Alheit Snur

Alheit Snur (also Schnur Alcken daughter , Aleken daughter or Alheit Fredeken ) (* around 1588 in Godshorn in the Langenhagen office ; † January 8, 1648 at the execution site of the Langenhagen office between Langenhagen and Vahrenwald ) worked from 1641 as a nanny for the doctor Joachim Läger in the Calenberger Neustadt and was charged in 1647 with alleged witchcraft . In 1648 she and another woman became the last victim of the witch hunt in Hanover .

Witch persecutions in Hanover

In Hanover from 1514 to 1647 at least 30 people were indicted in witch trials , of which 27 were executed at the stake or died in prison.

Joachim Läger as an employer

Joachim Läger was born in Hohenhameln in 1603 as the son of the local pastor Johannes Läger, studied medicine and had a total of eight children with his wife Elisabeth von Eltz, daughter of the Braunschweig-Lüneburg governor and bailiff of Burgwedel Ludolf von Eltz († 1626) only one son and two daughters survived the father. Joachim Läger was the personal physician to Duke Georg (Braunschweig-Calenberg) , came to the Calenberger Neustadt as a doctor in 1639 and had a pharmacy there until 1645. After the first suspicion of witchcraft against Alheit Snur at the end of 1646, Läger moved to Braunschweig and received a canonical at the cathedral monastery of St. Blasius . He died here in 1650 at the age of 46.

Witch trial

The trial files against Alheit Snur have not survived, but after the end of the witch trial, Läger published an autobiographical description of his illness about his unusual ailment, including the trial against his former servant. Shortly after Alheit Snur was hired, Joachim Läger fell ill. At first he attributed a natural cause to his illness. After rumors arose which Alheit Snur connected with black magic, he attributed his illness from 1646 to a magical poisoning by means of a black powder, which his nanny had given him with the breakfast. The doctor dismissed Alheit Snur with grave admonitions and withholding part of her wages. She would have “expressed a desire for revenge”, whereupon his illness would have worsened.

Interrogation in a witch trial

After her release in 1646, Alheit Snur moved back to her home village of Godshorn. The investigation against her began in September 1647. She was charged with having conjured up her employer. The process was not led by the Vogteigericht responsible for the Neustadt, but by the neighboring Langenhagen office. The process caused a sensation in the city of Hanover, as it took place in its immediate vicinity and with significant participation by former residents of Calenberger Neustadt. That is why Claudia Kauertz speaks of the last witch execution in the city of Hanover in the Alheit Snur case, even if the trial itself was not conducted by a city court.

According to the Hanoverian Chronicle, after her arrest, Alheit Snur initially submitted to the water test at her own request, which , however, turned out to be unfavorable for her, so the trial was continued. After being tortured twice , she confessed to the magical poisoning of her employer and said that Anna Maria, who was executed after her, was an accomplice. Apart from Joachim Läger, no other persons are named in any of the three sources as victims of the damage spell .

Läger wrote in his Historia : “The witch was already over sixty years old. [...] In her home town of Langenhagen near Hanover, where she was captured and finally burned, she confessed after a potion was found in her house that the devil had given her a black powder [...] which [...] was the cause so great agony. She was asked how this powder could be so strong and permanently effective and why it weakens at such indefinite intervals. […] She consistently and firmly assured that [the disease] had no other cause than the ingestion of that powder and that she had got it from the devil. But when she was more severely attacked and frightened by threats and fear of torture, she declared that it was through the skill of Satan, but how he had achieved this art could not be achieved by harsh words or by the threat of torture be forced. This was also the reason why she was subjected to a second torture and still forced to use the name of a bourgeoisie, through whose intermediary she sometimes put pots in the fire in order to create pain and then take it away again at her will. "

Läger's disease was later interpreted as trigeminal neuralgia .

execution

The witch trial against Alheit Snur ended with her sentencing to death. On January 8, 1648, she was strangled by the Hanoverian executioner Marten Vogt in the area of ​​the execution site of the Langenhagen office between Langenhagen and Vahrenwald, after which her body was burned. Anna Maria, mentioned by Snur, was beheaded and burned on February 16, 1648.

literature

• Friedrich Wilhelm Andreae: Chronicle of the royal seat of Hanover from the oldest times to the present. Hildesheim 1859, pp. 117–125, here p. 124, mentions the burning of Läger's nanny as the last execution of witches in Hanover.
• Clemens Cassel: "A witch trial file from 1547". In: Hannoversche Geschichtsblätter , 2nd year 1899, no. 17, pp. 131–132.
• Gerhard Schormann: witch trials in northwest Germany. Hildesheim 1977.
• Edelgard Prinz: Witches and witch persecution in Lower Saxony cities, shown using the example of Hanover and Hildesheim . Unpublished master's thesis, Hanover 1986.
• Hanover Chronicle: From the beginning to the present. Numbers. Data. Facts . Edited by Klaus Mlynek, Waldemar R. Röhrbein, Hannover 1991, p. 51.
• Claudia Kauertz: The "bewitched" doctor: Dr. Joachim Läger and the last execution of witches in Hanover (1648) . In: Hannoversche Geschichtsblätter , published on behalf of the City of Hanover, editorial: Stadtarchiv Hanover, New Series, Volume 64, 2010, pp. 135–153.
• "Alheit Snur had conjured her employer crooked and frail". In: 700 eventful years . Special edition of the city magazine Langenhagen, February 15, 2012, p. 14.

swell

Witch trial files at the Hanover City Archives, Am Bokemahle 14-16, 30171 Hanover

• AAA 1158 Trial of the Frickesche and the Strackesche for sorcery, 1605
• AAA 1159 Trial of Hertsche and Wisselsche for sorcery, 1605
• AAA 1160 Trial against Heinrich Arndt alias Schwertfeger for sorcery, 1594
• AAA 1170 Trial of the Blumesche for sorcery, 1605
• AAA 1171 Trial against Hille Möllers for sorcery, 1603–1604
• NAB 8186 Protocol book on criminal judgments and sworn primal feuds [= rode boeck], 1477–1566
• Hasperde estate archive (current owner, Sigmund Graf Adelmann von Adelmannsfelden), witch trials, nos. 62 and 63 (V. Fall), complete files and file fragments from seven witch trials between 1638 and 1653
• Joachim Läger: Rari, admirandi et plusquam ferini veneficio illati adfectus Historia. Brunswick 1648
• Report of the theological faculty of the University of Helmstedt dated December 23, 1647, copied from the estate of the Helmstedt theology professor Brandanus Daetrius in the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Library in Hanover

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Claudia Kauertz: The "bewitched" doctor: Dr. Joachim Läger and the last execution of witches in Hanover (1648). In: Hannoversche Geschichtsblätter, ed. on behalf of the state capital Hanover, editorial office: City Archives Hanover, New Volume 64, 2010, pp. 135–153.