Winningen Witch Hill

Stele with memorial inscription

The witch hill Winningen is located above Winningen on the Moselle in Rhineland-Palatinate and is a former place of execution.

Memorial to the Winningen witch trials

On the witch hill there is a memorial in memory of the victims of the witch persecution . The Winningen witch trials claimed more than twenty victims in the 17th century. The monument was erected in 1925 and is therefore one of the oldest monuments for the witch hunt. It is hidden in the light deciduous forest not far from Winningen Airport .

The memorial bears an inscription that extends over the four sides of the stele and begins as follows: "Witches' hill / In the darkest time / of superstition / in the years 1641–1651 / found death by fire here:".

The names of those executed follow. There are three names on one side:

Veit Gail (on November 10, 1648)
Dorothea Kröber (on July 14, 1651)
Philipp Mölich (on July 14, 1651)

Historical classification

Comparable monuments were otherwise only erected in the 1960s and 1970s, not least under the influence of the women's movement .

From the time of persecution in German-speaking countries, only one example of a memorial plan to commemorate witch trials is known: Unlike today, the suffering of the tortured victims was not the concern of the authorities in the Bavarian rule of Schongau in 1594, who after the execution of 63 women became their own Glory and to scare those passing by wanted to build an "eternal memorial column, zaichen and gedechtnuß" ("an eternal memorial column, a sign and reminder").