Swedish drink

This article deals with the Swedish drink torture method; Swedish drink is also used as a synonym for Swedish bitter or Swedish herbs.

Water torture. Woodcut from 1556

The Swedish drink was a torture method frequently used during the Thirty Years War , in which the victim was poured liquid manure or water , often mixed with urine , feces and dirty water, directly into the mouth via a bucket or funnel .

Effects

In addition to the disgust and disgust it aroused and the possibility of bacterial infections, the Swedish drink caused fears of suffocation and severe stomach and abdominal pain. The strongly acidic liquid manure also burned the victim's esophagus. The regular penetration of liquids and solids via the windpipe into the lungs, with the consequence of usually fatal pneumonia, is to be expected under the circumstances of such torture. The agony could be aggravated by the fact that the stomach was pressed together with boards or the torturers jumping and trampling on the victim's stomach.

Occurrence

Water torture, miniature, c. 1475 (Pope Leo the Great persuades the Vandal King Geiseric not to plunder Rome)

The use of this method by mercenaries of the Swedish army was eponymous, it was also practiced by the soldiers of other troops and marauding marauders . Representations of water torture can also be found in works of fine art, some of which were created long before the Thirty Years War.

Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen described the method in his contemporary novel Der adventurliche Simplicissimus (Book I, Chapter IV) as follows:

"They laid the servant tied on the ground, stuck a plywood in his mouth, and poured a milk bucket full of nasty dung-pool water into his body, which they called a Swedish trunk."

Peter Thiele, town clerk of Beelitz , also gave a description of the torture:

"Since the robbers and murderers took a holt, the poor people stuck such things in their throats, stir them, poured water, poured them in, yes probably people feces and the people miserably tortured for money, like the one citizen in Beelitz, called David Örtel, drive again and soon died of it. "

Art and literature

• A volume of poetry by Ulrich Horstmann from 1989 is entitled Schwedentrunk .

See also

• Waterboarding
• Chinese water torture

literature

• Carl W. Hering: History of the Saxon highlands: with special reference to the Lauterstein office and neighboring cities, castles and manors, Volume 1 . Verlag Barth 1828, p. 353 ff.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ quoted from Christopher Clark : Preußen , p. 56