Peter Wiben

Peter Wiben , also Peter Wiebe , Peter Wibe , Peter Wybe or Hans Pommerink , (* before 1531 ; † May 17, 1545 on Heligoland ) was a German mercenary in the peasant republic of Dithmarschen , a pirate and robber . He is a legendary figure from the history of Schleswig-Holstein .

Life

Nothing has been handed down about Wibens origins and family. He lived in Meldorf in the first half of the 16th century . In 1531 he led a 500-man militia at Brunsbüttel by order of the forty-eight . The troops had the order to attack an incursion of the deposed Danish King Christian III. to fend off into Dithmarsche. After a legally lost inheritance dispute, Wiben had to leave his house around 1539/40. Embittered, he became the declared public enemy of the peasant republic and initially tried the Danish troops Christian III. to connect. When he was not accepted here, he gathered followers and became a mugger who terrorized Dithmarschen. Wiben's brother also joined him. In the following months he went on raids from Holstein into Dithmarsche and set fire to entire places. Among other things, he put Schafstedt in rubble and ashes. As early as autumn 1541 he was captured on Holstein territory and brought before a people's court in Rendsburg in 1542 . The court acquitted Wiben and sentenced the Dithmarscher, whose representatives did not appear at the court hearing, to pay damages and to bear the costs of the trial. A higher authority, the Goding , upheld the verdict six weeks later. Wiben was allowed to lead a lawful feud against Dithmarschen as his inheritance claim was denied to him. However, the Dithmarscher still did not recognize the judgment. So Wiben turned to Emperor Karl V , who in 1544 even handed the case over to the Archbishop of Bremen Christoph von Braunschweig-Lüneburg . The Dithmarschers also rejected its jurisdiction. Instead, they called the Imperial Court of Justice. Here, too, no final judgment could be found against Wiben. In 1559, political reality caught up with the plaintiffs. The Dithmarschen peasant republic perished in the last feud , so the lawsuit was invalid.

Death and execution

Peter Wiben did not live to see this legal dispute, which the Dithmarscher led primarily against Holstein. After his acquittal in 1542, he settled on Heligoland under the code name Hans Pommerink and, together with his brother and a 10-member gang of followers from the island, undertook raids against places on the Dithmarian coast. On May 17, 1545, the peasant republic sent a 100-man troop with two fully equipped ships under the command of Claus Suel to Heligoland. The raiding party was able to overpower and shoot Wiben and his brother in battle. Their corpses were brought to Heide in Dithmarschen, where they were beheaded and wheeled to the cheering of the people.

This advance of a Dithmarschen militia into Schleswig-Holstein territory gave Adolf I the welcome opportunity to put an end to the Dithmarschen peasant republic. After being taken by the Holsteiners, the Dithmarschers were sentenced to reimburse the Wibens heirs with compensation of 6,000 marks, payable within six years.

reception

Detlev von Liliencron published a poem about Peter Wiben in 1909. A 1996 novel by Robert Jung with the title “Wiben Peter. The Kohlhaas of the West Coast ”deals with the life of Wibens.

source

• Johann Adolfi Köster : Chronicle of the country Dithmarschen . Edited from the original by Prof. Friedrich Christoph Dahlmann , Volume 2, Kiel 1827, pp. 83ff.

literature

• Rudolf Brinkmann: From German legal life. Descriptions of the legal process and the cultural status of the last three centuries on the basis of Schleswig-Holstein-Lauenburg files of the imperial court. E. Homann, 1862, p. 74 ff.
• Andreas Ludwig Jacob Michelsen: Collection of Altdithmarscher legal sources . Hammerich, Altona 1842
• Otto Opert: Comments on the history of Wiben Peter. In: Nordelbingen. Contributions to local research in Schleswig-Holstein. Hamburg and Lübeck. Volume 5, Flensburg 1926, p. 38ff.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Detlev von Liliencron: Good night. Berlin 1909, pp. 65-70.
2. ^ Robert Jung: Wiben Peter. The Kohlhaas on the west coast. boyens-medien.de, 1996. ISBN 978-3804207806