Riensförde execution site
The place of execution in Riensförde served in the middle of the 19th century as the place of execution for the royal Hanoverian higher court in Stade . Between 1854 and 1856 three people were publicly executed here by beheading with the sword . The forgotten facility is located on a natural knoll on a former heather area , southeast of the Stade district of Riensförde.
Origin and current state
For centuries the place of execution in front of the High Gate in Stade was used for executions , which was destroyed during the French occupation at the beginning of the 19th century. There were no executions in Stade until the middle of the 19th century, as the Stade justice system distributed the few death sentences that had been imposed to the surrounding offices .
When in 1852 the newly established royal high court in Stade took over all criminal proceedings from the Elbe-Weser triangle , a new place of execution was needed, as death sentences had to be carried out near the court. The old Stader execution place in front of the high gate could no longer be used because it was too close to the city and the citizens no longer tolerated execution places within sight of their houses. As a result, the authorities built a new execution site around 1852 outside Stade on a natural knoll in the Riensförde Heide. According to some sources, it originated on a mound of earth that was poured in for this purpose, according to other sources on a prehistoric burial mound about 50 meters long and 20 meters wide. The mound of earth was surrounded by a rectangular trench with a side length of about 130 meters at least since the Kurhannoverschen Landesaufnahme in 1764. The ditch was possibly created as a cattle enclosure and was suitable as a barrier to the execution site.
According to some sources, the prehistoric burial mound of the place of execution was leveled before 1880, according to other sources during the Second World War . The place of execution was quickly forgotten after the last execution in 1856. It was never cultivated and was preserved as a shrubbery and tree-lined area next to a dirt road. In 2013, the archaeological monument preservation of the Hanseatic city of Stade indicated the former mound by a two meter high earthfill surrounded with stones. To the south of the dirt road and the former place of execution, a part of the trench has been preserved to this day, as the area was not used for agriculture but as a pasture for cattle.
Executions
The first execution took place on June 9, 1854 in front of thousands of spectators from Stade and the surrounding villages of the sailor Heinrich Wilhelm Stock from Friedrichshöhe in the Rinteln office . He was on 21 February 1854 by Circuit Court Stade for robbery and robbery for convicted death was. The execution was carried out by beheading with the sword. The dead person was then buried at the place of execution according to custom.
The second execution on May 9, 1856 is extensively handed down in a newspaper report by a pastor in the “Stader Sonntagsblatt” of May 25, 1856. It took place on the maid Anna Margaretha Brümmer from Balje because of poisoning her illegitimate child. On the day of the execution, despite the early hour of the morning, many people gathered at Stade Prison. The public prosecutor's office sat in black robes in the prison yard and the convict was read out their verdict again. Then a group of vehicles and people set off in the direction of Riensförde. This included an infantry department, the car with the convict accompanied by country gendarmes, and the car of the public prosecutor's office and other officials. The executioner and two assistants awaited the procession at the place of execution . On the hill was the judge's chair and behind it an open grave was dug. The place of execution was largely cordoned off by the military by a barrier, behind which numerous spectators had gathered.
The third execution was carried out on November 29, 1856 of Margarethe Schröder from Vegesack , who was sentenced to death by the sword for murder and robbery. This was the last execution at the Riensförde execution site and the last public execution in the Elbe-Weser triangle. In addition, it was the third to last public execution in the Kingdom of Hanover , since from 1858 the execution of the death penalty was carried out by the guillotine . The first execution of this kind in Stade took place in 1860 in the prison yard, closed to the public.
Blood potion
The drinking of blood of the executed person is recorded from an execution. In the pastor's newspaper article about the beheading of Anna Margaretha Brümmer on May 9, 1856 at the place of execution in Riensförde it says:
- "About six epileptic patients drank blood on it, for which she had previously passed the glasses in front of Anna Brümmer's eyes, of course without her suspecting the terrible significance of them."
According to popular belief at the time, epilepsy should be curable by drinking warm blood from someone who was executed, if the person suffering from epilepsy left the place as frequently as possible so that “the blood drunk in the body could develop its effect”.
In 1973, a modern 12 cm high goblet made of thick-walled glass was found 50 meters away from the place of execution , which was common as a shot glass for coachmen and is known as the coachman's glass . It is believed that at the execution of 1856, an epileptic man drank the blood of those executed from it and threw the glass away. The glass is exhibited in the Stader Schwedenspeicher Museum .
reception
The Stade historian, author and local researcher Dietrich Alsdorf, who found the goblet near the execution site in 1973, wrote a historical novel about the life of the child murderer who was executed there in 1856 under the title Anna Brümmers Weg zum Executioner .
literature
- Dietrich Alsdorf: "About six epileptic patients drank blood on it". The execution of Anna Margaretha Brümmer in Stade in 1856 and a remarkable find. in: J. Auler (Ed.): Richtstättenarchäologie 3 , Dormagen 2012, pp. 38–45 ( online , pdf)
- Dietrich Alsdorf: Displaced horror - Stade's last place of execution in: Archeology in Lower Saxony , 2017, pp. 133-136
Web links
- Discover monuments: The execution site Riensförde
- Dietrich Alsdorf: The stad blood court
Individual evidence
- ^ Henkersberg refilled in Stader Wochenblatt of December 6, 2013
- ↑ Angelika Franz: Excavated. They drank the blood of the child murderer in Spiegel Online from December 10, 2013
- ^ End on the premises in Rotenburger Rundschau on February 9, 2018
Coordinates: 53 ° 34 ′ 12.8 " N , 9 ° 28 ′ 42.4" E