WEBVTT 00:00.800 --> 00:05.680 A bucket of water slams into  the unconscious woman’s face. 00:05.680 --> 00:09.680 She feels the strappado haul  her up again by the wrists. 00:09.680 --> 00:13.760 A boot kicks her back, ankle  weights yanking her down. 00:13.760 --> 00:18.320 Her shoulders pop from their  sockets and she screams. 00:18.320 --> 00:21.520 Finally, she whispers: yes. 00:21.520 --> 00:26.080 To dancing with the devil, to blighting the crops. 00:26.080 --> 00:30.240 The chief witch-hunter watches with greedy eyes. 00:30.240 --> 00:33.440 In such pain, truth no longer matters. 00:33.440 --> 00:40.480 Pressed for accomplices, she  names neighbors, friends, family. 00:40.480 --> 00:45.520 By the end of 1631, hundreds  in Bamberg will be killed, 00:45.520 --> 00:49.840 turning the German town into one  of the deadliest places in Europe. 00:49.840 --> 00:55.280 The witch hunt frenzy will spare no  one - not even the rich and powerful. 00:58.720 --> 01:01.600 A Perfect Storm 01:01.600 --> 01:05.360 Two hundred years earlier,  magic is old news in Bamberg, 01:05.360 --> 01:07.920 a Catholic state in the Holy Roman Empire. 01:07.920 --> 01:10.320 Most people live scattered across the countryside, 01:10.320 --> 01:16.240 where every village has the cunning folk  said to heal livestock or find lost objects. 01:16.240 --> 01:19.520 The Church mostly tolerates  their harmless superstitions. 01:19.520 --> 01:24.720 But some, like Heinrich Kramer, claim  witches are destroying Christianity. 01:24.720 --> 01:30.640 The inquisitor secures backing from the  Pope that witches are a real threat. 01:30.640 --> 01:37.680 He writes the Malleus Maleficarum, the “Witch Hammer”, a field guide on hunting them. 01:37.680 --> 01:43.600 Kramer argues that women’s weaker nature and  desire make them easy targets for the devil. 01:43.600 --> 01:46.560 The spicy descriptions of pacts with demons, 01:46.560 --> 01:52.000 stealing and eating children in satanic  banquets turn the book into a bestseller. 01:52.000 --> 01:58.000 So its ideas quickly harden into the  belief that witchcraft is heresy. 01:58.000 --> 02:02.320 But by then, the Church faces  a new threat: the Reformation. 02:02.320 --> 02:05.840 The protestants claim salvation  is between believers and God, 02:05.840 --> 02:09.040 while the Church has been butting  in like a greedy middleman. 02:09.040 --> 02:12.640 For protestants, the Pope is the devil himself. 02:12.640 --> 02:18.880 Soon, the empire fractures into Protestant and  Catholic territories, promoting competing truths. 02:18.880 --> 02:23.440 The Catholic Church tightens  its grip on a dwindling flock: 02:23.440 --> 02:29.840 confession is enforced and the ideal  believer is both obedient and watchful. 02:29.840 --> 02:35.840 In 1618, the Thirty Years War erupts over  which version of God is the right one. 02:35.840 --> 02:38.960 Marauding mercenaries raid the  countryside for their supplies, 02:38.960 --> 02:44.000 stripping villages bare and spreading  plague that finishes what hunger started. 02:44.000 --> 02:48.160 On top of everything, Europe is  gripped by the Little Ice Age. 02:48.160 --> 02:52.160 Harsh winters turn lethal, cutting  weeks from the growing season. 02:52.160 --> 02:56.320 Crops fail just as war is  already starving the population. 02:56.320 --> 03:02.902 So when a freak frost wipes out Bamberg’s fields  in May 1626, people look for someone to blame. 03:04.160 --> 03:07.680 The new prince-bishop, Johann  Georg Fuchs von Dornheim, 03:07.680 --> 03:12.400 is both religious ruler and  sheriff for a town of 10,000 souls. 03:12.400 --> 03:16.080 When the crowds start speaking of  witches, he needs no convincing. 03:16.080 --> 03:20.960 Von Dornheim establishes a professional  witch-hunting commission of seven skilled   03:20.960 --> 03:24.713 lawyers who become judge, jury  and executioner. 03:24.713 --> 03:30.000 Among them is Dr. Ernst Vasoldt, soon the most feared of them all. 03:30.720 --> 03:35.520 The first arrests fall on the obvious  targets: poor and marginalised women. 