1589: Peter Stubbe, Sybil Stubbe and Katharina Trump
October 31st, 2007 Headsman
On Halloween in 1589, the “Werewolf of Bedburg” was put to a horrible death for a supposed slew of crimes committed in lupine form in the environs of the German city of Cologne.
Our knowledge of the strange case of Peter Stubbe comes primarily from a single surviving account, and with many of the potential supplementary sources lost to the ravages of time and war, interpretations are inevitably speculative.
Stubbe reportedly confessed under (or facing) torture to having practiced witchcraft and claimed to have received a magic belt from the infernal powers enabling him to transform into a wolf. The doomed man owned, during the quarter-century riot of sin that ensued this youthful acquisition, to rape, murder, cannibalism, incest, filicide, slaughtering livestock and keeping a succubus in his bed. (Authorities were unable to recover this potent belt, and sighed that Satan must have reclaimed it.)
For these crimes, he was broken on the wheel, beheaded, then burnt — the latter punishment shared with his daughter and his mistress, apparently implicated as accessories.
Was there a real wolf terrorizing the vicinity? Was Stubbe an actual murderer with a supernatural cover story? Was he nursing a genuine delusion of lycanthropy? Did he back the wrong faith as strife over Protestantism rent Germany? Or was he just unluckily caught up in an instance of demonic hysteria?
Whatever the individual circumstances of Stubbe’s death might have been, it occurred during a surge of panic over the venerable superstition of were-beasts and shapeshifters (particularly pronounced in France) coeval with Europe’s crises of religious and political authority on the eve of the Thirty Years’ War.
Yet this troubled period bore the germ of a modernity whose pervasive social changes would upend, among other things, the idea of a real werewolf. As the sixteenth century closed, both medical and theological understandings of “werewolfism” increasingly located it in the realm of the psychological instead of the supernatural.
Within a few years of Stubbe’s torture, werewolves had left the hands of magistrates for those of doctors … bound eventually for the pens of screenwriters with Halloween fare in mind.
Also on this date
- Executed Today's Fifth Annual Report: Hang Five
- 1907: Evstolia Ragozinnikova
- Executed Today's Fourth Annual Report: Wrung, Wan and Quartered
- 1893: Bertha Zillmann, completely prostrate
- Executed Today's Third Annual Report: Third Time Lucky
- 1492: Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington, Nearly Headless Nick
- 1938: The terrified John Deering
- Executed Today's Second Annual Report: Once Bitten, Twice Die
Entry Filed under: 16th Century,Beheaded,Broken on the Wheel,Burned,Common Criminals,Germany,Gruesome Methods,Mature Content,Murder,Public Executions,Rape,Serial Killers,Sex,The Supernatural,Torture,Witchcraft,Women
Tags: 1580s, 1589, bedburg, katharina trump, medicine, october 31, peter stubbe, Protestant Reformation, superstition, sybil stubbe, theology, werewolf of bedburg, werewolves
October 31st, 2007 at 10:57 am
Your research on Peter Stubbe is TOP CLASS!! I just finished reading it. FANTASTIC!!
This particular article struck a chord with me, as we have the same phenomenon here in Africa re clynical lycanthropy i.e. delusional thinking that one can “shape shift” or change into an animal. As you maybe know, Africa is rife with witchdoctors, who are believed (and sometimes believe themselves) to shape-shift. It is a fascinating topic!!
As regards to Peter Stubbe, a detailed study was done by Peter Kremer. You can find his mini-desertation here http://hometown.aol.de/bedburgerwerwolf/bedburgwerwolf.html. It is in German.
Some interesting speculation on Peter Stubbe:
1. He could have been suffering from lycanthropy
2. He could have been a hirsutism sufferer (increasing and excessive hair growth), which could have given rise to the notion that he was a “werewolf”.
3. He was from a middle-class order and possessed land, which others wanted and thus concocted a plot to deprive him of this land.
Fascinating blog!! I am certainly going to be enjoying your research!!!
October 31st, 2007 at 11:03 am
Fascinating. I’ll definitely give it a plug.
October 31st, 2007 at 2:07 pm
Jason, great idea, perfect day to start it on!! You have me as a daily reader!!
November 23rd, 2007 at 5:53 pm
Hello,
I live in Bedburg near Cologne!
When you have the chance to walk the path of the werewolf by night it`s really scary. Well, when you have the money and the time to spend some time here, I wish you a scary night in Bedburg.
You can also search Kaster, Broich, Erprath – these are the names of the small villages where Peter killed all people.
