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Every other Friday, True Crime of the Historical Kind returns to the scene of the crime...
We uncover the deeper story. The world that shaped the violence, and the humans that played a hand in history's tragedies.
Because the past may be distant, but human nature rarely is.
In Würzburg, the prince bishop created a cycle without exit. Fear created torture, torture created evidence, and evidence justified the flames. And now its citizens were about to be sheep for slaughter. This is true crime of the historical kind. You're listening to part two of the witch trials in Würzburg, the inferno.
Speaker 1:If you missed part one, make sure to go back and listen there first. By the end of 1626, the witch hunting machine was well oiled. The gears of accusation, confession, and execution now moved with such efficiency, it was self sustaining. And there was no one with enough power to question it without becoming a victim themselves. Each arrest led to more names being named and conspiracies forming.
Speaker 1:Under torture, people would turn on their neighbors, friends, and even their family. Once a confession was obtained, the outcome was already decided. The condemned were usually led in groups called burnings to public squares often near the Marion Capella or open fields outside of the city. Executioners would sometimes offer beheading before the flames just depending on how severe the alleged crimes were, but it would be a mercy. Though many were burned alive.
Speaker 1:The supposedly confirmed witches were bound to stakes surrounded by bundles of sticks coated in pitch. The clergy held prayers while the crowd gathered. You'd hear church bells tolling with the screams of agony as the smoke rose. For those watching, the fire was said to purify the soul, the ultimate exorcism. But some had to wonder, even if only to themselves, whether this was truly God's work.
Speaker 1:The witch commission was operating beyond the empire's own laws, even the criminal code that once limited torture had been cast aside. By 1627, the Huns would reach their full fevered pace. Not even children were safe. Many of the children put on trial came from the Julius Spital, which is like a hospital that took in orphans among others in need. It was founded decades earlier by the prince bishop that we talked about in last week's episode, Julius Ector, who is, by the way, Philip Adolf's uncle.
Speaker 1:It had once been a place of charity, yet in this witch craze climate, it became like a pipeline to the stake. The children's confessions read like fever dreams, which is exactly what the interrogators wanted to hear. The more fantastical, the better. Though, they, of course, wouldn't see it that way. One account tells of a boy of 10 who said he had flown through the night on a stick.
Speaker 1:He named three of his playmates, and by morning, they were taken by the witch commission. Another account says a girl of 12 was accused of witchcraft and confessed to attending the devil's feast, and she was burned for it. Interrogating children was producing so much evidence that confession chains got even more sinister as the witch commission found it easier to target children first. Using children to gain the confessions was a way to infiltrate families, an easier route to get to the parents. Once the child confessed about their mother, father, siblings, and playmates as any child would, especially after they were starved and beaten, it provided the evidence before they interrogated the parents and family.
Speaker 1:Obviously, they were easily manipulated, and they said whatever they were told to say. Many children even admitted to fornication with the devil, though they were too young to understand what that even meant. This quickly escalated to where entire families would be put on trial, including the children themselves. It's believed that there were dozens of children, some as young as three or four, that were burned. And what did a trial even mean?
Speaker 1:A witch trial in Würzburg was not a trial as we'd recognize it today. There was no defense, no presumption of innocence, or an advocate standing beside the accused in open court. Witch proceedings were held behind the walls of the epistle court, overseen by the officials of the witch commission, so clerics and inquisitors handpicked by the prince bishop. The accused were brought before them often in shackles, already weakened by days of imprisonment and interrogation, aka torture. Then the predictable charges were read aloud and evidence was given.
Speaker 1:The evidence being from witnesses and confessions, so just words. The inquisitors would question the accused as their words recorded carefully by a scribe. Once the confession was recorded, it was read back aloud. The accused had to repeat it word for word confirming it before witnesses, proof that they had freely confessed. If they recanted and most would while not in active pain, they were sent back to the torture chamber until they agreed to the charges, and judgment followed swiftly after.