03:35.520 --> 03:39.040 Witch-hunter Vasoldt always  breaks them the same way. 03:39.040 --> 03:44.480 He begins with interrogation: about sabbaths,  the Devil's pact, who else was there. 03:44.480 --> 03:52.880 If the words don’t come, he lays out thumbscrews,  legscrews, and his favourite: the strappado. 03:52.880 --> 03:56.960 Naming neighbors or family  members might buy hours of relief, 03:56.960 --> 04:00.960 but Vasoldt demands denunciations by the hundreds. 04:00.960 --> 04:06.960 Soon, the tortured turn from familiar names  to the town’s richest and most powerful. 04:06.960 --> 04:11.440 In April 1627, the mayor’s wife is named. 04:11.440 --> 04:13.811 And all hell breaks loose. 04:11.440 --> 04:13.537 And now, back to our story. 04:15.971 --> 04:18.718 The Witch Factory 04:18.718 --> 04:22.878 In the quiet of dawn, Vasoldt walks  through the merchants quarter. 04:22.878 --> 04:26.158 At the mayor’s house, his  wife Christina opens the door. 04:26.158 --> 04:28.638 She can’t believe Vasoldt came for her. 04:28.638 --> 04:30.718 People like her don’t get arrested. 04:30.718 --> 04:34.958 Her sons watch from the doorway  as their mother is dragged out. 04:34.958 --> 04:40.158 Inside the house, estate administrators throw  open cupboards and trunks, recording each item. 04:40.158 --> 04:41.678 The silver candlesticks. 04:41.678 --> 04:43.278 The jewelry and coins. 04:43.278 --> 04:45.518 The value of the house itself. 04:45.518 --> 04:47.758 The inventory book goes to the commission that 04:47.758 --> 04:51.198 takes one-fifth of the estate  if the condemned has children. 04:51.198 --> 04:53.118 Half if they’re childless. 04:53.118 --> 04:55.918 Everything if there are no heirs. 04:55.918 --> 05:01.198 One third of proceeds goes directly  to the judges and executioners. 05:01.198 --> 05:06.878 And Bamberg's wealthiest families are worth  tens of million dollars in today’s money. 05:06.878 --> 05:09.918 And all this wealth funds more trials. 05:09.918 --> 05:13.518 Witch-hunting becomes von  Dornheims’ fiscal policy. 05:13.518 --> 05:17.518 His zeal echoes beyond Bamberg  and he hires out Vasoldt to   05:17.518 --> 05:20.878 assist other districts - for a fee of course. 05:20.878 --> 05:25.278 By summer, Bamberg’s prisons are  bursting and von Dornheim orders   05:25.278 --> 05:30.798 a two-story building raised against  the city walls: the Witch House. 05:30.798 --> 05:37.118 Inside, twenty-six narrow cells line two long  corridors, with two larger cells for groups. 05:37.118 --> 05:42.878 The guards’ rooms are warmed by tiled  stoves but prisoners shiver on cold stones. 05:42.878 --> 05:45.838 It’s a machine built to extract confessions,   05:45.838 --> 05:50.878 setting off a chain reaction that  manufactures more witches to feed itself. 05:50.878 --> 05:56.318 After confessing, the accused are burned and  sometimes beheaded in a public spectacle, 05:56.318 --> 06:00.318 three to six at the same time  for cost-efficiency and effect. 06:00.318 --> 06:03.918 Another respected citizen, Katharian Haan, 06:03.918 --> 06:10.158 watches in horror as her neighbor and  friend Christina is swallowed by the flames. 06:10.158 --> 06:15.358 The stench of burning hair and  searing flesh bites at her nostrils. 06:15.358 --> 06:18.878 The screams echo in her head for weeks. 06:18.878 --> 06:22.878 Every morning Vasoldt’s men drag a  new neighbour from their house and   06:22.878 --> 06:27.755 Katharina urges her husband: you have power here, do something! 06:27.755 --> 06:32.718 He is Dr. Georg Haan, Chancellor of Bamberg  and the senior legal administrator   06:32.718 --> 06:36.398 and he is privately troubled by  the witch hunters’ brutality. 06:36.398 --> 06:39.998 There are laws, and they  demand evidence before torture. 06:39.998 --> 06:43.598 Confessions must be given freely,  property can’t be seized at will, 06:43.598 --> 06:45.838 and the accused have a right to appeal. 