What happened
On 27 May 1626 an unprecedented frost destroyed vineyards and grain all over Franconia. People demanded that the witches who had supposedly caused it be punished, and the Prince-Bishop of Bamberg, Johann Georg Fuchs von Dornheim, backed by his suffragan Friedrich Förner, set up a special witch commission. Torture was used without any restraint, and everyone tortured had to name “accomplices” they had seen at the sabbath – so arrests soon reached officials, councillors and wealthy burghers. In 1627 the bishop had a special prison built, the Drudenhaus, with dozens of cells and a torture chamber. Among those held there was the mayor, Johannes Junius. In July 1628 he secretly wrote to his daughter, describing the torments that had forced him to confess falsely: “Innocent have I come into prison, innocent have I been tortured, innocent must I die.” He was executed soon afterwards. The trials ended only with the Emperor's intervention and the approach of Swedish troops.
Witnesses
Surviving trial records and Johannes Junius's letter to his daughter Veronica; a chronicle of the events was kept by, among others, his daughter, the nun Maria Anna Junius.
Explanations and hypotheses
The Bamberg trials, together with the contemporaneous Würzburg trials, were among the largest in European history – about 900 people were executed in the city and prince-bishopric in 1626–1632. Historians link them to the climate crisis of the Little Ice Age, the Thirty Years' War and the bishop's Counter-Reformation vision of a “godly state.” The Drudenhaus was closed in 1632 and later demolished – ordinary townhouses now stand on its site.
Explained The phenomenon has a widely accepted, down-to-earth explanation.
Sources
More: Wikipedia (en)