Anna Schnidenwind, nee Trutt, was burned at the stake in Endingen am Kaiserstuhl on this date in 1751 — the last “witch” executed in Baden-Württemberg.
There is next to no archival information surviving that would give us insight into this remarkably late Hexenprozess. However, it seems that Schnidenwind got Willinghamed: when a fire destroyed the village of Wyhl, local grandees immediately assumed that the cause of such a devastating event ware eine Zauberin (“would have been a sorceress,” as an abbot wrote in his diary).
Having begun from the conclusion it was simply a matter of finding the witchiest character in the vicinity to fit as the Zauberin. Schnidenwind, a 63-year-old peasant, probably had some pre-existing reputation as a possible witch — a reputation that a visit to the rack obligingly confirmed.
On this day..
- 1935: Three Venizelist officers
- 1821: Athanasios Diakos, Greek War of Independence hero
- 1752: Nicholas Mooney, penitent thief
- 1852: Nathaniel Bowman, William Ide inspiration
- 1889: William Henry Bury, Jack the Ripper suspect
- 1922: Colin Campbell Ross, for the Gun Alley Murder
- 1998: 22 for the Rwanda genocide
- 1945: A day in the death penalty around the Reich
- 1655: Massacre of Waldensians
- 1723: Major Jean Abram Davel
- 1521: The Comuneros of Castile
- 1868: John Millian, who martyred a madam