06:45.838 --> 06:50.158 Von Dornheim and Vasoldt follow none of that. 06:50.158 --> 06:52.958 But the Holy Roman Empire is a sprawling patchwork 06:52.958 --> 06:58.318 and the emperor in Vienna has bigger  concerns than one bishop’s prisoners. 06:58.318 --> 07:03.518 Haan shows quiet mercy for his cases  and voices doubts in council chambers. 07:03.518 --> 07:06.398 But now his wife wants him to do something bolder. 07:06.398 --> 07:10.398 So he begins accepting petitions  from the victims’ families. 07:10.398 --> 07:12.158 It is a high-risk move. 07:12.158 --> 07:16.878 Powerful men who obstruct prosecutions  are considered witches themselves. 07:17.518 --> 07:21.678 In December 1627, while Haan is  away on business with his son, 07:21.678 --> 07:25.518 his wife Katharina and their daughter  are taken to the Witch House. 07:25.518 --> 07:29.598 Under torture, Katharina accuses  her husband and their son. 07:29.598 --> 07:35.598 By the time Haan returns, his wife  and daughter are dead, burned to ash. 07:35.598 --> 07:39.239 And waiting at his house, stands Vasoldt. 07:42.692 --> 07:44.878 Dead on Arrival 07:44.878 --> 07:50.398 Georg Haan, once Bamberg’s Chancellor, a man  who could halt trials with his signature,   07:50.398 --> 07:53.038 is taken to the Witch House with his son. 07:53.038 --> 07:57.518 Haan urges him to confess at  once, but it doesn’t save him. 07:57.518 --> 08:01.998 With most of his family dead, Haan  has no reason left to stay strong. 08:01.998 --> 08:07.918 This surrender is exactly what Vasoldt needs  to take down another disgraced official. 08:07.918 --> 08:10.958 Kneeling in the torture  chamber is Johannes Junius, 08:10.958 --> 08:14.478 former head of the city  council and Haan’s colleague. 08:14.478 --> 08:18.958 He keeps insisting he is  innocent but Haan answers coldly. 08:18.958 --> 08:22.558 He claims he saw him at a witch  gathering in the council chamber. 08:22.558 --> 08:26.798 When Junius denies it, Vasoldt  orders him to strip naked. 08:26.798 --> 08:29.598 His body is searched for the Devil’s mark. 08:29.598 --> 08:32.958 A clover-shaped spot on his side is enough. 08:32.958 --> 08:36.558 They start tightening their  screws and the strappado. 08:36.558 --> 08:39.758 Five days later, he breaks down. 08:39.758 --> 08:45.198 Just before his execution, Junius bribes a  jailer to smuggle out a letter to his daughter. 08:45.198 --> 08:47.358 His confession is all lies. 08:47.358 --> 08:50.398 All six who denounced him said they were forced. 08:50.398 --> 08:56.158 He writes: "For whoever comes into the  witch prison must become a witch or be 08:56.158 --> 09:00.398 tortured until he invents  something out of his head." 09:00.398 --> 09:06.158 By the end of 1628, around 60 people,  large parts of the city council of Bamberg, 09:06.158 --> 09:09.438 along with their wives and children, are executed. 09:09.438 --> 09:12.238 Still, the Witch House remains full. 09:12.238 --> 09:17.598 The execution ground works without pause  and the city keeps consuming itself. 09:17.598 --> 09:21.770 But the screaming eventually  reaches beyond Bamberg‘s walls. 09:25.651 --> 09:27.918 A Race Against Time 09:27.918 --> 09:30.478 A horse pounds through the night. 09:30.478 --> 09:35.758 Bamberg’s councilman Flock rides  hard, torch snapping in the wind. 09:35.758 --> 09:38.078 He can’t believe this is happening again. 09:38.078 --> 09:41.918 Two years ago the witch-hunters  arrested and killed his first wife. 09:41.918 --> 09:46.798 Then came Dorothea, and now they’ve  taken her too, heavily pregnant. 09:46.798 --> 09:51.758 By dawn he reaches Nuremberg and hammers  on the door of Dorothea’s family. 09:51.758 --> 09:55.358 They have ties to patricians  with direct lines to the emperor. 09:55.358 --> 09:56.823 Maybe they can help. 09:57.358 --> 10:02.958 Their letter arrives at the imperial palace in  Vienna, where similar appeals have been piling up. 10:02.958 --> 10:06.638 Emperor Ferdinand reads about the  burning of the Haan family and now, 10:06.638 --> 10:10.398 the pregnant wife of another  councilman has been taken prisoner. 