2024-01-05 17:25:00
Medieval German cities attract tourists with their city walls, powerful gates and high towers, representative town halls, Romanesque and Gothic churches, market squares, and cozy streets. However, in some places, medieval romance is juxtaposed with much less inspiring, but quite authentic sights of this historical period.
Interrogation cellar at Regensburg Town HallPhoto: Schoening/picture alliance
How they were interrogated during the Middle Ages
In the Old Town Hall of Bavarian Regensburg, for example, you can visit the gloomy torture cellar for interrogations, where various contraptions and special tools used to extract confessions are still in place as exhibits. Here, behind a special partition, there are long-empty desks and chairs for interrogation participants who did not want to be recognized in case the person does not confess, is acquitted, and later wants to somehow take revenge for his torment.
In the basement there was also a place for a doctor, who was supposed to ensure that the accused under no circumstances died during torture. Death in case of confession of guilt, obtained as a result of torture or under the threat of pain, had to occur in public – on the gallows, wheel, scaffold or fire, depending on the verdict.
If scaffolds for beheadings were often erected in central squares, gallows were preferred to be built outside city walls – near roads or on hills, so that they, in particular, served as reminders and warnings to travelers that the local rulers or authorities keep order and strictly punish criminals.
“Zum Galgen” (“To the Gallows”) – street name sign in German Photo: Uwe Zucchi dpa/lhe/dpa/picture alliance
The gallows have disappeared, the names remain
These places in Germany are still reminiscent of the geographical names of various hills, roads and fields in which the German “gallows” – “Galgen” is present. Among them are Galgenfeld, Galgenberg, Galgenakker, Galgenweg, Galgenbukel and so on. Death on the gallows was a shameful punishment. She was charged with theft, robbery, adultery, bigamy, slander, desertion, poaching, inciting riots, and so on. The honorable right to lose one’s life by cutting off one’s head had to be earned, so to speak…
The judges also determined how long those executed were to remain on the gallows – from several weeks, months or even longer. To construct these structures, stone pillars, metal hooks and wooden beams, preferably oak, were often used. In some places they were designed for six or even eight people. There were even multi-story ones – whoever hung higher was considered a more terrible villain.
Medieval executioner mask – exhibit of an exhibition held in Kassel Photo: Uwe Zucchi dpa/lhe/dpa/picture alliance
Executioners and places for executions
Previously, for centuries, Germanic tribes used special trees to carry out such executions – oaks in sacred groves, sacrificing criminals during pagan rituals in order to pacify the wrath of the gods for their deeds. Permanent places for executions began to be built here around the 13th century during the establishment of the rules of the Zemsky Peace on the territory of the then Holy Roman Empire. Around the same time, the first professional executioners began to perform their duties in German cities. Work guaranteed a stable income, but was despicable work, although necessary for medieval justice.
18th century executioner’s ax from the Sauerland region of GermanyPhoto: Uwe Zucchi dpa/lhe/dpa/picture alliance
Hanged people could not be buried in consecrated cemeteries, therefore, after the expiration of the prescribed period, the remains or parts of decomposed bodies that ended up on the ground ahead of time were buried somewhere nearby in pits. Crows flew here to peck at the corpses, black flocks of which circled above the gallows, like the sinful souls of the executed, who were not destined to find eternal peace.
Gallows were often installed on stone foundations, which is why such places were popularly called “Raven Stones” – “Rabenstein”. However, according to some sources, the term was used primarily for scaffolds where heads were cut off, rather than for gallows. However, sometimes all types of capital punishment were carried out in one place, including the most cruel and shameful – wheeling.
Archaeological excavations in 2023 at a medieval execution site near the East German town of Quedlinburg Photo: picture alliance/dpa
In medieval Cologne, its Rabenstein was located about two kilometers from the southwestern part of the city wall near the leprosarium – where later, during the Napoleonic occupation of the Rhineland at the end of the 18th – beginning of the 19th century, the new city cemetery Melaten was founded. It is now considered one of the most famous historical cemeteries in Germany. In Cologne, executions were also carried out in four other places – in particular, at the Haymarket – Heumarkt and the Old Market – Alter Markt.
