German actress and con artist Adelheid (Adele) Spitzeder was BOTD in 1832. Born in Berlin to a theatrical family, she had an itinerant childhood, moving between Munich and Vienna as her widowed mother took various acting engagements. Against her mother’s wishes, she trained as an actress, making a successful professional debut in 1856 and performing across Germany over the next decade. Though talented, she struggled to achieve enduring success, which biographers have attributed to her masculine appearance, love of cigar smoking and rampant lesbianism. By 1869, deep in debt, out of work and with a girlfriend and six dogs to support, she began borrowing money from the working-class poor, promising her clients a 10 percent monthly return on their investment. As her popularity spread, she established her own private bank, and was soon managing a staff of 40. She established what is thought to be the world’s first Ponzi scheme, attracting new lenders to pay her existing clients, publishing her own newspapers to advertise her services and presenting herself as a pious Christian to gain her customers’ trust. Within three years, she was the wealthiest women in Bavaria, amassing a fortune in real estate and artwork. Her bank’s popularity put financial strain on her competitors, and was investigated by the Bavarian government and newspapers. After the scheme collapsed in 1872, she was tried for fraud and embezzlement, but only convicted of bankruptcy fraud and sentenced to four years in prison. Her bank was closed and 32,000 people lost 38 million gulden (the equivalent of €400 million in today’s money), causing many of her destitute former clients to kill themselves. Released from prison in 1876 and stripped of her fortune, her remaining years were spent in poverty, living off the charity of friends and attempting to relaunch her performing career. She published a heavily sanitised memoir in 1878, attempting to blame the failure of her bank on Jewish financiers. Spitzeder had multiple affairs with women throughout her life, and a long-term relationship with actress Emilie Stier. During Spitzeder’s trial, the court noted the intimacy of their relationship, including sharing a bed “breast to breast”. Spitzeder was also infatuated with her young protegé Rosa Ehinger, whom she lavished with gifts and cash payments. (After the trial, Ehinger denied rumours of a romantic relationship and attempted to keep money given her by Spitzeder as “restitution” for the damage to her reputation). In later life, Spitzeder was cared for by her partner Marie Riedmayer. She died in 1895, aged 63. After her death, her parents changed her name to Adele Schmid, to avoid further association with her crimes. She has been portrayed by Ruth Drexel and Birgit Minichmayr in German TV biopics.