10:10.398 --> 10:17.358 In April 1630, he demands von Dornheim  to explain himself and release Dorothea. 10:17.358 --> 10:21.678 The prince-bishop replies  that he is just serving God. 10:22.398 --> 10:25.838 Desperate, Flock threatens to appeal to the Pope. 10:25.838 --> 10:32.398 So in May, the Emperor sends a second command:  stop proceedings against Dorothea Flock! 10:32.398 --> 10:34.318 But when his messenger arrives, 10:34.318 --> 10:40.078 Vasoldt’s executioners have already dragged  her from her newborn child and beheaded her. 10:40.078 --> 10:44.158 Dorothea’s bereaved family  begins to organize a resistance. 10:44.158 --> 10:51.118 They gather testimonies from victims’ families  and escaped prisoners to bring before the Emperor. 10:51.118 --> 10:53.993 The timing is just right: when the Swedish  army invades from the north, Emperor 10:53.993 --> 11:01.033 Ferdinand needs unity and order but the maverick  inquisitors in Bamberg have become a liability. 11:02.318 --> 11:05.438 At the imperial assembly, the victims’ accusations 11:05.438 --> 11:09.598 are read and two survivors of  the Witch House make their case. 11:09.598 --> 11:12.638 Ferdinand accuses von Dornheim of illegal trials, 11:12.638 --> 11:18.238 of torture without cause and of contempt  for both imperial and papal authority. 11:18.798 --> 11:24.598 He orders an investigation, requiring trial  documents to be handed over and halts all arrests. 11:24.598 --> 11:26.958 Von Dornheim panics. 11:26.958 --> 11:32.478 He orders the burning of the the original trial  records and forges new ones that appear lawful. 11:32.478 --> 11:34.718 But he doesn’t stop the trials. 11:34.718 --> 11:39.438 In June 1631, Emperor Ferdinand  decrees that the Carolina Code, 11:39.438 --> 11:44.158 the first German criminal law, applies  without exception across the Empire. 11:44.158 --> 11:48.958 No secret trials, no unlimited  torture, no seizure of property. 11:48.958 --> 11:54.558 The system that made Bamberg’s witch hunt  possible, and profitable, is finally dismantled. 11:54.558 --> 12:02.238 By winter 1631, the Swedish army is closing  in and von Dornheim flees to Austria. 12:02.238 --> 12:05.438 His men release the last ten  prisoners from the Witch House,   12:05.438 --> 12:08.638 forcing them to swear silence, then scatter. 12:08.638 --> 12:15.358 Johann Georg Fuchs von Dornheim, now known  as the Witch Bishop, dies two years later. 12:15.358 --> 12:21.438 He is never brought to justice for the  execution of more than 600 innocent people. 12:21.438 --> 12:25.598 The trials continued after him across  the Holy Roman Empire long into the 12:25.598 --> 12:29.278 18th century as witchcraft  was gradually decriminalised. 12:29.278 --> 12:35.198 Between 1400 and 1750, around 100,000  people were prosecuted in Europe. 12:35.198 --> 12:39.838 Roughly half were executed, mostly women. 12:39.838 --> 12:41.598 The cause was structural. 12:41.598 --> 12:47.758 Fragmented rule left no central court to halt mass  panics and local rulers acted without oversight. 12:47.758 --> 12:51.918 Unless the trials were shut down by  higher authorities or disrupted by war, 12:51.918 --> 12:54.318 they could run on for years. 12:54.318 --> 12:56.798 But witch-hunting never really ended. 12:56.798 --> 13:01.998 People accused of witchcraft are still killed  in certain rural regions of sub-Saharan Africa, 13:01.998 --> 13:06.398 India and Papua New Guinea, where  legal protection has limited reach. 13:06.398 --> 13:12.718 In Tanzania alone, 20,000 people have lost lives  to witch-hunt violence in just two decades. 13:12.718 --> 13:16.078 The accused are still mostly  women and the elderly. 13:16.078 --> 13:22.078 Scapegoats for illnesses and misfortunes,  especially in times of economic hardship. 13:22.078 --> 13:26.718 The pattern remains unchanged: a  community’s fear turned inward,   13:26.718 --> 13:29.695 settling on whoever is easiest to blame. 13:26.718 --> 13:31.358 The pattern remains unchanged: a  community’s fear turned inward,   13:26.718 --> 13:29.695 settling on whoever is easiest to blame.