The Extreme and Brutal Pappenheimer Witch Trial

I'm Maria tre Marquis and I'm Holly Fry. The time was the end of the sixteenth century and beginning of the seventeen and the Poppenheimer's were an itinerant family from Bavaria who took whatever odd jobs they could to get by. Having been teased and abused because he had been born out of wedlock pow less, the family patriarch ran away multiple times during his childhood, and he learned to care

for himself elf by doing odd jobs in local towns. Anna, the matriarch of the family, was the daughter of a grave digger and grew up in the Franconian town of Ansbach. Though her father's occupation was of course something completely necessary, it was also deemed as a degrading occupation among the locals. Anna was ridiculed by both children and adults throughout her childhood.

And when Paulas and Anna met and married, he was a day laborer in the town brickyard and he was thinking about how one day he would take over his father in law's work. So Poppenheimer, let's talk about this family name for a second. It's the name recorded in their court documents, making them forever the Pappenheimer's, but that likely wasn't the family's actual real name. They were likely

the game pearls. The word Poppenheimer described what Paulas often did for a living, He cleaned privies, So maybe think about it or like a family nickname. And there's also slang usage that we can't verify, so maybe maybe one of you can't, but we hear that the word was Nuremberg slang for garbage man. Far into the twentieth century. At this time in history, to set the scenes surrounding witchcraft, there was a strong belief and a healthy fear of

witches and the black magic that they practiced. You have probably guessed where this is headed. Paulas and Anna, along with their three sons twenty year old Gumprecht, twenty year old Jacob, and ten year old Hansel were accused of crimes of murder and witchcraft in February of six hundred and the case against them was based entirely on the accusation of a single person. That person claimed to have assisted them with murders of seven pregnant women for the

purpose of making candles out of their unborn babies. It is believed that Paulas may have previously argued with that man that accused them, but there doesn't seem to be any solid evidence. After being accused, the Poppenheimer's were arrested in the middle of the night, taken from their beds, and then everything that could go wrong did fresh. On the Bavarian throne there was Duke Maximilian the First, a young Catholic with a strong anti Lutheran stance, and of

note here the Pappenheimer's were Lutheran. Maximilian wanted to crack down on all crime in his region, and he believed the display should be extravagant. The worst the crime, the worst the punishment. Once they were arrested, the Pappenheimers were suddenly catapulted into the center of a witch hunt that was growing across Bavaria. The Duke decided to use them as a political tool. This was one way he provided an example of what horrifying things would happen to highwaymen,

grave robbers, and any other thieves among them. We're going to take a break here for a word from our sponsor, and when we return we will talk about how the Poppenheimer's were not guilty, they were scapegoats. Welcome back to Criminalia. So we're the Poppenheimer's instruments of the devil. Let's talk about that. We normally would not know anything about the Poppenheimer family, or at least not very much, especially not

more than four hundred years after they were alive. They were peasants and the only time their lives would have been documented would almost surely always have been in a court record. And because it was high profile, this trial was well documented, and the archives which can be found in Munich are rich with details like the names of the clerks, the lawyers, the jailers and even the judges

who took part. Individuals from the family his own circles, including glazier Jack Jacob the Poacher and Nine Fingers the Beggar were also noted as having been in attendance. It may have been one of the most well publicized witch trials in German history, but it was a show trial. What we mean by that very basically is that this was a public trial in which the judicial authorities had predetermined the guilt or the innocence of the defendants. The