Speaker 1:The court clerk noted the sentence and the condemned were to return to their cell to await their execution. The hysteria was causing people to lose sight of basic humanity, though they were way past the point of the average person being able to do anything about it. Prince Bishop von Ehrenberg and his witch commission had the city in a vice and was squeezing even more life out of them. What once began as persecution against old women or vagrants was beginning to pull in people from every social strata. Like students at Wurzburg University, which was one of the oldest in the empire, It's estimated between 20 to 40 were taken and burned.
Speaker 1:Then even members of the clergy, the men that were called by God to administer Christ's work. The records show 43 clergy were executed, 19 of them being Catholic priests that were burned alive. Some were Jesuit educated men of faith, others small town parish priests. But being men of God didn't save them. Among the wealthier victims of the witch hunt were merchant widows, councilmen's wives, and even minor nobles whose estates made them targets.
Speaker 1:One such case involved a prosperous widow who, after a neighbor's accusation, was imprisoned. She was coerced into confessing and later executed while her estate went to the church. In 1629, 157 confirmed executions had taken place. If we zoom out, we can see how easy it would be to restructure the entire social order. If you coveted your neighbor's lands, wanted an inheritance, had a romantic rival, it wouldn't be that far of a reach to imagine what personal slights were just enough to send someone to the flames and call it a good deed.
Speaker 1:That would just be speculation because there's really not that much left in the recordings, and we really just get small things documented. Like, at the twenty third burning, nine people perished together. Among them, the sons of the prince bishop's cook, 10 and 14 years old. Or at the twenty ninth burning, the death of a fat noble lady and a gentleman. Examples like that.
Speaker 1:So we know that the condemned rose through every rank of Wurzburg society, even to the prince bishop's own nephew, Ernst von Ehrenberg. Ernst was young, educated, and from one of the most prominent Catholic families in Franconia. Yet his family name offered no protection. And if he had no protection, then no one did. But it does make you wonder why not just accuse the prince bishop himself like a hail Mary, bring him down with you.
Speaker 1:In reality, he was just too far above the reach of any person. It would be like accusing God himself. Clearly, Von Ermberg's fanaticism knew no bounds, but he was not alone. Not far to the east of Wurzburg was another witch craze unfolding. The Bamberg witch trials are famous in their own right, but they do play a sort of parallel role.
Speaker 1:In Bamberg, it was prince bishop Johann Georg Vuchs von Dornheim that was leading his own crusade against witches. He had even built an elaborate prison for the accused, a dedicated structure known as the Drudenhouse or Hexenhouse, which is translated to the witch house. Its walls were carved with Bible verses meant to sanctify what happened inside, while rooms below held the tools of torture. The place was both courtroom and chapel, a sort of factory designed to torture, gain confessions, and condemn. Among the victims of Bamberg was doctor Georg Hahn, a respected physician and counselor who dared oppose the persecution of witches.
Speaker 1:Doctor Hahn attempted to lodge a formal protest against the prince bishop in the free imperial city of Spire, And in his absence, his wife was taken into custody, only to be tortured and burned, followed by one of his daughters. When he returned to Bamberg, he was accused of sorcery. He and two more of his children were burned. Even the Burgermeister, the mayor of Bamberg, was accused. His name was Johannes Iunius.
Speaker 1:He was tortured, and just like every other person in this position, he confessed to impossible crimes. But before his execution, he wrote a secret letter to his daughter and was able to smuggle it out by a sympathetic guard. I won't read the full letter, but part of it says, now my dear child, you have here all my confessions, and my innocence is clear. Pray for me. I am as innocent as you are.
Speaker 1:They force me to say it. They never cease the torture until one confesses. God, forgive them. He was burned soon after, but it was a man's final attempt to tell the truth in a time when truth no longer mattered. By the end, Bomberg would burn around a thousand of its people, though it's possible it could be more.