Last executions in Germany
Just during the time of the French Emperor Napoleon I Bonaparte, the era of medieval gallows in the German lands ended – this type of death penalty was gradually and universally abolished. It was renewed during National Socialism and later used after World War II for war criminals of the Third Reich convicted at Nuremberg. The last seven sentenced by this international tribunal were hanged in an American military prison in the Bavarian city of Landsberg on June 7, 1951, when the new Basic Law was already in force in Germany – the West German constitution prohibiting the death penalty. Then there were discussions caused by demands to replace capital punishment with life imprisonment due to the abolition of the death penalty in West Germany, but the sentences passed in Nuremberg were nevertheless carried out.
In turn, the last death penalty by decision of a German criminal court on the territory of the occupation zones of the Western victorious powers was carried out in the Berlin Moabit prison on February 18, 1949, shortly before the entry into force of the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany. On this day, the verdict in the case of the murder of a truck driver was carried out. After shooting the driver, the criminals removed the car wheels to sell on the black market. The head of the gang was cut off, and the body was then transferred to the anatomical theater of the medical university.
In the GDR, during the existence of this socialist state, 164 death sentences were carried out – by firing squad or by guillotine. The last sentence was carried out in 1981. The death penalty itself was abolished in the GDR in 1987, several years before the reunification of the country. However, let’s go back to the Dark Middle Ages.
Reconstructed medieval gallows in MünzenbergPhoto: picture alliance
Sights and excavations
The best preserved medieval gallows in Germany is located in Hesse – in the Berfelden district in the city of Oberzent (Odenwald). According to the State Office for the Protection of Monuments, in Hesse there are in total more than a dozen well- or partially preserved such historical buildings, and there are also more than a hundred places where traces of the existence of gallows and executions were discovered during archaeological excavations.
Medieval gallows in this German state can be seen, in particular, in the urban district of Steinheim in Hanau, the municipality of Hopfmannsfeld in the Vogelsberg district and the city of Pfungstadt near Darmstadt. In the city of Münzenberg there is a copy of the gallows, recreated from historical documents.
The gallows in Berfelden in a photograph from the mid-1990sPhoto: picture-alliance/dpa
Medieval gallows in Berfelden
The gallows in Berfelden were built from red sandstone. Designed to carry out six executions simultaneously, it consists of three stone pillars five to six meters high, connected by beams. Executions were carried out here by decision of the court of the county of Erbach – a dwarf German state that existed in Odenwald from 1532 to 1806 and was abolished during the German mediatization – the political reorganization of German lands during the time of Napoleon.
The last execution in this place took place on a hot day on July 13, 1804, when a gypsy woman was hanged here for stealing a chicken and two loaves of bread. The circumstances of the case and the severity of the sentence for such a minor crime raise questions. As follows from eyewitness accounts, a lot of people went to watch the execution – the road to the top of the hill, which offers a beautiful view of the Odenwald landscapes, was completely clogged, which is why the condemned woman could not be delivered to the place for a long time.
This stone gallows was erected in Berfelden on the site of an old wooden one in 1597. It is now considered the best-preserved historical monument of this type in Germany of medieval justice. Photo: picture alliance/dpa
According to legend, the woman who was being transported on a cart screamed terribly and cursed people along the way in every possible way, but was in no particular hurry – the executioner, they say, will get his money, but until I get to the top, nothing will begin there without me… In such picturesque places there are gallows It was not placed by chance. Those condemned to death had to see in their last moments what a wonderful world they were leaving, experiencing even greater pain and suffering because of this.
Paying tribute to ancient Germanic traditions, linden trees were planted around the gallows – seven in total. In Berfelden they have survived and continue to grow, creating shade in the summer for locals and tourists who come to admire the landscapes from here. Near the city gate in the western part of the then separate city, which later became the district of Oberzent, at one time there also grew the so-called judicial linden tree (Zentlinde) – the place where verdicts were announced and the starting point for the path to the hill.
Iron chains and gallows hooks in BerfeldenPhoto: Arne Dedert/dpa/picture alliance
For military needs
The medieval gallows in this picturesque corner of the Odenwald is considered the best preserved in all of Germany, although it suffered a little damage a few years after the last execution. To fasten the stone blocks from which the pillars are made, massive metal hoops were used during construction.
In 1814, the Cossacks of the tsarist army from Russia, who participated in the pursuit of French troops after the Battle of the Nations near Leipzig, stopped for a rest in Berfelden. The Cossack horses needed new horseshoes, the same iron was used to make them… After a short rest, they continued their journey to Paris.
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