Pappenheimer's were chosen as a scapegoat by these authorities. Not only were they peasants, which meant that they wouldn't be missed. A known thief and liar had named them as criminals while he was enduring torture before his own execution. But still they really didn't have a chance, and there were actually two trials. The first resulted in the death of four of the Poppenheimer family and two of their accused accomplices. Those were a farmer named Ulrich Schultz and the tailor

or Schmultz that may be smaltz Uh. It's a little bit unclear in the historical record which of those spellings is accurate. For that Taylor, the remaining member of the family, that is Hansel, who you'll recall, was just ten years old and five other accused accomplices were all sentenced in

the second trial. After their arrest, the family was taken to Munich, where they underwent an incredible exhibit of torture methods so severe that you or I or anyone would probably confess to every unsolved crime and cold case in Bavaria. We quote, as many as possible of the unsolved crimes of the past few years were to be put down to the account of the accused. A leading official in the trial was the Duke's counselor. That was a man

named Johann Sigismund Wagner. Johan had long made unsuccessful attempts to promote which trials in Bavaria, but that kind of hadn't take and off as Bavarian court chancellor, he hoped that he finally had his chance. And then there was Alexander von Hasling. Alexander was a Bavarian general and a witch hunter who, when Maximilian came to power, was chosen

as the leader of a so called war council. He was put in charge of managing the Poppenheimer's while they were imprisoned, and it is believed he really was not actually interested in their punishment, but followed orders by the Duke to use extreme measures, every member of the family was tortured, and under torture they began to tell fantastic tales of crimes of witchcraft, and they confessed to pretty much any and all outstanding crimes in the country. Really

no joke. To be clear, this was not the normal trial or punishment for a family of their stature. For them, the legal systems should have worked like this. If found guilty, they would have been sentenced to time in jail and then evicted from the territory. But all the Poppenheimer's were accused, tried, and sentenced for the extraordinary crime of having been instruments of the devil. The official charges went as follows. There are four to name. One quote of powless game Pearl.

It was said that he had crippled and slain one hundred young children and ten old people by dint of vile sorcery. The crowd also heard how he had entered the sellers of innkeepers and other folks, shamelessly devouring such victuals and drink as he might lay his hands on.

He had further confessed to having committed ten robberies from churches, violently slain forty four persons by his hand alone, set fire to homes or barns eight times, broken into houses by night fourteen times, pillaging and robbing the tenants, robbed wayfarers on the highway five times, and committed four other thefts. Two quote. In like manner, his wife, Anna, being sixty years of age, has assailed one infants and nineteen old people with her spells, crippling them and killing them in

godless fashion. She entered sellers on eight occasions, has committed one murder by her own hand, set fire twice to the homes of others, has caused four gales and hail storms, and has poisoned meadows and afflicted cattle so often that

she herself cannot tell the number. Three quote. The elder of her two sons, called Gumprecht, has caused the death of thirty children and adults by means of sorcery, has entered sellers on twelve occasions, burgled and robbed nine churches, committed twenty four murders, set fire to nine homes, oken

in by night, and robbed folds six times. He has four times committed highway robbery, poisoned and ruined fields and cattle without number, and caused strife between god fearing spouses on four occasions and four quote the other, her son Jacob, has slain sixty five infants and five adults by sorcery, has ten times entered sellers, has committed five thefts from churches, has put to death and murdered thirty three persons by his own hand, set five fires broken in five times

by night, committed four other thefts, caused ten gales and hail storms, poisoned fields and beasts twenty six times. According to accounts of the interrogations, the Poppenheimer's confessed to whatever authorities were looking for. After intense torture, family members began to reveal the details from their Satanic indoctrination. They each confessed to having sex with the devil, and on several occasions they confessed to aiding the devil for power and money.

They confessed that they had given hair from their head, their armpit, and their genitals to the devil. Also, and we're quoting from the records here, a piece of nail from the big toe that was of their left foot quote, and powder of children's hands They reported that the devil quote scratched them on their left side to draw blood,

which he then quote collected in a little box. The family members described how the devil took out a sheet of paper, placed it on his knee, and gave each of them a pen so they could sign the pact. Because the family had no schooling, the devil guided their hands as they wrote. Quote. Then he wrapped up in the paper all the things that they had given him and took them with him. In total, the family confessed to hundreds of thefts and murders, and they also admitted

