Hexenturm (Salzburg)

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Hexenturm in Salzburg (1926)

The Hexenturm (Salzburg) (historically partly also written as Hechsenturm ) was built in the course of the second city fortification of Salzburg between 1465 and 1480 under Archbishop Bernhard von Rohr as the north-eastern corner tower of the city wall facing the New Town. On November 11, 1944, it was partially destroyed by two bomb hits and completely demolished after the end of the war. Around 1965 a residential building was built in its place. Today a wall mosaic on the corner of Paris-Lodron Strasse 16 and Wolf-Dietrich Strasse 19 as well as a memorial plaque commemorate the former tower.

history

The tower was built in the course of the second city fortification (1465-1490) as the north-eastern corner of the city fortifications between the Bergstrasse gate ( today Mitterbacher arch ) and the outer Ostertor ( Sebastiantor ), which is now gone . In addition to the entrance door accessible via wooden stairs and narrow city-side doors on the top floor, the tower only had loopholes to the outside . Originally a cantilevered parapet walk around all sides ran under the roof. When the city was fortified for the third time under Archbishop Paris Lodron , the tower and the surrounding walls were preserved, but at that time it completely lost its defensive importance.

Wall mosaic in memory of the "Hexenturm" in Salzburg. Living witches were not burned here
Weather vane of the witch tower, shown here as a graphic

In July 1678, 14 prison cells for the accused and one apartment for the bailiff were set up here on the instructions of the court councilor in charge, because all the other "Keichen" (= prison cells) were overcrowded. Under Prince Archbishop Max Gandolf von Kuenburg , numerous trials were carried out around the Schinderjackl (real name Jakob Koller) gang of beggars . The so-called magic boy trials began in 1675 with the arrest of Barbara Koller, known as "Schinder-Bärbel", Jacob's mother, who confessed to being a witch under torture. As a result, numerous beggars, especially begging children, were arrested for witchcraft and repeatedly blackmailed under torture from the beggar milieu who allegedly belonged to this gang. By 1679, 198 people had been charged and tortured ; 129 people, including more than half children and adolescents, were subsequently executed in Salzburg gneiss. More than two thirds of the victims were male. Almost all of them came from the lower social class ( tramps ). The Witches Tower only served as a prison for people accused of witchcraft for one year and not for more than two centuries, as a plaque claims.

From 1706 the witch tower served as a warehouse for war equipment and later for building materials. In 1821 the municipality of Salzburg sold it to master carpenter Johann Katholnigg, who used the tower as a wood store. From 1897 to 1910 it served the Julius Haagn merchant family as a storage room for their company, Josef Anton Zezi. At the beginning of the 20th century there were repeated debates about the demolition of this mighty tower, because its low eaves protruded into Paris-Lodron Strasse and represented a traffic obstacle in the eyes of urban renovators. The writer Hermann Bahr , who lives in Salzburg , asked in a letter to the editor on July 28, 1910 for help in maintaining the witch's tower. In 1934 a purchase agreement was signed with the Salzburg City Council to maintain the tower; In 1940, the then Gau capital Salzburg bought it back. In 1944 it was damaged in the second bomb attack and completely destroyed in the third.

A weather vane has survived from the tower, a life-size sheet metal witch figure riding on a broom, which was attached to the top of the tower. This figure was exhibited in the castle museum at the Hohensalzburg fortress for a long time , but was stolen there.

The tower, which was slightly oval in plan (approx. 15 × 14 m), had extremely powerful walls for medieval fortifications with 2 m (after W even 2.5 m). It was originally about 14 m high. The first floor was filled in after 1800 and so became the cellar. The thin attic with the parapet that once ran around it was expanded into a full attic around 1800, perhaps even earlier, and the ditch roof was simultaneously converted into a flat pyramid roof (south-facing with a sloping gable roof).

literature

  • Friedrich Pirckmayer: Again witch tower and cauldron. Announcements of the Society for Salzburg Regional Studies, Volume 25 , 1885, pp. 14-20.
  • Friedrich Pirckmayer: The Hechsenthurm in Salzburg. A small contribution to local history. Announcements of the Society for Salzburg Regional Studies, Volume 45 , 1905, p. 112.
  • Max Dvorak, Hans Tietze: Austrian Art Topography, Bd. XIII, The profane monuments of Salzburg. Anton Schroll & Co., Kunstverlag Wien: Vienna 1911.

Web links

Commons : Hexenturm  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Except for two (male) criminals with multiple crimes, no people were handed over to the fire alive in the witch trial, both of them had a powder keg in front of their chests. The place of execution was far from the witch tower in gneiss.
  2. ^ Hermann Bahr: The witch tower in Salzburg . New Free Press of July 28, 1910


Coordinates: 47 ° 48 ′ 19.62 "  N , 13 ° 2 ′ 51.48"  E