Joseph Ratzinger sees himself in a continuous line with the inquisition of former centuries!

During an interview with Bavarian Broadcasting alpha on the 16th of April, 1998 Cardinal Ratzinger, the current Pope Benedikt XVI said literally: »Grand Inquisitor is a historical classification, somewhere we stand in the continuity. But today we try what has been made after methods at that time, partly criticizeable, to make now from our legal consciousness. But, nevertheless, one must say that inquisition was the progress that nothing more might be condemned without Inquisitio, that is that investigations had to take place.«

This is relevant because “painful investigations” really did take place.

However, these sessions were carried out so cruelly and methodically that the victims had no choice but to deliver a confession or denunciation. They simply could endure the abnormal torture no longer.

And how many of these victims died during or as a result of the torture?

How many committed suicide?

Was this also a part of the “progress”?

According to the appraisal of SPIEGEL, the Inquisition was a precursor for the Gestapo, KGB, and STASI.

In fact, the Malefiz House of Bamberg has been a blueprint for prison camps of the KZs, gulags and many other person-despising totalitarian regimes up until today.

The following comparison shows the similarities and differences between two murderous systems in German History, the Nazis and the Inquisition.

The establishment of concentration camps was done with the purpose incarcerating ethnic groups classified as racially inferior (Jews, Sinti, and Roma), criminals, prisoners or war, dissenters, and homo-sexuals.

Systematic gasification, the most inhumane living conditions, and insufficient food worked towards the ultimate goal of the commissioned SS: the complete eradication of all people who did not correspond to the social and racial conformities of the Nazis.

Normal criminals were arrested in usual prisons.

The Malefiz House was build by prince bishop Johannes Georg II with one single purpose: the plentiful arrest and torture of innocent people.

The objective of the ecclesiastical prince was the complete effacement of suspected witches.

This campaign had 3000 followers in the Hochstift of Bamberg. (Source: New Awful Newpaper of 1630)

Normal criminals were arrested in usual prisons.

In 1933, the fascist regime began the ideologically motivated pursuit of Jews, Sinti, and Roma.

According to the Nuremberg race legislation of 1935, they were defined as blood enemies of the proclaimed national aryan man’s race.
These groups, as well as political dissenters were systematically and socially excluded.

The victims of the witch mania came from all layers of the Catholic population at the time.

All that was necessary for an arrest was a rumor or “denunciation” of the supposed witch. Most often it was women who fell victim to the witch justice of Bamberg. From a group of over 1000 condemned people, more than 700 of them were female.

In 1935, the Reichstag accepted the blood protection and imperial citizen’s law.

In these “Nuremberg Race Laws” the National Socialists created a juridical set of rules based on the anti-Semitic ideology of the party. Accordingly, German Jews were deprived of these civil rights. The denial of these rights culminated in the mass organized deportation of these people to the destruction camps.

In 1532 the Carolina Constitutio Criminalis came into force. The so-called “painful Halsgerichtsordnung” of emperor Karl V treated the imaginary witchcraft offense as equal to one of felony.
As a “special offense” (Criminal Exceptum), slight limits to the torture were set for exceptional groups: pregnant women, spiritually disabled persons, and children less than 14 years of age. For these people, the ordeal was not always inflicted.

Above all concentration camp gates could be found the cynical inscription

“Arbeit macht frei”

or

“Jedem das Seine“.

Above the main entrance to the Malefiz House there was written: „Discite justitiam moniti et non temnere Divos“.

Meaning: “May this be a warning to learn the right and not to ignore the gods."

”Above this basic principle, struck in stone, there was a statue of the Justizia, with scales, sword, and linked eyes.

Coinciding with the arrests, house searches were carried out by the Nazis to confiscate possessions and property.

The henchmen of the prince bishop also carried out home searches of all suspected witches. They looked for objects of the occult and made inventory of the property. This was in part because the victims were made to pay for their own proceedings and pyre.

The prisoner of a concentration camp was lawless.

In cases of the accusation of witchcraft, the validprocedure was that the suspected was allowed no
legal advisor.

Inhabitants of the concentration camps were shaven and assigned used prison clothes with a colored triangle sewn onto the lapel. The color of the triangle dictated the reason for incarceration while a number tattooed on the forearm of the victim gave his or her identity.

