Jakob Varmeier

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Jakob Varmeier (also Vahrmeyer ; * in Osnabrück ; † March 25, 1631 in Rostock ) was a German lawyer, mathematician and astronomer.

Life

Youth, training and work

Jakob Varmeier was a son of the lawyer of the same name, who served as councilor and count in the service of the Osnabrück bishop. Jakob Varmeier had already become conspicuous in his behavior as a child, was prone to melancholy , was very unlike his brothers and avoided all exuberant children's games. After attending school in Osnabrück, Jakob Varmeier began studying law, mathematics and astronomy at the University of Helmstedt in 1612 , before moving to the University of Rostock in 1614 . Here he worked as a private lecturer. In 1622 he stayed with his uncle in Lübeck , where during a walk on the wall they feared he might harm himself. The uncle then traveled with him to Osnabrück, where he lived again in his parents' house. The illness made him "disgruntled and often incapable". He left a position as court master with the von Pogwisch family in Neukloster after only three weeks. As so often, he suffered from melancholy and gloom and at times felt that he could not speak or write.

In the same year Jakob Varmeier went to Rostock and worked as a lawyer. From September 1626 to 1629 he took on a position as secretary at the court and district court, which was then in Sternberg . Although they were satisfied with their work there, he went back to Rostock. During this time he married Sophie, the daughter of the Mecklenburg-Schwerin Chancellor Hajo von Nesse . Both lived in the house of their mother-in-law Anna von Nesse, Neuer Markt 34 .

A brother of Jakob Varmeiers, the lawyer Theodor Varmeier , also lived in Rostock.

The killing of Hatzfeld

Depiction of the murder of the Hatzfelds (1704)
Title page of a contemporary text on the Hatzfeld death , the title woodcut shows Judit and Holofernes

During the occupation by the imperial troops in the Thirty Years War , Colonel Heinrich Ludwig von Hatzfeld was billeted in this house. Varmeier, his wife and mother-in-law had to look for another apartment. Jakob Varmeier succeeded in building a trusting relationship with the colonel by partly having the same scientific interests. He was even allowed to visit him unannounced.

On the night of January 20, 1631, Varmeier, probably impressed by the horrors of the war and after an "inspiration", made the decision to kill the colonel as a "chosen by God". The model for his delusion was the biblical legend of Judit and Holofernes from the book of Judith . Pointing the first letter of his first name Jakob and the name Hatzfeld to Judith and Holofernes, he saw in them a divine instruction to carry out his project. He spent the following days praying, fasting, and writing a justification that he gave to the preacher of the Church of the Holy Spirit Hospital . On January 22nd, 1631, Varmeier went to the colonel's house in the morning. He carried a hatchet and a curtain with him. He later stated that if his plan would not please God, he expected to receive an order from him. In that case, he could have thrown the items into the water. He was admitted without registering and asked Hatzfeldt to sign some passports. While the latter was writing, he killed him, severed his head, wrapped it in the curtain he had brought with him and left the house unmolested. He went into the basement of Senator Röseler’s house on the Neuer Markt, hid Hatzfeld’s head and lay down in a bed in the basement of a house in the nearby Kistenmacherstrasse , praying and in his confusion, expecting that the war would now be over.

Consequences

The imperial garrison was extremely excited, the angry soldiers threatened with a massacre. Fifty soldiers broke into the house of the university rector Johann Quistorp and asked him to extradite the guilty immediately without trial. Otherwise the houses of all university members would be ransacked and they would start with him. Quistorp managed to appease the military through his diplomacy. On January 22nd, Hatzfeld's body was buried in Rostock's Marienkirche .

The murderer was quickly found, arrested under strong resistance and imprisoned in the kennel in front of the stone gate . Since he had already confessed freely, the first interrogation did not take place until the evening of January 24th. Here he once again confessed to the act and stated that it was "not dear to him, but commanded by God" and that he had already felt "refreshment in the heart" in prison. The judges questioned his statements and suspected that Varmeier did not act alone and out of hatred. As a result, he was severely tortured several times but stuck to what he said. A subsequent interrogation of the mother-in-law and the wife confirmed his statements.

