Thread by @LandsknechtPike

The notorious Drudenhaus of Bamberg, one of the most sinister buildings in European history! Built in 1627 it was a special prison for people accused of witchcraft. The most brutal forms of torture took place here regularly for 5 years. If you want to know more, read this thread.

The Prince-Bishopric of Bamberg was a small ecclesiastical territory inside the Holy Roman Empire ruled by local prince bishops. It was a Catholic bastion near the Catholic-Protestant frontier in HRE and its Prince-Bishops were mainly concerned with fighting Protestantism.

The first systematic executions for witchcraft happened under Prince-Bishop Johann Gottfried von Aschhausen. Under his watch, around 300 people were executed as witches in years before the Thirty Years' War started in 1618 where he was a fervent supporter of the Catholic League.

In 1622 Aschhausen died and was succeeded by Johann Georg Fuchs von Dornheim, who turned out to be a very brutal and sadistic man! Because of his fanatical persecution of local people he would become known as the "Hexenbrenner" (witchburner) and the "Hexenbischof" (witch-bishop)!

The first years of his reign were ordinary, but in May 1526 there was a frost which destroyed harvest and people started to demand their Prince-Bishop to investigate whether it was the witches and wizards who caused the frost and why.

Prince-Bishop Dornheim was keen to investigate. He wanted to turn his Prince-Bishopric into a model Catholic state which included imposing strict control and witch hunt was a means to that. Influenced by local theologian Friedrich Förner, her created a special Witch Commission.

Förner was another ardent Counter-Reformation preacher who had already used violence in the past to convert people to Catholicism. In Bamberg, he was already urging previous Prince-Bishops to persecute witches as well. He provided the ideological framework and justification.

Such witch trials were not out of ordinary in the Holy Roman Empire, but what made the trials in Bamberg stand out was the extreme use of torture by which numerous confessions were extracted, which then implicated even more people, who were then also tortured.

Very soon, hundreds of people ended up being arrested, tortured and executed, including many members of Bamberg elite and entire families. If we look at it cynically, it was also a way for Prince-Bishop to eliminate entire elite of his small state and take their wealth away.

People were tortured to name accomplices in witchcraft which increased the number of arrests dramatically. Because of this, a large special prison was soon constructed in 1627, supposedly suggested by Förner. What took place here was worse than even what you see in horror movies!

This new prison was called Drudenhaus or sometimes Malefizhaus. Walls on the inside were decorated with text from the Bible, supposedly to keep the wards safe from spells used by prisoners accused of witchcraft. There were special torture chambers. What kind of torture was used?

Too many torture methods to list here so I will only list the most original ones. One was the Bamberg thirst torture where prisoners were force fed herrings with extra salt and pepper, without giving them any water. But this was lenient compared to other methods they used!

Prince-Bishop Dornheim used baths of scalding water to which lime was added to burn people's skin. Another infamous method was the so-called Bamberg kneeler where victims knelt on sharp spikes for hours while being whipped and beaten at the same time.

Prince-Bishop Dornheim also built a special torture chamber in Drudenhaus, a small room which had its floor covered with sharp spikes and wooden pyramids which prevented the prisoner to sit or sleep without impaling himself. He used this prison to try out new sadistic ways!

The entire prison was designed to break the prisoners psychologically and was designed so that 26 prisoners could be kept in isolation at the same time in the two stories of this sinister building which was the largest prison for witches at the time.

Around 1000 people would be executed for witchcraft in this small state of Bamberg. Before they were executed many had their hands cut off and were then burned alive unless they passed their whole possession to Prince-Bishop, in this case they were decapitated beforehand.

For five years, this horror took place in Bamberg and no one was safe. People complained to the Emperor however because of the Thirty Years' War going on, he was unable to intervene, and even when he did he was simply ignored by the local authority.

One of the notorious cases was Georg Haan, a well reputed doctor who left the city with his son after his wife and daughter were imprisoned. He complained to Emperor who ordered his family to be released. However when Haan returned to Bamberg, they were already killed.

Furthermore Georg Haan's wife and daughter under torture named him and his son as accomplices, so they were executed as well. Another famous case is the mayor of Johannes Junius who wrote a letter to his daughter before he was executed, claiming he was innocent.

These witch trials were attracting a lot of negative attention not just from the Emperor but also by the Church hierarchy which was outraged as the Prince-Bishop kept defying the authority of everyone, executing Dorothea Flock from a prestigious Nürnberg merchant family.

But as much as the Thirty Years' War was going in Dornheim's favor, it now turned to be a problem for him as the Swedish troops led by Gustavus Adolphus were approaching. Sensing that he was surrounded by hostile enemies, Dornheim fled Bamberg in winter of 1632.

This meant the end of witch trials and the main culprits died of natural death around the same time. Förner had already died in 1630 and Dornheim died in exile in 1633. The dreaded Drudenhaus was destroyed in 1635. Only dark memories remained of what was going on in Bamberg.