Dominic Lawson: There are no lessons to be learned from the Fritzl case – it remains simply inexplicable

"We are going to examine every aspect of Josef Fritzl's life, so that we can try to understand why he committed this terrible crime." This was the exquisitely well-intentioned official comment of the Austrian police team now investigating how Mr Fritzl was able to imprison his daughter Elisabeth in a cellar for 24 years, during which time she bore him seven children, three of whom had spent their entire lives incarcerated in this specially constructed sound-proofed vault.

The Austrian police could spend an eternity on the Fritzl case, but I am certain that they will never "understand why he committed this terrible crime". In fact, it's impossible even to imagine the set of events or circumstances which, linked together, would enable anyone to say: "Ah, now I understand why Mr Fritzl behaved in this fashion!" Or, to put it another way, if such an "explanation" did exist, we would not be able to understand it.

Josef Fritzl's behaviour was so extreme, so outside the norms of our common human experience, that we could be confident that no other person would do as he did, even if that person's upbringing and early adult life had mirrored exactly the circumstances of Mr Fritzl's own existence. Indeed, it is the extremity and inexplicability of Josef Fritzl's behaviour that compels our attention. If we could understand it, our curiosity would be rapidly quelled.

Of course this does not stop us all trying in our amateurish way to emulate the efforts of the Austrian police – quite the contrary. The popular favourite in this country (not surprisingly) is that it's all to do with Adolf Hitler. It goes something like this. Hitler was Austrian. Many Austrians were involved in organising the Holocaust; but after the war they pretended to be victims of the Nazis, when they were really accomplices. This shows that they are a people unusually gifted at committing terrible crimes while retaining respectability. Josef Fritzl was a child during the war and was therefore somehow infected with this; meanwhile, his suburban neighbours did nothing to stop his terrible deeds, so they are all guilty too – and by extension the whole country.

Well, it's absolutely true that far too many Austrians under Nazi rule displayed an enthusiasm for brutal anti-Semitism which left the Germans looking like amateurs; however, as a heap of innuendo piled upon non sequitur, this explanation for what went on in a basement in Amstetten takes some beating. Yet quite serious writers have proposed something along these lines with every appearance of sincerity.

They have been given some support by Natascha Kampusch, the Austrian teenager who was herself imprisoned for eight years in a basement as a "sex slave". Ms Kampusch told the BBC's Newsnight that what had happened in Amstetten was somehow linked with the legacy of National Socialism; but she at least acknowledged at the same time the absolute particularity of the Fritzl case.

The coincidence of these two basement horrors within 18 months of each other has clearly convinced people across the world that – well, that it isn't a coincidence. This has naturally sent the Austrian political establishment into paroxysms of national self-exculpation.

The country's President Heinz Fischer declared that "There is nothing fundamentally Austrian in this case. Monstrosities, of which human beings are capable, manifest themselves everywhere" – an entirely reasonable comment, which of course has only added to the suspicion that this is an entire country with something to hide.

The Austrian Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer went further, angrily accusing the foreign media of "an international campaign of slander. There is no Amstetten case. There is no Austrian case. There is only an isolated case". Chancellor Gusenbauer said that his government would now hire consultants to provide a campaign "to rectify Austria's image". This mixture of rage and PR is exactly how not to impress the neighbours, unfortunately. Still, we can all look forward to the advertising that might emerge: "Austria, land of lakes and edelweiss, and nothing to worry about in the basement." Or: "The hills are not alive with the sound of incest."

Even this, however, would be better than an imitation of what the politicians of this country have done, following bizarre crimes of similar inexplicability. As a result of the murders by Dr Harold Shipman, the Government has in effect demanded that every doctor in the country must demonstrate that he (or indeed, she) is not likely to execute all their elderly patients. Even the briefest locum appointment must now be referred to the Criminal Records Bureau, notorious for the ponderousness of its paperwork.

A friend of mine told me how his wife – a doctor – was compelled to submit to two CRB investigations within a couple of days, because she applied for a locum position through two different agencies. How likely is it, he asked me, that a 58-year-old woman doctor would have committed a crime – and been detected – the day after the previous application? More to the point, he said, this system would not prevent another Dr Shipman, even supposing that such a person were to exist.

The truth is that these post hoc procedures, usually entrusted to sprawling multi-regional bureaucracies, are invented so that the politicians can tell the public that they have acted to "ensure that something like this can never happen again". But, of course, it can – only next time with the paperwork in order and all boxes ticked.

Austria, in fact, is already a highly regulated country. Social welfare workers had visited the Fritzl home on 21 separate occasions. The three visible children from his incestuous relationship with his daughter had been adopted under all the proper procedures, according to the chief executive of the region, who said he had the documents to prove it. The underground bunker – which had in fact been specifically designed by Fritzl for the purpose of imprisoning his daughter – was constructed in full accordance with all building regulations; fire safety inspectors had approved the incinerator which had been used to dispose of one of the children.

Even the most efficient bureaucracy can not detect what is going on in a man's mind, or what his motives are. No, the only way that Josef Fritzl's crimes could have been discovered earlier would have been through the detection of neighbours. Those neighbours are, by all accounts, now miserably asking themselves what they could have done – showing a sensitivity that perhaps might have been emulated (if only for appearance's sake) by their country's leaders.

It is easy now for those at a safe distance to blame those neighbours for not trying to work out why Josef Fritzl seemed to buy many more groceries than his visible family would need; or for not questioning why he warned lodgers never to try to go into the basement; or for not wondering where his missing daughter was, all those years. I don't blame them; when the truth is so bizarre, so depraved, so inexplicable, it is only human not to understand.

d.lawson@independent.co.uk

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