would be satisfied. Then, they seemed to be sad when they said Catharina had miscarried. This trickery was perpetrated by them three times.
The marital status declined as disagreements regarding finances escalated. Linck went so far as to sell her wife's wedding trousseau, making 80 Reichsthalers—equivalent to one month's salary for a German government official.
When word got around Halberstadt that two ladies were married illegally, Linck and his wife ran away. They begged and worked odd jobs to get by for a few years while they hit the road. On occasion, they went back to see Linck's mother-in-law, who became more forceful in her demands for evidence of Linck's manhood.
The widow questioned Linck one night after she had gotten her drunk. A leather funnel was used by Linck to pee on her. Another quick getaway was caused by this.
The Death Penalty
Linck eventually gave her wife back to her mother since she couldn't maintain her anymore. By the time Linck went to Halberstadt to see how Catharina was doing, her mother-in-law had had enough. She determined that her son-in-law was a woman after attacking Linck and removing her pants with the help of a powerful acquaintance. In her wrath, the widow took Linck's funnel and leather dildo and swarmed to the courthouse to press indecent charges.
Because sodomy (sexual relations between members of the same sex) was a capital offense, the accusation was serious. Court documents show that Linck's wife claimed ignorance of her husband's biological gender on the grounds that she was too young and innocent to understand better.
Because they had sexual encounters with what the record called "an inanimate leather object," the court also had to deal with the fact that their relationship did not include physical intimacy in the biblical sense.
The matter was referred to King Frederick William I of Prussia for a lenient sentence of three years in jail followed by exile, as the court had already deferred the judgment.
But Linck was spared no leniency. She burnt her corpse after being beheaded on November 7, 1721. A notation was written to the marriage registry by the priest at St. Paul's Church, where Linck and Catharina were married:
"The mentioned groom is actually an immoral woman who has committed obvious transgressions and sins."