Since the murderer repeatedly emphasized during the investigation that he had acted on divine instigation, on January 27, 1631 the imperial governor asked the theological faculty of the university and the clerical ministry of Rostock to give an opinion on the question of what rights the crime had may be traced back to God's command. The report was discussed on January 31st in a joint meeting and sent to the governor on February 3rd. In this the faculty and the ecclesiastical ministry denied Varmeier's view; the act was not carried out by God, but out of an evil instinct, who made use of the perpetrator's melancholy.

Jakob Varmeier died on March 25, 1631 as a result of torture. The dead man was beheaded on March 28, 1631 on the Neuer Markt , quartered and the body parts hung up in front of the Petritor , the Mühlentor and the Kröpeliner Tor as a deterrent . It was not until Rostock was conquered by the Swedes on October 6 that they were removed and buried in the village church of the Rostock township of Kessin . Hatzfeld's widow married Martin Maximilian von der Goltz in 1638 .

literature

  • Copia of the movable letter / and protestation So by one E. and H. Rath of the city of Rostock / next to the four trades / in the name of the whole city / to the colonel Hatzfeldt / shortly before his pathetic death / is gone ... Hiebey is recently annexed Hatzfeld death / with prayers addressed / so found with the perpetrator. [Sl], 1631
  • Carl Friedrich Evers : Detailed history of the murder committed by Jakob Varmeyer on the royal colonel and commandant of Rostock, Heinrich Ludewig von Hatzfeld. In: Scholarly contributions to the Mecklenburg-Schwerin News (1777) piece 51/52 and (1778) piece 1/2.
  • Grete Grewolls: Who was who in Mecklenburg and Western Pomerania. The dictionary of persons . Hinstorff Verlag, Rostock 2011, ISBN 978-3-356-01301-6 , p. 10311-10312 .
  • Journal of all journals: or spirit of the patriotic and foreign journals , volume 1786, edition 3 digitized
  • Adolf Hofmeister : The Varmeier brothers and the assassination of Colonel HL von Hatzfeld in 1631. Lecture given on December 4, 1888 in the Association for Rostock Antiquities. Printed several times, so in: Contributions to the history of the city of Rostock. Rostock: Hinstorff, ISSN  1615-0988 7 (1913), pp. 81–96 ( digitized ; PDF; 867 kB)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Magazine for empirical soul science , Volume 3, 1785 digitized version
  2. ↑ Grete Grewolls: Who was who in Mecklenburg and Western Pomerania. The dictionary of persons . Hinstorff Verlag, Rostock 2011, ISBN 978-3-356-01301-6 , p. 10311 .
  3. ↑ Magazine for empirical soul science , Volume 3, 1785 digitized page 3
  4. ↑ Magazin zur Erlebnisseelenkunde , Volume 3, 1785 digitized page 4: vel singularem Inspirationem divinam
  5. ^ Adolf Hofmeister: The Varmeier Brothers and the murder of Colonel HL von Hatzfeld in 1631. In: Contributions to the history of the city of Rostock. Rostock: Hinstorff, ISSN  1615-0988 7 (1913), p. 92 ( digitized ; PDF; 867 kB)
  6. ↑ Magazine for empirical soul science , Volume 3, 1785 digitized page 9
  7. ^ Scholars and charitable contributions from all parts of the sciences 1 (1840), pp. 244–249
  8. ^ Adolf Hofmeister: The Varmeier Brothers and the murder of Colonel HL von Hatzfeld in 1631. In: Contributions to the history of the city of Rostock. Rostock: Hinstorff, ISSN  1615-0988 7 (1913), p. 95
personal data
SURNAME Varmeier, Jakob
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Varmeier, Jacob; Vahrmeyer, Jakob
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer, mathematician and astronomer
DATE OF BIRTH 16th century or 17th century
PLACE OF BIRTH Osnabrück
DATE OF DEATH March 25, 1631
Place of death Rostock