Berlin host abuse trial

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Berlin Hostienschänderprozess was against in the Mark Brandenburg resident Jews led process , which host desecration and infanticide was assumed. As a result, 39 Jews were sentenced to death by fire and burned on July 6, 1510, two others died under the sword after previous baptism . 60 imprisoned Jews had to leave the country later in the year after they had committed the original feud .

Historical background

In the Berlin host abuse trial in 1510 , the Jews resident in the Mark Brandenburg were charged with host crime and child murder . The reason for this was the break-in of Knoblauch's church and the associated theft of a gold-plated monstrance and two consecrated hosts . The alleged perpetrator, Paul Fromm from Bernau - sometimes mentioned as a tinker , another time as a boiler maker - is said to have stolen a monstrance and a host box with two consecrated hosts from the Knoblaucher chapel. After his arrest, Fromm reported under torture that he had sold the majority of the hosts to the Jew Salomon from Spandau. In the process that followed, around 100 suspected Jews were brought to Berlin. They were not only accused of host desecration - they should have tried parts of a consecrated host into their matzos einzubacken - but also the torturing and murder of seven Christians children.

A pamphlet reported on the alleged host sacrilege in the village of Knobloch:

"But Solomon, the judge, put the noble Sacrament on a corner of aine table / on it out of ugly, Jewish, pissed off nedt / mermals hawen / stung / but he didn't have to get over it / bit so long that he moved to anger / and under vil other impetuous words cursed / and said: Bistu der Cristen got / so tell you in a thousand devil names. On the hour from the stitch / the helig fronlechnam Cristi / wonderfully in drej tail […] tailed himself. So / that the local [= places] were blood-colored. "

The Jews were stylized as hateful envious of the Christian faith who tampered with the consecrated host in vain. As an immediate answer to the Jewish curse, the host is said to have miraculously split up and discolored. The confession of such wondrous stories was mostly extracted from individual Jews under torture. The “discovered” so-called “pieces of evidence” were exhibited in the Brandenburg Cathedral , but the response from the faithful was less than the clergy had hoped for.

On July 6, 1510, 39 Jews were burned as a result of the trial , and two more were beheaded after prior baptism . Paul Fromm also died by fire after being led through Berlin and Cölln and torn with red-hot pliers . 60 Jews still in custody had to leave the Mark Brandenburg in the course of the year after they had committed the original feud .

The Berlin trial coincided in numerous details with the Sternberg host abuse trial of 1492.

Political Consequences

The process was followed by a major persecution of Jews , as a result of which all Jews were expelled from the Mark Brandenburg. Historians who studied the event gave various reasons for this. After the Jews were expelled, many Jewish gravestones were placed in the foundations of the Spandau Citadel, which was under construction at the time . From 1511 to 1535 there were no more Jews living in the Mark. By expelling the Jews, the estates got rid of their creditors, who had already demanded the expulsion of the Jews from the elector in 1503. The estates are said to have demanded from the Elector that the Jews should leave the country on Michael’s Day , September 29th. It is not known whether the electors issued an order to this effect, but not really. Because in 1509 the letters of protection for 30 Jews were extended or reissued for a limited period of 3 years. These 30 Jews lived in Stendal , Gardelegen , Salzwedel , Seehausen , Werben , Tangermünde , Havelberg , Kyritz , Pritzwalk , Perleberg , Lenzen , Brandenburg an der Havel , Nauen and Cottbus . It is assumed that around 400 to 500 Jews lived in the Mark Brandenburg at that time, who had the privilege of running money-lending businesses, that is, unlike the Christians, they were allowed to lend money against interest . Their interest was limited to 2 pfennigs for 1 guilder a week. They were also allowed to trade, buy meat and bathe . The permission to have a rabbi who, in addition to his religious activity, was also supposed to settle disputes among the Jews as a judge, had to be bought additionally.

