60 years after a tourist stole it from the cathedral, he sent it back

“It’s not something you expect,” says Franz Zehetner, who opened a package addressed to St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna to find a skull inside.

The cathedral archivist admits he was surprised by the package, but there was a letter of explanation next to the skull.

A man in northern Germany said he stole the skull as a young tourist about 60 years ago and now wants it back.

He had taken it while on a guided tour of the catacombs under St Stephen, which contain the remains of around 11,000 people buried in the 18th century.

In his letter, the tourist with a guilty conscience describes how he wanted to come to terms with himself as he neared the end of his life.

“After his clarification of the matter, it was touching that someone wanted to make amends for an act of youthful exuberance,” Franz Zehetner told the BBC. “Also that he carefully preserved the skull over the years – even if it wasn’t according to the rules – rather than casually getting rid of it.”

It is not clear whose skull the tourist took with him all those years ago and is now reburied.

Although many of the remains date back to a 40-year period in the 18th century, members of high-ranking Viennese families were also buried under the cathedral earlier.