to performing sorcery and black magic. Investigators in the case claimed to have found potions in their possession, potions made from the powdered remains of fingers taken from unborn babies. Together, the family members also named possibly more than four hundred alleged accomplices, but this was not because they wanted to give up their friends and acquaintances, but rather it was a feudal attempt at making the torture stop. Some of

the people who were named were arrested and executed. Some of the people they named were not actually real people. During their torture, Anna and possibly Powerless confessed to flying. Anna claimed that at first she thought that a night flight was actually a bad dream. She became convinced it was real when the devil assured her that he had carried her through the air. And at the time this

seemed like a pretty straightforward confession. Even most theologians at this period said that which is really did fly, so of course it made sense that Anna would have. How this also confessed to having bitten a consecrated communion host to make it bleed the host. To get us all on the same page, here is the bread used in the Christian ritual of the Eucharist, so for Catholics like Maximilian, it's considered to be the body of Christ, and this

desecration of the consecrated host was blasphemy. Powerless, with this act, must be, of course, in league with the devil. We are going to take another break for a word from our sponsor, and when we're back we will talk about what went on in a place called Falcon Tower. Welcome back to Criminal Lea, So please be aware this is what I was talking about at the beginning of the show.

We're going to talk now about some extreme torture techniques so the family had pleaded their innocence, but as this was, as we mentioned, a show trial, they were found guilty. They were sentenced to execution by being burned alive. The commissioner, Commissioner van Grek, instructed that Hansel was to be an eyewitness to his adult famili's execution right ten year old soul. The family was housed in Falcon Tower, which was a prison where their torture under Alexander von Haslang's watch began.

In the tower, torture would usually range from being hung by your wrists to dislocate your joints. There were actually a few versions of that particular technique do having to endure such things as maybe torch burnings and and other things like that. Children were often beaten with a cane and this was all just the beginning for the family.

When the family was removed from Falcon Tower on their execution day, according to the sheriff's for court, Hansel did not have much to say, but the boy appeared quote lively enough. The sheriff had been assigned the task of documenting the boy's reactions during the execution, so when they arrived at the place of the execution, Hansel as recorded by the local sheriff, said quote, look, look what a grand wedding for my father and mother. They've got so

many minute arms. The duke doesn't have as many himself, so he clearly didn't initially understand what was happening. His demeanor quickly changed, though, when flames engulfed the site, crying while sitting on the sheriff's horse, saying quote, my mother is squirming. The family's sentence execution by being burned alive, was, as I'm sure we all imagine, terrible. But the level of torture that Happenheimer's are subjected to is frightening, distressing

and tense. And Barstow historian and educator records of their torture, and we're quoting here because we wouldn't do this the justice that she does. So First they were stripped so that their flesh could be torn off by red hot pincers. Then Anna's breasts were cut off. The bloody breasts were forced into the mouths of her two grown sons. Church bells peeled to celebrate this triumph of Christianity over Satan. The crowd sang hymns, vendors hawked pamphlets, describing the sins

of the victims. Meanwhile, Anna's chest cavity bled as the carts lurched along. The injured prisoners were in agony. Nonetheless, they were forced at one point to get down from the carts and kneel before a cross to confess their sins. Then they were offered wine to drink, a strangely humane act. In the midst of this barbaric ritual. One can hope that between the wine and the loss of blood, the

Poppenheimer's were losing consciousness. They had not been granted the privilege of being strangled before being burned, but in keeping with the extreme brutality of these proceedings, they would be forced to endure the very flames. Further torments awaited. Powerless, A heavy iron wheel was dropped on his arms until the bones snapped, then subjected to impalement on a pike. The four Poppenheimer's were then tied to the stakes. The brushwood pyres were set aflame, and they were burned to death.

Unsel wasn't only made to watch his parents and two older brothers torture and execution, He too was sentenced during a second which trial just a few months later, and as the rest of his family, he too was burned alive in November of six A lot of us will probably come away from this case horrified by the corruption and brutality of it. The Duke saw this whole thing is a way to help stabilize the region. But contemporaries to the Poppenheimer's wouldn't have been as horrified as us.

