Henrich Stoffregen

Henrich Stoffregen (*? From Hesborn; † August 4, 1628 in Hallenberg ), executed in the witch hunts in Westphalia .

Witch trials in Hallenberg

Around 1600 there were 500 inhabitants in the small town of Hallenberg. Over 200 people got into witch trials from 1591 to 1717, so that many of the 110 families were affected. The initiative for the witch hunts came from both the city council and the citizens, who turned to the electoral administrative authority in Arnsberg several times and asked for a witch inquisitor to be appointed (1616, 1619, 1628, 1659, 1669 and 1717).

Henrich Stoffregen was one of at least 43 people who lost their lives in the local witch trials (a higher number of unreported cases is assumed, the outcome of many trials is unclear). Of 35 witch justice victims whose gender is known, 14 were men (40%). At least 20 people lost their homes through escape or deportation. All layers of local society were affected: from the simple maid to the mayor. The city books mention that “the most elegant houses” were also destroyed by the witch craze. Up to half of the victims' assets were used to finance legal costs.

Like Henrich Stoffregen, many of the accused came from surrounding villages: Hesborn (13), Liesen (10), Züschen (6), Bromskirchen (6), Braunshausen (4), Neukirchen (3), Dreislar , Rengershausen and Wunderthausen (2 each), Dodenau , Frankenberg , Medelon , Oberkirchen and Winterberg (1 each).

The trial against Henrich Stoffregen was heard before the electoral jury in Hallenberg, which met publicly in front of the town hall (then on the market square). The gatehouses of the upper and lower gateways, the tower of the city fortifications on Burgplatz ( Hexenturm ) and the town hall served as prisons . The executions took place in public at the Galgenbüsche execution site (on the road to Somplar ).

Trial against Henrich Stoffregen

Henrich Stoffregen lived in Hesborn . Rumors surfaced that he was a wizard and a werewolf . Because of this malicious gossip, he left the place and asked the district judge Arnold Knipschild in the Medebach office for a letter of appeal to the councilors of Hallenberg to accept him as a citizen. He came from Hesporn to Hallenberg with his wife and children. But rumors persisted that he was a magician and werewolf. When a number of cattle were torn from David Heinemann's cattle herd, the cattle owner accused Henrich Stoffregen of being responsible for the death of the animals. There was an argument on the street. Finally Stoffregen said he didn't want to harm him any more. However, this statement made him even more suspicious of being responsible for the deaths of the cattle as a “magician and werewolf”. Stoffregen was arrested and subjected to embarrassing interrogation. Under the torture , he confessed that he had fallen away from God and surrendered to the devil. He learned the horrible vice of magic, took part in the witch's dance , performed magic spells and caused damage to people and cattle and killed them. Under the torture he denounced 15 people as alleged wizards and witches.

On August 4, 1628 Henrich Stoffregen was sentenced to death at the stake in Hallenberg: “Er [elter] B [accused] r highly sinned against God's command, and God apologized to the almighty and surrendered to the afflicted teuffell, also the horrible vice of the Learned magic, and so that people have also harmed their cattle, and have brought umbs life, which he therefore too well-deserved tightness, also to a disgusting example to others, according to the most highly thought p [simple] neck court order with the fire from life to death and the body must be burned, condemned and pointed out, when he is then also denounced too tightly here, damned and pointed out, and all from the right. ”Out of grace, he was first beheaded and then his body burned. As a legal basis, the judgment named the Constitutio Criminalis Carolina (Embarrassing Neck Court Order) of Emperor Charles V (HRR) of 1532, according to which harmful magic and witchcraft were to be punished as criminal proceedings with death by fire.

Rehabilitation of victims of the witch trials

On September 14, 2011, the city council of Hallenberg decided to rehabilitate the victims of the witch trials for moral reasons and to restore their human dignity.

literature

• Trial against Henrich Stoffregen, 1628 (witch trial files in the Hallenberg city archive, A 1062)
• Georg Glade, rehabilitation of the victims of the witch madness in Hallenberg, Hallenberg 2011
• Westfälische Rundschau, Thomas Winterberg: Witch madness cost many their lives, September 13, 2011