Greta Bünichmann

Greta Bünichmann (* before 1621 in Altenroxel ; † June 23, 1635 ) was a maid and a victim of the witch trials in Münster .

Life

Greta Bünichmann lived in Münster from 1621 and worked for seven years in the household of the horse dealer Hermann Grotenhoff and his wife Catharina. Greta Bünichmann's father had died. Her mother had been burned as a "witch" ten years earlier. Blood relatives of people accused of witchcraft were particularly at risk of ending up at the stake themselves.

Witch trials in Münster

Greta Bünichmann was one of the 41 people who were indicted by the city council in the witch hunts in Münster between 1552 and 1646. 29 witch trials took place in the episcopal city, in which married couples or siblings were brought to justice. Only women were executed, five "confessed witches" and one other woman. Three died under torture. The trials accumulated in the years 1627–1635. Xenophobia played a particularly clear role, because all of the defendants, including Greta Bünichmann, were immigrants and they belonged to the lower social classes, who lacked family protection. It was easy to make these people scapegoats for disease, disaster, and inexplicable events.

Witch trial against Greta Bünichmann

Greta Bünichmann was arrested on May 24, 1635. The charge was, among other things, damaging sorcery . The employer couple had killed 29 horses in a row in the past seven years. Greta was blamed for this. In addition, according to a further charge, the child who slept in the same bed with Bünichmann woke up in the morning with scratch marks. These allegedly came from the maid Greta, who turned into the "devil animal" cat at night. In addition, Greta healed an unusual illness in the man by the laying on of hands. In addition, the maid interrupted one of the employers' children while praying the Our Father. Bünichmann was able to refute all of these points. She had been chased from Grotenhoff's house because of the death of two horses, and she was innocent of the accident itself. The animals were rubbed too heavily with rat weed because of Schorff's . Grotenhoff's illness bothered him even before she started work, and his wife called her to him. The child was injured as follows: the child snored heavily when she pulled her hand from her mouth. On that occasion she had scratched it with her long, uncut nails.

During her first interrogation under torture on June 5, she continued to plead her innocence: say and shout out that violence and injustice are happening to her . Only then did she confess under pressure. She was promised mitigating circumstances. At the end of the trial, she was also charged with the death of one of her employer's children.

The protocol of the witch trial reveals the motive of their employers to report Greta: They owed Greta Brünichmann a considerable amount of money for the purchase of horses and were able to get rid of these debts through the witch trial. Apparently the Grotenhoffs were also in need of money elsewhere. The couple had been sued before the council for high debts.

Greta Bünichmann was executed on June 23, 1635. The extenuating circumstances were that she was beheaded, not burned alive. Greta Bünichmann was executed on the "Galgenheide" at the gates of Münster. It was the last judgment due to witchcraft in Munster.

Commemoration

To commemorate her fate, in 1994, despite violent protests from residents, the local pastor and a letter war to the editor, the Greta-Bünichmann-Strasse in the new building area "Zum Guten Hirten" was named after her.

literature

• Sabine Alfing: witch hunt and magic trials in Münster. How to deal with scapegoats in the times of crisis in the 16th and 17th centuries . Waxmann, Münster 1991, ISBN 978-3-8309-5287-9 , pp. 62–65 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
• Sabine Alfing: The "Witches" of Münster - A look at the biographies and the social embedding of the victims , in: Marielies Saatkamp u. a .: Van Hexen un Düvelslüden, About witches, sorcery and superstition in the Dutch-German border area , Vreden, Landeskundliches Institut Westmünsterland, 1995, pp. 63–74

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Sabine Alfing: The "Witches" of Münster - A look at the biographies and the social embedding of the victims , in: Marielies Saatkamp u. a .: Van Hexen un Düvelslüden, About witches, sorcery and superstition in the Dutch-German border area , Vreden, Landeskundliches Institut Westmünsterland, 1995, p. 63ff
2. ↑ Galgenheide Münster
3. ↑ Münster City Council decided to name a street in Münster after Greta Bünichmann ( memento of the original from December 8, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.