Not really. Executions were often big events, with a large turnout and pamphlets describing what had happened at the trial. They would have agreed, or most probably would have, that the Poppenheimer's were instruments of the devil, and they also would have viewed the extreme torture and execution as a way to cast out the devil and save those souls. Holly, please tell me that you have a wonderful drink waiting for us at the end of this. I find it delicious.

You are either going to think that I am a crazy person or a genius. It is called burned at the steak, which I hope no one will find too flipward glib. But there's a very good reason that I want to invoke fire here. So in thinking about all of this, I wanted to do something that was very classically German as a drink, and so I started thinking about a cure shroyal. Hey talk about that. So it's

essentially that, but with a twist. So I'm going to tell you the cure Troyal part, which is actually not what you would do first, but I'm gonna tell you how you put that together before the thing. So to have on hand, you will have a half ounce of Kirchwasser, which is a clear cherry brandy, an ounce of cherry syrup, or I did mine with a mix of cherry syrup and vanilla syrup because you know I love vanilla apa

you do, I do. You're gonna want a two or three syrup e cherries, and you're gonna want three ounces of champagne or sparkling wine. So that's what makes a cure Troyal. That's nothing I've invented. That's a pretty standard approach to it. However, here's the twists. Like I said, I wanted to do something German that also honored is not the right word, but references sort of the horror of this, but in a way that is not horrible

to imbibe. D You're gonna take you know those small like putting cup sized sealables like a you know, a gladwear or a rubber made all of the all of the companies that do them make the small pudding cup size. You're going to fill that with sea salt, and to that you are going to add five to six drops of liquid smoke and you're gonna shake it and shake it and shake it until the liquid smoke has evenly distributed throughout it. And if you want, you can let

that sit overnight to make sure it incorporates. But you are going to use this to rim your glass before you make your cocktail. For anyone that hasn't ever done like a salt room before, I'm sure you know how, just in case you don't, you just dip the rim and water, and then you dip the rim in a shallow dish filled with the flavored salt. Then you pour in your your kirschwasser and your syrup, rop in those cherries,

and then top it off with champagne. So when you sip this, you get that yummy, fruity, sweet and bubbly cherry flavored champagne cocktail, but you also get that smoke sensation it's quite a cool thing. The other thing that happens is that salt will augment the bubbl nous of champagne, So it also is just kind of like a fun reaction that's going on as you sip it as the salt combines in that right, like the edge of your mouth is the salt and champagne combine. It's an interesting thing.

Definitely smells like smoke while you're drinking it, which is kind of fun too. I'm going to use this trick all the time. Just everybody that comes to my house should know it because the thing is like it is very popular for people to use or um to be served. I wouldn't say to use like smokers have smoked cocktails in a bar, particularly if it's like a fancy pants crap cocktails kind of place. Not everyone has a oker at home. And I wanted an easy way to kind

of give that smoked flavor and sensation. And that is it for the mocktail version. Super duper easy. You're just gonna do your cherry syrup with a couple of cherries, and you can either do like a sparkling grape juice originial, whichever you prefer, and you can still do the same liquid smoke rim shockingly delicious. You know it sounds it sounds wonderful. I'm actually very curious about the smoke rim on. The drink itself sounds right, I mean a cure. Shroyal

is a classic for a reason. It's it's delicious. Yes, So hopefully that will take the edge off the knowledge of what happened to the poor Poppenheimer's because this was an intense one, Yes, this one. As I've told Maria this season, I have felt like the heat is on to make interesting, fun cocktail segments because the stories are so rough. I know, we always end on an execution

and makes you want to have a drink. Yeah, yes, So thank you for hanging in with us for the difficult content and hopefully the cocktail is a little bit of a save for that, and just for listening to us tell stories. We will be right back here next week with another story of witchcraft or sorcery, and we thank you once again for listening. Criminalia is a production of Shonda land Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio.

For more podcasts from Shonda land Audio, please visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,