April 6th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Hello,
I`m interesting in the Peter Subbe case. Is there any place in Bedburg connecting to him? Where is “path of the werewolf” in Bedburg?
Peter
August 6th, 2008 at 11:07 pm
Hello,
i am cyndie and i was born a stubbe so I am very interested in my amcestry. I have some names that date back to 1700 maybey earlier. they are all from Germany. I would be very interseted in any info anyone would have on any of the stubbe’s and peter stubbe. would love pictures also of places he lived if that is possible. thanks everyone
cyndie
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October 30th, 2009 at 8:42 pm
Jason, You’re the man. Good writing!
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February 24th, 2011 at 3:12 pm
Hi again to everyone. wrote a comment baqck on aug 6th 2008 about me being born a stubbe. i have no way of knowing if i am realated in the least bit to peter stubbe. He seemed to have been a horrible person. But i’m not the one to judge. only GOD does that. Again anyone who may have any info on peter stubbes relatives back in the 1550 to 1700′s please let me know thank you very much cyndie……
the only records i can find right now are anno stubbe is my grandfather born july 26th 1873, his father jan jans stubbe born feb 5 1831 in nievw berrta, netherlands… his father jan klausefend stubbe born jan 28 1803 in wymeer, germany …. his father was klaus berends stubbe… germany no date born… thanks
August 28th, 2011 at 7:15 pm
hey i want to know i werewolf story is real or fake?
September 8th, 2011 at 6:33 pm
hahahaha, cyndi, I have the same problem..almost ashamed to be a Stubbe and also with a father called anno(oh,hell,lol!)
October 25th, 2011 at 10:03 am
[...] Peter Stubbe (also spelled Stumpp or Stumpf) was known as “the Werewolf of Bedburg.” His name may have actually been Griswold; the name “Stumpp” could have come from the fact that he was missing his left hand. This only actual record of this curious case is in the form of a lurid pamphlet which was circulated in Germany as a sensational tabloid would be today. Only a later translation exists now. Some accounts peg Stubbe as a serial killer, who murdered and sometime ate his victims over a 25-year period. He was also accused of incest with his daughter, which produced a son whom he murdered. There is also speculation that Stubbe was completely railroaded for political purposes, or to calm those who were terrified of the demons that were killing the townspeople. [...]
October 25th, 2011 at 10:51 am
[...] Peter Stubbe (also spelled Stumpp or Stumpf) was known as “the Werewolf of Bedburg.” His name may have actually been Griswold; the name “Stumpp” could have come from the fact that he was missing his left hand. This only actual record of this curious case is in the form of a lurid pamphlet which was circulated in Germany as a sensational tabloid would be today. Only a later translation exists now. Some accounts peg Stubbe as a serial killer, who murdered and sometime ate his victims over a 25-year period. He was also accused of incest with his daughter, which produced a son whom he murdered. There is also speculation that Stubbe was completely railroaded for political purposes, or to calm those who were terrified of the demons that were killing the townspeople. [...]
October 25th, 2011 at 11:30 am
[...] Peter Stubbe (also spelled Stumpp or Stumpf) was known as “the Werewolf of Bedburg.” His name may have actually been Griswold; the name “Stumpp” could have come from the fact that he was missing his left hand. This only actual record of this curious case is in the form of a lurid pamphlet which was circulated in Germany as a sensational tabloid would be today. Only a later translation exists now. Some accounts peg Stubbe as a serial killer, who murdered and sometime ate his victims over a 25-year period. He was also accused of incest with his daughter, which produced a son whom he murdered. There is also speculation that Stubbe was completely railroaded for political purposes, or to calm those who were terrified of the demons that were killing the townspeople. [...]
November 1st, 2011 at 8:35 pm
[...] Peter Stubbe (also spelled Stumpp or Stumpf) was known as “the Werewolf of Bedburg.” His name may have actually been Griswold; the name “Stumpp” could have come from the fact that he was missing his left hand. This only actual record of this curious case is in the form of a lurid pamphlet which was circulated in Germany as a sensational tabloid would be today. Only a later translation exists now. Some accounts peg Stubbe as a serial killer, who murdered and sometime ate his victims over a 25-year period. He was also accused of incest with his daughter, which produced a son whom he murdered. There is also speculation that Stubbe was completely railroaded for political purposes, or to calm those who were terrified of the demons that were killing the townspeople. [...]
December 13th, 2011 at 3:04 pm
Your information is not correct.
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