• Das Bürgerhaus im Stil der Weserrenaissance wurde 1571 in Lemgo, Nordrhein-Westfalen, erbaut. Der dort lebende, damalige Bürgermeister und Jurist Hermann Cothamm war eifriger und unerbittlicher Hexenjäger. Somit erhielt das Gebäude schon damals seinen jetzigen Namen: Hexenbürgermeisterhaus. Die Hexenverfolgung fand in Lemgo bis 1681 statt. Im Stadtarchiv sind rund 200 Hexen-Prozessakten erhalten. Gemäß der Dokumente wurden in Lemgo etwa 250 Menschen, meistens Frauen, als Hexen getötet. Tatsächlich dürfte die Zahl aber erheblich höher sein. Unter der Folter wurde jeweils ein Geständnis erzwungen, dem die Verbrennung auf dem Scheiterhaufen folgte. Lemgo gehört zu den Städten, in denen die Hexenprozesse besonders intensiv geführt wurden.
• The town house in architectural style of the Weser Renaissance was built 1571 in Lemgo, North Rhine-Westphalia. The mayor and lawyer Hermann Cothamm, living former there, was a keen and relentless witch-hunter. Already at that time the building received its current name: Hexenbürgermeisterhaus (Witches mayor house). The witch-hunt in Lemgo took place till 1681. In the town archive about 200 witch case documents are conserved. According to the documents about 250 people, mostly women, were killed as witches. However, really the number might be much higher. Under torture, in each case, a confession was forced. Then the burning at the stake followed. Lemgo belongs to the towns in which the witch processes were conducted especially intensely.
Thanks, dear Lena, for your interest. Yes, it is a very sad page of history ...and it is not very long ago. You see: The house where a keen witch-hunter lived is still in a very good state.
In Christian Europe the religious witches faith was a widespread superstition whose roots can be found in the prechristian gods belief. The main element of the witches faith was the devil pact, which means the renunciation from God. In addition there was the faith of sexual intercourse between witch and devil.
It was quite easy to accuse somebody of the witchcraft. How should the accused prove the opposite? In the questioning, every witch has stood, or has died before.
Mostly the reasons, why somebody was accused to the witchcraft, had nothing do with the religious faith. Reasons were adultery, jealousy, envy, disputes or veiling of own misdemeanours.
Practically everybody had to have fear to be accused as witch sometime. To hunt witches and to kill witches therefore was the best protection against an accusation of witchcraft!
Judging by accusations reasons - it could be just close people, or rather close man - the husband or brother or father ...
Is that so?
If so, I see a deeper meaning in this action "from above" (like divine) - stop the life of those branches of human life, which can not break out of the low emotions ... so life continued only those branches of the people who were more developed, that is, people who know how to manage their emotions low (adultery, jealousy, envy, disputes or veiling of own misdemeanours) and lived more highly spiritually (they trusted friends, loved and defended women, defended his family) ...
But if the prosecution could come from other people (outside of the family, where women lived), then this idea of killing women is aimed at ending the branches of the family good people ...
Everybody could invent a magic story and accuse with it a person of the witchcraft. If there was even a witness of this magic story, it was the sure death of the witch.
The mother of witch hunter Hermann Cothamm was also accused of the witchcraft. In the questioning on a torture chair with thumbscrews she confessed the witchcraft. She was killed in 1654 by combustion. The witches pursuit took place between educated people! The brother of the burned witch, Hermann Goerhausen, was even a law professor at the university of Rinteln.
Was the son of the burnt witch now also a son of the devil?
According to my view, son Hermann Cothamm had no other choice to survive, than to prove by permanent witch hunting, that he was no son of the devil. So as mayor and lawyer, he induced the killing of more than 100 witches.
Please wait...
