"Without my Lumpi I would be dead today"

Lonely like Robinson Crusoe, 75-year-old pensioner Josef Günthör lives in his “Fischerhäusel” on an island in the Danube meadows near Regensburg in Germany. On August 31, 1971, lightning flashed across the landscape. The old man is sitting with his Spitz "Lumpi" having lunch while the rain is pelting on the roof. But there is another noise, it sounds like a whistle. Alarmed, Günthör steps out into the windowless anteroom.

"Is anyone there?" he asks into the darkness.

No answer - a gasping breath...then a creeping step that gets closer and closer. And suddenly a hand clutches the old man's neck. A terrible ax blow hits his skull and Günthör falls to his knees. As if in a fog, he recognizes the figure of a young man. 

"What, what..."  he gasps. 

"Give me the money, or I'll kill you!"

The old man raises his arms imploringly: "I don't have money, please believe me."

But the teenager above him shows no mercy. He beats him with the ax until there is only a whimpering bundle in front of him. He wants to strike again, but at that moment the pensioner's dog pounces on him, bites into his leg and sinks its sharp teeth deep into his hands, so that the man screams in pain. Even when the edge of the ax leaves a bloody furrow across his muzzle, Lumpi doesn't give up. The unbelievable happens, the 16-year-old criminal runs away. 

The dog and his master stay behind, Lumpi licks the bloody face of the unconscious man. Four hours later, a farmer comes by and finds the old man. The life of the seriously injured can be saved in the hospital. 

"I needed money and thought that someone that old couldn't defend themselves," Udo Ammann later said in court. However, he hadn't taken two things into account: the unconditional loyalty of a dog to his master and the tenacious defense of a German Spitz.