Professor Fleischmann

Professor Fleischmann is the main antagonist the German stage play "Hänsel & Gretel" by Franz von Pocchi, what's clearly inspirited by the fairy tale with the same name. In this version, Fleischmann replaces the witch as the main antagonist. He's a naturalist who lives together with his housemaid Katharine. Fleischmann believes that naturalistic experiments are not enough and that you can only know everything about the human anatomy by eating humans.

Appaerance in the stage play
Fleischmann appears first in front of his house after he went on hike for searching, but only found a "Pappilönchen" (a butterfly he's not interested in). When he smells Hansel and Gretel, he forces Katharine to tell him about Hansel and Gretel, then he tells her not to tell the children about his plan to eat them (but Katharine already told them he's a cannibal) and to feed them up while he wants to teach them biology. Moments later, Kasperl Larifari, a journeyman tailor, arrives at Fleischmann's house and is invited by him into the house. Of course, Fleischmann tricks him and puts him and the children into a cage. But because of Kasperl's rage, Fleischmann fears that he could break the cage and promise to drink some wine with him (only to make him drunken). Ironically, Fleischmann becomes drunken himself and falls asleep along with Kasperl. Katharine frees Hansel and Gretel and escapes with them. Later, Fleischmann and Kasperl wake up and Kasperl runs away while Fleischmann chases after him. Finally, Fleischmann falls asleep again in the woods. Kasperl sews his pant legs together and crawls into the same foxhole where Hansel and Gretel already are.

Death
When Fleischmann wakes up and realizes his situation, Peter and Marianne, the parents of Hansel and Gretel, pass (originally with a policeman, who crawled into the foxhole too). When Peter asks him who he is, the cannibal answers to be Professor Fleischmann. Realizing that he's the cannibal Peter and Marianne were told about by the policeman because the police was told about him by Katharine, Peter takes an axe and kills Fleischmann.