Speaker 1:Between Würzburg and Bamberg, nearby cities and villages were becoming like ghost towns. Between the war, famine, and the witch trials, places like Schweinfurt, which is a nearby city, lost half of their population. Entire families began to vanish from the parish rolls. In some villages, it was the orphans out tilling the fields. What had begun as a handful of accusations just four years earlier now swallowed the entire area whole.
Speaker 1:And still, the witch commission carried on driven by the same conviction that had started it all, that to stop burning was to let the devil win. The inferno Philip Adolf von Ehrenberg had lit purify his godly state, now burned without mercy, without logic, and seemingly without end. By sixteen thirty, the witch hunts that had raged unchecked were finally beginning to draw some attention from beyond Würzburg's boundaries. What had once been praised as a model of godly justice now just looked like chaos, especially with the executions of nobles and clerics and officials because that drew more attention. Many of their families had ties to imperial and ecclesiastical courts and were now petitioning for help.
Speaker 1:Their complaints accused Ferdsberg administration of misusing its power, violating the law, and spreading fear that threatened not just the church, but the stability of the entire realm. Emperor Ferdinand the second was a devout Catholic and a champion of the counter reformation. He had long supported witch trials as a tool of spiritual purification. But, apparently, now Würzburg had gone too far. The records aren't entirely clear, but it's believed that between six hundred and nine hundred people across the Würzburg territories had been burned under prince bishop von Amburg.
Speaker 1:Though it's likely there were many more, they simply didn't record, perhaps out of secrecy or just overwhelm. That year, Ferdinand issued a public rebuke. He finally called for restraint in all witch proceedings within imperial territories. Though his concern was not purely moral, The endless executions were draining resources, depopulating lands, and staining the reputation of Catholic governance, which brought in more Protestant criticism as pamphlets describe the executions with horror, calling them proof of papist madness. Protestant ministers were appalled and said that Rome's superstition had turned faith into slaughter, that the church that had once burned heretics now burned its own believers.
Speaker 1:Though, to be fair, Protestants would have their own witch trials elsewhere. Even so, the machinery didn't stop overnight. The witch commission continued, slower but still churning. And, sadly, between 50 and a 100 more were executed in 1630. But there was another kind of storm gathering.
Speaker 1:The Thirty Years' War was ripping across Europe, and it was closing in on Franconia. Swedish forces under king Gustafus Adolphus swept southward working for a reconquest of Catholic strongholds, and Wurzburg was in their sights. The approach of Protestant armies sent waves of panic through the city's leadership. Would the prince bishop who was so consumed with saving his people from evil be able to protect them when an army came? Well, no.
Speaker 1:Because prince bishop Philip Adolf von Ehrenberg died and probably of natural causes or of illness. It would just be a few months later when the Protestant Swedish army captured Wurzburg and seized its fortress, the Marienberg. You can't help but wonder how better prepared they may have been had the prince bishop spent their time and energy on strengthening the city and its people instead of burning them alive. The arrival of the Protestant Swedes and the death of the prince bishop shattered the Catholic authority that had sustained the witch trials for so long. Though, as one contemporary put it, the witch trials of Wurzburg did not end because people found their conscience.
Speaker 1:They ended because there was no one left to burn. When the smoke cleared, all they had around them was devastation that would reshape the next generations to come. The ghosts of the trials lingered on every street, in every church, and in every home. There was no one who went untouched. That same year, Friedrich Spee published Pautio Criminalis, though it was initially an anonymous work.
Speaker 1:It was full of doubts, which at the time were essentially heresy. Friedrich Spee was a young Jesuit priest who had served as one of the confessors to the accused in Wurzburg. He had quietly doubted the procedures but had no idea how to stop the madness. Day after day, he sat beside the tortured. He listened as they named others, told the wild stories they thought would help end the pain.