Prisoners of the Malefiz House also recieved a baldshave upon entrance.

A long shirt made of coarse linen, called a“Drudenkittel,” served as the only clothing.

Prisoners of the KZs lost all of their possessions to the “German National Wealth.” The machinery of war was financed by the possessions of rich Jewish businessmen. Even the gold teeth of the corpses were removed after executions.

The Inquisition Justice devoured huge sums of money. It is indeed believed that the Inquisitors themselves also got rich although the property and belongings of the “witches” and “magicians” were confiscated by the witches commission in the name of the church.

The aim of the Nazis was obvious with the Wannsee-conference in 1941: the answer to the Jew question was the methodical destruction of all European Jews. Torture in the camps was a part of everyday life. In fact, it was no remarkable component of the fascist destruction machine.

Even after a full confession, witches were continuously tortured for the purpose of forcing “denunciations” of more witches. This process caused the tragic and cyclical dynamic of the witch hunt in Bamberg.

Rapes were common place to life in the concentration camps. In addition, female prisoners were often supplied to brothels belonging to camps for the Kapos and the SS-Corps.

At the time of Dorothea Flock´s imprisonment, 8 other pregnant women were also serving a sentence in the Malefiz House. This is an indication of the sexual infringements of the torturers and guards, as the arrest of pregnant women was forbidden by the CCC.

In the KZs, many desperate people committed suicide, buckling in the electricity of the charged barbed wire fences. In some cases, prisoners did manage to escape.

Many desperate suicides were committed in the Malefiz House. With the help of an attendant, two women man-aged to escape.

For those not afforded the “special treatment’ of direct death in the gas chambers, cruel living conditions and exceptionally hard labor were to be expected.

Those who seemed too weak for labor were singled out for gasification during the regularly scheduled “selections” or simply shot. These mass murders took place in the hermetically guarded hell of the concentration camp.

The public burning of the witches was a spectacle with an air of festivity about it. The announcement of such an event was delivered through sermons and by special riders.

Often several people were burned at the same time. Shortly before death by fire, the torturers continued to commit the most excessive atrocities: the treatment of glowing irons and beating of the hands.

Crematories were an important part of the area plans of the industrialized mass murder sites. Companies were commissioned to create the most effective combustion stoves.
The special commands later dumped the cinder into pits and ponds.

In Zeil, Gerolzhofen, and Hirschberg It was believed that the only thing left of a witches body should be cinder, otherwise it was possible for the devil to use the mortal remains of the witch to wake them and to bring them back to life.

By being deported across the border, Jews lost theirnationalities and all their property. Claims from life insurance and pensions wereformally handed over to the state.

The CCC ordered that in the case of conviction, the defendant had to be informed three days before the execution.This allowed time for the “witch” to “find peace for soul in the confession” as well as make a testament. Religious Christians often left large parts of their property to the church.

Allied troops released the survivors of the deathcamps until the spring of 1945.

The witch’s pursuit in the holy Roman empire ofGerman nation reached her climax in the course ofthe 30-year-old war (in 1618-1648). The Bamberg witch’s pursuit got to know with him indent of the Protestant troops under the Swedesh King Gustav V an abrupt end. In Zeil 5 prisoners were released, in Bamberg the 10 last prisoners were set free from the Malefiz House.

Until now, penal authorities pursue surviving cul-prits. Allerdings, konnten sich namhafte Nazi-Kader in der Nachkriegszeit unbehelligt in wichtigen Funktionen von Politik, Wirtschaft und Kultur behaupten.

Ein Beispiel bietet Alfred Six, ehemaliger SS-Angehöriger, Leiter des RSHA (Reichssicherheitshauptamt) und Gruppenleiter von Adolf Eichmann. Er bekleidete bis 1975 einen führenden Managerposten bei der Porsche AG.

In the case of the execution of witches, a culprits pursuit never took place.

However, there are reports of local actions of revenge taken against the witch’s judges.

Memorials and places of recollection for the victims of the Nazi rule have been erected to serve as an everlasting reminder for the following generations.

They act as a warning for the crimes people arecapable of committing against other people.
Unfortunately they cannot and will not ever be enough.

The chapter of the Catholic inquisition has found out up to now no comprehensive processing. This lies partly are due to the fact that the disaster of the „Third Reich“ lay in the focus of the national Post-war historical research.
The opening of some of the Vatican confidential archives in 1998 allowed for a serious scientific discussion of the phenomenon of the witch’s pursuit to take place in Frankish Bamberg.

