Dorothea Flock
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Dorothea Flock (or the Flockin) (1608 – May 17, 1630), was a German woman convicted of witchcraft in Bamberg and a victim of the Bamberg witch trials during the reign of Prince-Bishop Johann Georg Fuchs von Dornheim. Dorothea Flock was born in the city of Nuremberg. She was judged guilty of witchcraft and was executed in Bamberg in 1630.
Biography
Among all of Bamberg’s witch trials one case takes a prominent position. There is hardly a fate which shows the cruelty of the witchcraft trials more than that of the 22 years old Dorothea Flock.
She was the second wife of Bamberg’s councilor Georg Heinrich Flock. Their house was in Bamberg, Lange Straße 32. Already his first wife Apolonia had been executed for witchcraft in May 1628 and soon Dorothea followed her fate.
Based on an anonymous accusation Dorothea was arrested in December 1629 and imprisoned for alleged adultery. She escaped from custody but shortly afterwards she was caught again. This time she was accused of witchcraft. Georg Heinrich Flock sensed what as going to follow. To protect himself he fled into the Protestant Nuremberg to the relatives of his wife. The Hofmanns were a respected, wealthy and influential patrician family there. Together with them Georg Heinrich Flock hoped to snatch his wife Dorothea, who was heavily pregnant, from the mills of justice.
During the following weeks the family left no stone unturned. They objected to the procedure against Dorothea Flock and considered the circumstantial evidence insufficient to imprison her any longer. At least a custody transfer from the prison of the Malefiz house into the building of the old court was achieved. But also there she lay in heavy chains. With the help of a Nuremberg notary public and the intercessions of honourable patricians of Nuremberg they again appealed to the prince-bishop and to bishop Friedrich Förner. In addition Georg Heinrich and Dorothea´s sister Magdalena hoped for help from Georg Heinrich´s cousin, who as a high-ranking officer of the imperial army, just commanding a regiment in the Netherlands. He held out the prospect of using his influence with Isabella Clara Eugenia, the Spanish infanta and governor of the Netherlands. Meanwhile Magdalena won over Würzburg´s guardian of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin to petition to the prince-bishop pleading for mercy for Dorothea Flock.
But all measures, further interventions by notary publics as well as the engagement of the Nuremberg council remained unsuccessful. Georg Heinrich Flock had no other option but to turn with a supplication to the imperial Aulic Council in Vienna. Then the tide seemed to turn: Georg Heinrich obtained for his wife on 18 March 1630 a mandate by which Dorothea should be granted easing of detention until childbirth and the assistance of an advocate; and the prince-bishop was called for mediation “so that there is no cause for complaint”. The prince-bishop didn´t answer.
Therefore, on 23 March 1630, Georg Heinrich again contacted the imperial Aulic Council, which thereupon strengthened its mandate. Again there was no reaction from Bamberg. Only when on 17 April Duke of Fürstenberg, president of the Aulic Council, himself stepped into the case and Georg Heinrich even threatened to appeal to the pope, the prince-bishop replied to the first mandate of 18 March. He extensively took a stand against the allegation, appeased the situation and mentioned that Dorothea in the meantime had given birth to a healthy daughter. He defended his actions and had not changed his opinion in the least. On 28 April he even let Dorothea Flock – six weeks after childbirth – transfer into the Malefiz house in Bamberg again. But also the aulic remained stubborn and wrote a mandate again on 11 May. This however reached Bamberg five days too late. Under torture Dorothea Flock had already confessed the crime of witchcraft and was sentenced to death by the court of lay assessors on 14 May.
Before execution Dorothea Flock was to be gripped with red-hot pincers, then burnt alive. The remnants of her corpse were to be burnt to powder and ashes because of her alleged misdeeds by witchcraft, her reneging God Almighty and the Holy Trinity.
In the morning hours of 17 May 1630, the day of the execution, events came in a rush. At 5.45 o’clock in the Malefiz house Dorothea was read the judgement by members of the council and a grace-note was handed over: “that you first will be executed by sword from life to death and then your body will be burnt by fire to powder and ashes”. Between 6.00 o’clock and 6.30 o’clock Dorothea Flock was led to the execution which was held clandestinely in the Malefiz house.
At 6.15 o’clock a messenger handed over a letter of the Nuremberg notary public Georg Ocker to one of the episcopal vassals. This letter announced the filing of a complaint as well as the arrival of a papal decree from Rome for the protection of Dorothea Flock. Unfortunately the messenger forgot to mention the absolute urgency of this letter. So the letter only reached the prince-bishop at 6.45 o’clock – minutes too late.
Due to the monstrous events a resistance circle “Hofmann’s friendship” with Georg Heinrich Flock and the Hofmanns was formed in Nuremberg which acted as a germ cell in the fight against witch trials.
They used the meeting of the electoral princes in Regensburg from July to September 1630 to make public to the participants the numerous infringements of laws in Bamberg. However, Georg Heinrich most probably never saw his daughter, who was born by Dorothea under deplorable conditions.
Literature and media
- Ralph Kloos: The factory of death. The true story of a hushed up mass murder``
- Staatsbibl. BA Msc. 148/580 ff, 630 ff, 762; Sim 86
- Britta Gehm (2012), Die Hexenverfolgung im Hochstift Bamberg und das Eingreifen des Reichshofrates zu ihrer Beendigung, Rechtsgeschichte und Zivilisationsprozess (2., überarbeitete ed.), Hildesheim: Olms, ISBN 978-3-487-14731-4
- Heike Eva Schmidt (2012), Purpurmond (Roman), München: PAN, ISBN 978-3-426-28366-0
- Sabine Weigand: Die Seelen im Feuer (souls in fire). Novel. 2008, ISBN 978-3-8105-2663-2
- Der ZDF Spielfilm Die Seelen im Feuer (souls in fire) of 2015 according to the novel of Sabine Weigand deals with the persecution of alleged witches in Bamberg.[1]
See also
References
External links
- Dorothea Flock was executed 1630 in Bamberg as alleged witch Video
- Hexenverhör des 14-jährigen Daniel Bittl aus Bamberg (questioning of the 14-year-old Daniel Bittl of Bamberg auf: bamberga.de
- Katharina Haan – als Hexen im Hochstift Bamberg verfolgt wurden (17. Jhd.). (the case of the witch-craft trial against Katharina Haan in Bamberg auf: eo-bamberg.de
- Opfer der Hexenprozesse in Bamberg. (names of the victims of the persecution of witches in Bamberg
- Dorothea Flock in a virtual museum dealing with burning of witches in Bamberg