Only after the death of I. Elector Joachim 1535 was Jews from Poland the visit of open fairs in the Neumark by its new rulers Hans von Küstrin allowed in 1539 then the opening was followed by the entire market for trading by the Elector Joachim II. , Who from 1543 took Jews back into the march, including his Jewish court servant Michael, who was both a servant and a loyal to him . Michael and his wife Merle both lived in Frankfurt (Oder) and also owned two houses in Berlin. The reason for the admission of the Jews can be found in the great debt burden after the unsuccessful Turkish campaign . Martin Luther was an opponent of the admission of the Jews, he warns the elector of the "Jewish sneak" and rejects their admission. In 1555 the Elector Joachim II stated that the Christians were now “masters of the Jews” in forbidden coinage, usury and other unseemly trade. The cities, however, contradicted this and said that the usury of Christians was not so harmful, since after all they did not take pledges, but only required prescriptions or guarantees.

The Jew Lippold was declared the highest overseer of all Brandenburg Jews on January 20, 1556 for a period of 10 years. Lippold, who came from Prague, came to the market around 1550. It was Lippold's job to check all letters of protection and safe conduct and to check the mints. He had to report any violations immediately. Elector Joachim II died on the night of January 2nd to 3rd, 1571, his son and successor, Elector Johann Georg , had the Jews of Frankfurt (Oder) and Berlin arrested immediately on January 3rd, 1571. Lippold was arrested and executed on January 28, 1573. The synagogue on Klosterstrasse in Berlin was destroyed in the course of unrest that broke out as a result of the renewed persecution of the Jews. In 1573, like 62 years earlier, the Jews had to leave the Mark Brandenburg, most of them moved to Poland and Bohemia.

Another 100 years would pass before Jews again settled in the Mark after the end of the Thirty Years' War . When the general privilege was issued in 1750 , there were 4,716 Jews in Brandenburg, 2,188 of them in Berlin.

See also

literature

  • Werner Heise: The Jews in the Mark Brandenburg until 1571 . Publishing house Dr. Emil Ebering, Berlin 1932.
  • Fritz Backhaus : The host desecration trials of Sternberg (1492) and Berlin (1510) and the expulsion of the Jews from Mecklenburg and the Mark Brandenburg. In: Yearbook for Brandenburg State History. 39, pp. 7-26 (1988).
  • Heiko Hesse: The alleged desecration of the host of garlic half a millennium ago. In: Historischer Verein Brandenburg (Havel) e. V. (Ed.): 20th Annual Report 2010–2011. Brandenburg an der Havel 2011, pp. 99-108.
  • Reena Perschke, Andrea Theissen: The fate of the Mark Brandenburg. The desecration of the host of 1510 . In: MuseumsJournal . No. 2, vol. 24, issue April – June 2010 (Berlin 2010) pp. 82–83 ( Academia.edu ).
  • Society for Jewish Family Research: 35-50 Arthur Czellitzer, 1934.
  • Lutz Heydick, Günther Hoppe, Jürgen John: Historical guide. Sites and monuments of history. 1987.
  • Writings of the Association for the History of Berlin , 1886.
  • Bishop Wolfgang: Contributions to the history of the diocese of Regensburg. Volume 28. Regensburg 1994.
  • Martin Krapf: No stone is left unturned . 1999.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Fritz Backhaus: The Desecration of the Hosts of Sternberg (1492) and Berlin (1510) ... 1988, p. 18 with reference to Adolph Friedrich Riedel (ed.): Codex diplomaticus Brandenburgensis . Berlin 1838–1869. III Volume 3. (1861), p. 206 f.
  2. ↑ The reformed quarterly magazine . Published on behalf of the Reformed Federation . 3rd year 2002, No. 3, September 2002
  3. ^ A b Fritz Backhaus: The Desecration of the Hosts of Sternberg (1492) and Berlin (1510) ... 1988, pp. 7-26.
  4. ^ "Original feud that the Jews swore when they were expelled from Churmark for mistreating the Sacrament, from 1510." In: Riedel, Adolph Friedrich (Ed.): Codex diplomaticus Brandenburgensis. Collection of documents, chronicles and other sources for the history of the Mark Brandenburg and its rulers. III Volume 3. Berlin 1861, p. 206. ( digital copies )
  5. ^ Fritz Backhaus: The Desecration of the Hosts of Sternberg (1492) and Berlin (1510) ... 1988, p. 22.
  6. ^ Eckart Elsner: Sweet milk's time in Etzin . In: Berlin monthly magazine ( Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein ) . Issue 9, 1997, ISSN  0944-5560 , p. 11 ( luise-berlin.de ).