Atrocities from Wildensbuch

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The events surrounding the death of the two Wildensbuch sisters Margaretha Peter and Elisabetha Peter, daughters of Johannes Peter, a farmer in the Zurich village of Wildensbuch (today a district of Trüllikon ), entered the literature as atrocities from Wildensbuch or, for short, atrocities from Wildensbuch . The two sisters were killed in March 1823 by members of a charismatic religious group to which they themselves belonged. Margaretha Peter, the leader of the group, was crucified at her own request .

The group in Wildensbuch, which was part of a pietistic network, was in an increasingly acute conflict with the Zurich authorities. With her propagation of celibacy and avoidance of secular work, Margaretha Peter went on a direct course of confrontation with the interests and views of the authorities and questioned the established social order. Presumably at the beginning of the 1820s, the authorities slowly increased the pressure on the community in Wildensbuch. The meetings in the house of Johannes Peter were made more difficult by the police and finally banned in 1821.

On March 13, 1823, the group met again in the Wildensbuch farmer's house. Its members started chopping on wooden blocks, which caused a large crowd to gather in front of the house because of the noise. To what extent the members of the community felt threatened by the curiosity of the outsider is difficult to assess. Margaretha Peter described the people in front of her father's house as the devil's army. Finally, the authorities were forced to intervene.

Landjäger (police) under the direction of the chief magistrate from Andelfingen dissolved the meeting in the Peter's house. Some of those present were called up for interrogation.

On Friday evening, March 14th, Margaretha Peter again called on the people still present to come to the upper chamber, whereupon they prayed there all night and fought against Satan on the instructions of their leader. During the night Elisabetha Peter and her sister Margaretha were killed by the people gathered in the house. The latter had previously been crucified at her own request.

The events surrounding the death of the two sisters can be understood with the heuristic model of David Bromley as "Dramatic Denouement" as the "dramatic decline" of a charismatically led religious group. A conglomerate of various cultural and social, as well as exogenous and endogenous factors, was ultimately responsible for the escalation in March 1823 and the outbreak of violence. Following the David Bromley model, the latent tensions in the relationship between the authorities and the Wildensbuch community led to repressive pressure from the authorities and to an intensifying conflict that resulted in a final settlement, a "dramatic denouement", which the Authorities concluded with so-called "sealing acts". The self-sacrifice of the two sisters can be seen as a kind of exodus, an escape from the repression of the authorities. The crucifixion of Margaretha Peters before her death was presumably intended at the same time as an imitatio Christi , as a reconstruction of the Passion of Christ.

literature

  • State Archives of the Canton of Zurich, StAZH B VII 201.13 a, files relating to “Abominations of Wildensbuch”.
  • Continuation and conclusion of the faithful and detailed narration of the horror scenes that took place in Wildensbuch. In addition to the criminal judgments issued by the Maleficent Court of the Zurich estate on all shareholders of the same. Bürkli, Zurich 1823, ( digitized ).
  • Johann Ludwig Meyer: Swarming horror scenes or the crucifixion story of a religious fanatic in Wildenspuch, Cantons of Zurich. Orell Füssli, Zurich 1824, ( digitized ).
  • Franz Schwerz: The crucifixion story of Wildensbuch from March 1823. In: Zurich monthly chronicle. 1933, ZDB -ID 1106056-6 , pp. 249-277.
  • David G. Bromley: Dramatic Denouements. In: David G. Bromley, J. Gordon Melton (Eds.): Cults, Religion, and Violence. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge et al. 2002, ISBN 0-521-66898-0 , pp. 11-41.
  • Claudia Wustmann: The "enthusiastic maids". Central German prophets in radical pietism at the end of the 17th century. Edition Kirchhof & Franke, Leipzig et al. 2008, ISBN 978-3-933816-38-2 (also: Erfurt, Universität, dissertation, 2007).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Johann Ludwig Meyer: Swarming horror scenes or crucifixion story of a religious fanatic in Wildenspuch, Cantons Zurich. Orell Füssli, Zurich 1824
  2. ↑ See continuation and resolution of the faithful and detailed narration of the horror scenes that preceded in Wildensbuch. In addition to the criminal judgments issued by the Maleficent Court of the Zurich estate on all shareholders of the same. Bürkli, Zurich 1823, p. 7 and Siegfried Streicher : The tragedy of a God seeker. Margaretha von Wildensbuch. Benziger, Einsiedeln 1945, p. 110.
  3. ↑ Cf. Johann Ludwig Meyer: Schwärmerische Gräuelscenen or crucifixion story of a religious enthusiast in Wildenspuch, Cantons Zurich. Orell Füssli, Zurich 1824, pp. 122–123 .
  4. ↑ Cf. Johann Ludwig Meyer: Schwärmerische Gräuelscenen or crucifixion story of a religious enthusiast in Wildenspuch, Cantons Zurich. Orell Füssli, Zurich 1824, p. 123 .
  5. ↑ See, inter alia, files from the Zurich State Archives, B VII 201 13a, Dossier 545 b, No. 8.
  6. ↑ See files of the Zurich State Archives, B VII 201 13a, Dossier 545 b, No. 4 and No. 5.
  7. ^ David G. Bromley: Dramatic Denouements. In: David G. Bromley, J. Gordon Melton (Eds.): Cults, Religion, and Violence. 2002, pp. 11-41.