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He was tied to the wheel and ripped out with pliers "flesh to the bone".

In the early modern period, the Rhineland was apparently the main distribution area of ​​a species that still haunts the folklore of the region today: the werewolf.

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He was tied to the wheel and ripped out with pliers "flesh to the bone".

In the early modern period, the Rhineland was apparently the main distribution area of ​​a species that still haunts the folklore of the region today: the werewolf. The fact that the shapeshifter between Cologne and the Eifel was given its own name, Stüpp, is taken as evidence of its frequency. However, historians have also argued that the hunt for the namesake was exaggerated in propaganda to keep the population away from the wrong path.

Because the story of the Stüpp obviously has a core of truth. The case of the farmer Peter Stubbe or Stump, who is said to have lived in Bedburg near Cologne, is mentioned in numerous contemporary pamphlets. Above all, a writing that was printed in London in 1590 and was based on German templates became the basis of the Stüpp story. However, to this day it is not clear what was real and what was fiction.

According to this, Peter Stubbe was born around 1525. The historian Michael Kirchschlager summarizes the English publication in his collection “Historical Serial Killers” in his childhood: “Without thinking about his salvation, he bequeathed his body and soul to the devil forever . He wanted little sensual pleasures in this world, he wanted to be famous, he wanted the whole world to talk about him.”

For this purpose, Stubbe received a magic belt made of wolfskin from the devil. If he knocked him over, he instantly transformed into a huge wolf with fiery eyes and powerful paws. He is said to have killed countless grazing animals over a period of 20 years. In addition, 13 children, two young women and an unborn child, whose hearts he had eaten "hot and raw". At least that's what he's supposed to have said in court.

Among the "small sensual pleasures" was a certain Katherina Trompin, with whom he is said to have fathered a son and daughter. While he was incestuous with his daughter, "it was his most abominable act" to attack his son and eat his brain. Soon the residents of Cologne, Bedburg and Epprath no longer dared to leave the house alone, as they found the arms and legs of Stubbe's victims scattered across the meadows and fields.

But once God is said to have gotten in the arm of Stüpp. When he attacked a little girl in a pasture, he didn't manage to tear her closed collar from her coat. Cattle heard the screams. Concerned about their calves, they rushed towards the wolf, who fled from the menacing horns.

People tried to protect themselves and their animals with large dogs, which are still used today in grazing. In October 1589 “it pleased God that they beheld him in his wolf form. They immediately put their mastiffs on him so that there was no chance of him escaping,” Kirchschlager reports on his submission. Stubbe then removed his belt and appeared in his human form as a known neighbor.

In order to escape torture, Stubbe pleaded guilty to all charges. He threw away the belt when he was arrested – the fact that it was not found was considered evidence of the devil's intervention. Katherina Trompin and daughter Belles Stubbe were also arrested. On October 28, the death sentence was announced for all three and carried out a few days later.

While the two women suffered the usual end for witches on the pyre, the court had devised a particularly agonizing – and thus sensational – procedure for Stubbe. His body was put on a wheel. Then the executioner ripped out “the flesh down to the bone” from ten places on the body with red-hot tongs (this is how the leaders of the Anabaptist kingdom in Münster were executed in 1535). Subsequently, his arms and legs were broken with the hatchet to be braided onto the wheel. The fact that Stubbe's head was cut off at the end might even have appeared as an act of mercy. As a rule, those who had been exhausted languished in agony for hours and days.

The head was then placed on a high post, to which the wheel and a wolf figure were also attached. "All this, it was decreed, should remain there as a permanent memorial for all times to come."

That was probably the reason for the cruel execution. News of the trial spread to the Netherlands, Denmark and England. Kirchschlager and other historians assume that Stubbe "was the victim of a politically motivated show trial". Possibly a widely visible sign against the rising Protestantism should be set in the Catholic Rhineland. This could also explain why many of the approximately 250 known trials against alleged werewolves took place in this region.

In folklore, however, Stüpp underwent a transformation. Instead of using his teeth, he would kill his victims by jumping on their backs, throwing them miserably to the ground.

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