Result

The systematic paralells of these two systems are obvious.

It seems strange if you consider the beginning of the catholic inquisition: In the year 1215 Pope Innocence III invited 1500 priests to come to Rome to hold the so called "Lateran-Synode". During this synode the Pope declared, that the "Katharsers" were proclaimed being "heretics" - and the ´´holy war was declared against them"

The holy inquisition was the best weapon. The Jews were once ordered to wear a yellow spot on their clothes.

700 years later, in 1941, the German Jews were told that they must display a yellow Star of David, “obviously and firmly affixed on the left side of their garment. (Police order about the marking of the Jews)

The regime punished offenses against this regulation with prompt deportation to the concentration camps.

Still, there are also quite essential differences between these two evil German systems:

Even under the fascist dictatorship and in the supervision state (Gestapo, SS), an obedient National-German could lead a peaceful life. The public enemy was clearly defined by the NS-Regime.

Because of the loose process of evidence and proof in the witches court sentences, it was possible that any person could be arrested, at any time because of denunciation.

When the family of the Chancellor Dr. Greorg Hann was executed in 1628, it was clear that the witch’s mania knew no borders. Every citizen of Bamberg could become the next easy victim of the inquisition at any time.

The existence of the Malefiz House is widely unknown to today’s population. At the époque of the witch’s pursuit, in the early 17th century, this site of horror, however more dreaded, was as common to every citizen as the old bridge or town hall.

In the end, the Malefiz Houses, witch’s towers, and torture cellars of the the early modern age served only one purpose: the sadistic implementation of the cruelest methods of abuse. The accused was made to suffer to such as point that they denounced even their own families as witch’s accomplices.

Each of these people was completely innocent and was forced by the repeated use of the most inhumane methods of torture to make these desastrous denunciations. They were done in the presence of a priest, who often took the confession from them after the torture and who also accompanied them up to the stake.

“After 350 years, the innocent victims of a pitiless system finally gain our attention. Every name is an honorable memory. In it there lies the obligation to realise the dangers of totalitarian systems and to defend the dignity of every person.” (Dr. Alfred Bruns, land archive manager, Münster)

Indeed, the proposal of Miss Dr. Dengler-Schreiber, the world cultural representative of Bamberg, is welcome. The preserved “Julius Letter” should be added as a single document in the “List of the Memory of the World.”

The Malefiz House is a unique monument of German social history and Catholic religious history. It should serve as a reminder to the coming generations as well as be suggested for the list of immaterial cultural assets of humanity of the U.N.E.S.C.O.

If there is a street in Bamberg named in the memory of Anna-Maria Junius, why not also one for her tormented father, the martyr Johannes Junius? Or a public Dr. Haan Building?

The Malefiz House was a murderous nightmare for the whole population of the Hochstift of Bamberg. After two waves of the witch’s pursuit, the people were likely traumatized for years as well as distrustful of the overpowering clergy on the cathedral mountain.

Until the late 19th century, Bamberg was referred to in vernacular as the “shrine of the horror”- the nice town in which they burn all people.

“And it is very true what recently the inquisitor of a big prince dared to boast, that if under his hands and ordeals the pope himself should fall certainly and also he would confess as a magician.”  

(Cautio Criminalis, quotes after Eika Wisselinck: Practice Witchcraft)

On March 11th of 2007 there was a so called forgiveness prayer held during the 1000 years anniversary festival of the archibshopric of Bamberg. In front of the same altar, where his predecessors Gottfried of Aschhausen, the Fox of Dornheim and Suffragan-bishop Dr. Friedrich Förner were praying to the citizens of Bamberg, the actual Archbishop Dr. Ludwig Schick said: "That we can be and give more light in the future, we celebrate this christian service of the CLEANING OF THE MEMORY with a prayer of forgiveness and renewal.

The complete prayer can be found here: (Link) - and if you wonder, why this unique mass-murder of the catholic inquisition and the Bamberg Martyrs never became a part of German History Research, than you might find the answers in this text.

The MALEFIZ-HOUSE-Project was started in the year 2005 - when we first saw a copy of the copper engraving of Peter Ysselburg.

Date: 08.03.2010