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Herman Karl Lamm (April 19, 1890 – December 16, 1930〔(World War One Draft Registration Card )〕), known as Baron Lamm, was a German bank robber. He is widely considered one of the most brilliant and efficient bank robbers to have ever lived, and has been described as "the father of modern bank robbery". Lamm's techniques were studied and imitated by other bank robbers across the country, including the infamous John Dillinger. A former Prussian Army soldier who immigrated to the United States, Lamm believed a heist required all the planning of a military operation. He pioneered the concepts of meticulously "casing" a bank and developing escape routes before conducting the robbery. Using a meticulous planning system called "The Lamm Technique", he conducted dozens of successful bank robberies from the end of World War I until 1930, when Lamm committed suicide when surrounded by a law-enforcement party in Sidell, Illinois, after a botched heist. ==Criminal career== Lamm was a member of the Prussian Army, but was forced out of his regiment after he was caught cheating at cards.〔 After he was discredited, Lamm emigrated to the United States shortly before the outbreak of World War I in 1914. Lamm became a holdup man, and quickly started adapting his military training, his study of tactics, and his precision and discipline into the art of crime. He theorized that a heist required all the planning of a military operation, which included the development of contingency options in the event of unforeseen problems.〔〔 Bank robberies in the United States were largely improvised at the time, resulting in varied degrees of success and failure among heists. Lamm sought to take the guesswork out of bank robbing. Lamm was arrested in 1917 after a botched holdup and served a brief stint in a Utah prison, where he developed what became known as "The Lamm Technique",〔 in which he pioneered the concept of "casing" banks.〔 The system involved carefully studying a target bank for many hours before the robbery, developing a detailed floor plan, noting the location of safes, taking meticulous notes and establishing escape routes.〔〔 Lamm assigned each gang member a specific job, along with a specific zone of the bank they were charged with surveying and a strict timetable to complete their stage of the robbery.〔〔〔 Among the jobs he assigned to his fellow robbers were the lookout, the getaway driver, the lobby man and the vault man.〔 He also put his men through a series of rehearsals, some of which involved using a full-scale mock-up of the interior of the bank. Lamm stressed the importance of timing during these practice runs, and used stopwatches to ensure the proper results were achieved. He only allowed his gang members to stay in a bank for a specific period of time, regardless of how much money they could steal.〔〔 Lamm is also credited with devising the first detailed bank robbery getaway maps, which he called "gits". Once Lamm targeted a bank, he mapped the nearby back roads, which he called "cat roads," to a tenth of a mile.〔 He meticulously developed getaway plans for each of his robberies. Before every heist, Lamm obtained a nondescript car with a high-powered engine, and often recruited drivers who had been involved in auto racing. Lamm pasted a chart on the dashboard for the driver, which included block-by-block markings of escape routes, alternate turns and speedometer readings. Before each run, Lamm and the getaway driver clocked each route to the second under various weather conditions.〔〔 Practice runs on the escape routes and alternative routes would take days to master.〔 Using this system, Lamm and his gang conducted dozens of successful bank robberies from the end of World War I to 1930, taking more than $1 million in total.〔〔〔 They were considered the most efficient gang of bank robbers of the era.〔 Lamm had several run-ins with the authorities, using several aliases. After he and an accomplice were arrested in Finley County, North Carolina in February, 1927, Lamm's past came up when police discovered previous criminal suspicion. In a bond hearing to determine Lamm's fate (he was using the alias "Robert J. Masden" at the time), evidence showed that he was arrested in San Francisco in December 1914 (under his actual name), on a charge of robbery, but there was no known disposition of the case. Also under his real name, he was arrested in Superior, Wisconsin in June, 1918 under suspicion of being connected with a hold-up. He was told to leave the city after no connection could be established. He was arrested under the alias "Harry K. Lamb" in Kansas City, Missouri in July 1918, but was released. And as "Thomas Bell", he was arrested in St. Joseph, Missouri in December, 1920, on a charge of burglary.〔Winston-Salem (NC)Journal, Friday, February 25, 1927, Page: 2〕 This was the alias he was originally identified as upon his death in 1930. In May, 1929, Lamm was arrested in Benton, Illinois, and it was discovered he was a suspect in robbery of the Northwestern National Bank of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.〔Morning Star (Rockford, IL), Wednesday, May 15, 1929, p.13〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Herman Lamm」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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