Speaker 1:And he saw the pattern for what it was that every confession came from agony, not truth. He's quoted as saying, torture has the power to create witches where none exist. While that may seem obvious to us, in their worldview, Spee's words were nothing short of revolutionary. He condemned the use of torture, exposing how it produced only false confessions and endless cycles of accusations. Another quote of his is, if the reader will allow me to say something here, I confess that I myself have accompanied several women to their deaths in various places over the years, and I am now so certain of their innocence that I feel there's no effort that would not be worth my undertaking to try to reveal this truth.
Speaker 1:His argument struck at the very heart of the system the church had built, its law, its theology, and its certainty of guilt. As the Thirty Years' War continued to ravage Germany, his work began to make an impression in public thought. There were scholars, jurists, and clergy who started to reconsider the justice or injustice of persecutions. Across Europe, the mid seventeenth century marked the slow decline of witch hunts. This is the turning point where legal reforms began to demand real evidence.
Speaker 1:Theologians questioned pacts and sabbats. Science, reason, and skepticism started to replace hysteria. This is known as the age of reason's dawn or post counter reformation rational turn and would soon blossom into the age of enlightenment. By the time the Peace of Westphalia was signed in 1648, which ended the Thirty Years' War, the age of European witch trials were drawing to a close. Wurzburg, once the epicenter of terror, fell quiet.
Speaker 1:Still, the old ways didn't just vanish overnight. In rural villages across Franconia, farmers and townsfolk still whispered of curses, charms, and the evil eye. From time to time, an accusation surfaced when illness struck or livestock died, but without an institutionalized process, local persecutions fizzled out as quickly as they started. Though it lived on through folktales that were strong oral traditions. Tales like Hansel and Gretel, the story of two children lost in the forest stumbling upon a witch's house made of sweets.
Speaker 1:At its core, it's not a children's story at all, but a story of hunger, fear, and survival. A remnant of the years when famine swept through Germany, when real children vanished from their homes, and the only enemy people could imagine was a supernatural one. So even if the trials had halted, the belief in witches lingered. In 1749, more than a century after the witch trials of Wurzburg, there was one more execution for witchcraft. The victim was Maria Renata Singer von Maasau.
Speaker 1:She was an elderly woman and a nun at the Untersselt convent. The case began with unease inside the convent. Strange illnesses, quarrels, and whispered fears of possession. Several of the younger nuns claimed to suffer fits and visions, and one died, suspicion falling on Maria. Maria eventually confessed to being a witch and practicing sorcery.
Speaker 1:She was condemned to beheading, and her body was burned publicly. It was Wurzburg's last witch execution. In real time, throughout the German intellectual world, it was seen as a disgrace calling for the complete abolition of witchcraft laws. Thinkers like Voltaire, Monteskaya, and Tomasius argued that torture and superstition had no place in a civilized society. Universities were turning towards natural philosophy.
Speaker 1:Courts demanded tangible proof instead of confessions wrung from pain. By the golden age of the enlightenment, the witch trials had become an embarrassment, relics of a credulous darker world. And each generation seems to wrestle with the complexity here. Ever since, the witch trials have been something to be studied. A recent historical fiction novel that I'd recommend is The Hayman's Daughter by Oliver Putsch.
Speaker 1:He's actually a descendant of a line of executioners in Bavaria. While it's not about the Würzburg trials directly, he uses fiction to look backward at conscience and justice, showing how the machinery of persecution once disguised itself as righteousness, which I will, of course, link in the show notes. Today, Wurzburg is still a beautiful city in Northern Bavaria, Though there isn't a grand memorial to remember those killed in the witch trials, there are museums and the square of the Marien Capella where so many victims were executed still stands. There's never been a universal apology from the Catholic church, but there is some level of acknowledgment. But more than four hundred years later, the witch trials in Wurzburg remind us that the worst crimes are often committed in the name of moral certainty.
Speaker 1:This was true crime of the historical kind. Make sure to follow or subscribe wherever you listen so that you don't miss what comes next. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time. Bye.