Witch trials in Rhens

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Rhens: Scharfer Turm (also called "Hexenturm")

In the 16th and 17th centuries, witches were persecuted in Rhens (then the electorate of Cologne ; today the district of Mayen-Koblenz in Rhineland-Palatinate ) . In the witch trials , 26 people, 23 women and three men, were executed for alleged sorcery. The incarceration and torture took place in the "Scharfen Turm" (part of the city wall, directly on the Rhine, also called the "Hexenturm"), but also in the Rhenser town hall and in the former town tower above the cattle gate.

New sources show that there were three waves of persecution in Rhens. For a small town like Rhens, whose population can be estimated at around 500 in the early modern period, series of trials with few victims must be considered a wave of persecution.

The three waves of persecution

The first wave of persecution

The first wave of persecution began around 1575 and followed the witch trials in neighboring Braubach in 1570. In 1575, according to a letter from the Rhenser Council from 1603 in Braubach , the Hessian chief bailiff at St. Goar had "ugly women [...] because of magic and other wicked misdeeds" sentenced and partially executed. After the executions, four other people were arrested, one of whom escaped from prison. The minutes of the Rhenser witch trials from 1575 have not been preserved. Only about three defendants (Ließ Loher, Lucia Hermann and Hermann Stein) is known. The accused Lucia Hermann from Rhens was able to flee once and had to endure a total of three proceedings in 1575, 1577 and 1603, each of which ended with expulsion. Lucia Hermann's trial files show how tenaciously the population clung to witchcraft lawsuits against people from among them for decades. The defendant faced allegations for three decades of her life. Ließ Loher had already committed suicide in June 1575 after questioning and torture. Hermann Stein was expelled in 1575 and 1577, but obviously returned to Rhens.

The second wave of persecution

The second wave of witch trials extended from 1628 to 1630. In October 1628 bailiffs, councilors, mayors and citizens of Rhens submitted a request to the Landgrave of Hessen-Kassel and asked for permission to carry out witch trials. The fates of the twelve people (eleven women and one man) who were charged as sorcerers and sorcerers are precisely documented. The sources are in the Koblenz State Main Archive.

Conflicts within the family and the victim's financial situation significantly influenced the development and course of the processes. Often the denunciations were based on inheritance issues, antipathies or marital problems. Most of the victims belonged to the upper middle class. More than half of the eighteen courtiers named in the Rhenser Salbuch of 1621 were affected by the trials, four of the women convicted from 1628–1630 and 1645–1647 were married to courtiers, and at least four husbands of convicted women held temporary city or lordly honorary posts.

Many victims of the second series of trials were wealthy citizens:

  • Apollonia Lehmels' husband, Thiebes Lehmel, was estate manager in 1621. The 80-year-old Mrs. Apollonia died in February 1629 as a result of torture in prison.
  • Sophia Bech (Beck), executed on March 27, 1629, was married to Jacob Bech, who is referred to in the church records as a lay judge and medicus .
  • Christine May (Mey), née Müller, was married to the estate manager Martin May. She wanted to evade the torture and jumped out of a window in the prison tower. She survived the jump and was able to flee a few hundred meters before she was caught. She was executed on May 9, 1629.
  • Few of the defendants escaped conviction. Margarethe Dreiß (Dreys, Dreis, nee Schneider) was married to Christian Dreiß, a sub-cult specialist, for the second time. She was arrested in December 1629, but even under torture refused to plead guilty and was released. Because she did not denounce anyone, she made a significant contribution to the end of the first wave of lawsuits. When she was arrested again in the third wave of trials in 1645, she lacked the strength to plead her innocence and was executed on September 17, 1645.

The third wave of persecution

The third wave of witch trials lasted from 1645 to 1647. The trials were described in 1929, but the trial files could no longer be found after the Second World War.

This time, 11 people were charged, two men and nine women. Only one person seems to have escaped the two waves of persecution from Rhens in the 17th century; all the others were executed. Only Catharina Herter was acquitted in December 1645, who managed to withstand the torture and did not make a confession. But her further fate was tragic. Her husband refused to take her back. So she was expelled from the city in the last days of December in the winter of 1645 and left to her fate.

The most prominent and last victim was Margarethe Altenhofen , wife of the mayor Gerhard Altenhofen, who was executed on March 7, 1646.

Sources and literature

  • Ingrid Batori: The Rhenser witch trials from 1628 to 1630 , in: Landeskundliche Vierteljahresblätter, 33, 1987, pp. 133–155.
  • Ingrid Batori: Mayor and Witches Committee in Rhens 1628–1632. At the end of a series of trials , in: Gunther Franz /, Franz Irsigler (ed.): Hexenglaube and Hexenprozess im Raum Rhein-Mosel-Saar , Trier 1995, pp. 195–224.
  • Hans Bellinghausen: The Rhenser witch trials , in: Hans Bellinghausen: Rhens on the Rhine and the king chair. A German homeland book . Koblenz 1929, pp. 58-94.
  • Felix Krieger: Severin Hachemer - Schultheiß in Rhens, a hero against the witch craze? Summary of the thesis history. In: Eichendorff-Gymnasium, Koblenz: Annual report. 2008/2009, pp. 117-118.
  • Alexander Ritter, Witch Trials on the Hessian Middle Rhine : previously neglected sources from archives in Hesse and Rhineland-Palatinate. In: Jahrbuch für Westdeutsche Landesgeschichte, 32 (2006), pp. 197–220.
  • Heike Schlosser: The first phase of the Rhenser witch trials 1628-1630 . In: Mayen-Koblenz: Heimatbuch , 2012, pp. 108–112.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Alexander Ritter: witch trials at the Hessian Rhine: so far unknown sources from archives in Hesse and Rhineland-Palatinate . In: Yearbook for West German State History. 32 (2006), pp. 197-220.
  2. ↑ StA Marburg, Best. 4c Rotenburg, No. 1278: Supplik of the mayor, council and the municipality Rhens to the Oberamtmann , undated (1603).
  3. ^ Hans Bellinghausen: Rhens on the Rhine and the king chair. Ein deutsches Heimatbuch , Koblenz 1929, pp. 58–94. Ingrid Batori: The Rhenser witch trials from 1628 to 1630 . In: Landeskundliche Vierteljahresblätter 33 (1987), pp. 133–155.
  4. ↑ Hans Bellinghausen: The Rhenser witch trials . In: Hans Bellinghausen: Rhens on the Rhine and the Königsstuhl. A German homeland book . Koblenz 1929, pp. 58-94.
  5. ↑ Alexander Ritter, Witches Trials on the Hessian Middle Rhine: previously neglected sources from archives in Hesse and Rhineland-Palatinate . In: Yearbook for West German State History. 32 (2006), pp. 197-220.