Executioner Goslar

 It was around midday when they brought in the boy. Dietrich Henning, seventeen years at most, dusty hair still full of hay, fists clenched, clothes torn at the shoulders. A farmhand from Harlingerode, hardly grown, his voice as fragile as reed. He was accused of poisoning his master, a certain Herr Vogler, owner of a shabby farm on the edge of the village. The charge: rat poison in the morning porridge, in revenge for beatings and hunger. He remained silent. Even when the Council read the indictment to him, he only looked at the floor. Not out of remorse, but out of defiance. I knew that look. It was not guilt burning there, but fear with no escape. The preacher, young pastor Klausner, spoke of the possibility of possession — the devil binding the tongue, as described in Scripture. The town physician nodded thoughtfully. But I saw only a boy who knew the language of violence, not of words. I was charged with the interrogation. On the first day, they contented themselves with har...

 The evening air hung heavy over Goslar, saturated with a heat that did not recede even after sunset. There was no moon, only the pale shine of stars behind a veil of clouds. I had already withdrawn to my workroom, the knife sharpened and the wine poured, when there was another knock at the door — twice short, once long. The sign of the Council. My wife looked up from her knitting. She did not speak, but her fingers stiffened. We both knew: no messenger comes after dusk for a trivial matter. On the square in front of the Rathaus a few torches still burned. The windows were dark, save one. The back room. There, where men meet when minutes later must be twisted or forgotten. The servant led me in silently. The wooden passage smelled of candle wax and old linen. In the room sat three men. To the right, Mayor Cramer, the youngest of the three, with nervous hands and a stain on his collar. Beside him the secretary, Master Bode, who did not use his goose quill but held it like a dagge...

Today, a day later, I brought her to the Sankt Stephani Church. Anna stayed at home to rest. The midwife had insisted. It was cold, and the snow crunched beneath my feet. I carried my daughter in a thick woollen cloth, close against my chest. She slept. In the church it was quiet, the pastor whispered the words of the sacrament almost solemnly. We stood at the baptismal font, I and the two witnesses – my distant cousin Wilhelm and Anna’s sister Ilsabe. “Anna Maria,” said the pastor, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” And he sprinkled the water over her forehead. She stirred briefly, frowned, but did not cry. Not a tear. I thought that strong, as if she knew this was an important moment and that silence was fitting. As if she understood that from now on she was a child of God. Then we softly sang a psalm, and I looked up to the wooden vault of the church, to the chandeliers, the light, the sacred. It felt as though my child stood under protection. ...

Today our daughter was born. A girl. Our first. And what a one: strong in build, with a powerful breath, a color like apple blossom in spring, and eyes still clouded, yet carrying something piercing within. We have given her the name Anna Maria, after my wife and after the Mother of God. To bless her with the virtue of the one and the holiness of the other. It was early in the morning, still dark outside. The snow had lain itself like a soft blanket over the Rosenberg, and inside only the hearth fire burned. The evening before, Anna had still rinsed the linen and prepared the soup for the next day, as if she knew her time was near but refused to give in to it. To my amazement, she carried out her tasks until the very last days without complaint – as if her body was stronger than the months it bore. When her labor began, I sent servant Bastian to fetch the midwife. He ran down Rosentorstraße in his winter coat, and within the hour she stood inside our home. Her hands cool, her gaze st...

 Barely a week after the regiment of more than a thousand Swedish soldiers had left Goslar, the drumming of drums and the clatter of hooves echoed once more through the streets. This time a company of horsemen and a regiment of infantry entered the city, under the command of Colonel Hamson. The people stood powerless along the streets. Some lowered their eyes, others muttered curses into their beards, but no one dared resist. The memory of the months of hunger and scarcity, when 1,304 men had to be fed and housed, is still fresh. And now it begins all over again. The riders took up quarters in the stables and inns by the Breite Tor, while the infantry was distributed across the districts. Houses were broken open again, barns seized, and the marketplace was crowded with carts and tents. The Council decreed that the citizens must once more provide food and lodging. On Marktstraße I heard a woman cry: “We have not a crumb left from the last time — how are we to bear this?” Her word...

  Today the bells of the Marktkirche and the Sankt Stephani Church rang without pause, heavy and solemn. It was for the death of our emperor Ferdinand II, who had already died on 15 February in Vienna. The news reached Goslar late, but today it was officially commemorated. The Council had ordered that all churches ring their bells and that the citizens gather in prayer. In the Marktkirche there was a special service, where the preacher spoke about obedience to the authority instituted by God Himself. He preached that the emperor, distant though he was from us, represented the place of God’s order in the empire, and that therefore we must pray for his soul and for the future of the Holy Roman Empire. The church was full. I saw citizens, councillors and guild brothers, all in sombre attire. The women whispered softly, the children were silent. Outside, on the marketplace, many remained standing, listening to the bell-ringing that rolled over the city for hours. I stood in the chu...

 Today another regiment of Swedish soldiers entered our city. This time they did not come as enemies who seized the walls, but as “allies” who had to be quartered. The regiment numbered 1,304 men, an endless procession of pikemen, musketeers, and cavalry who marched through the city gates and spread out across our districts. The Council had ordered that citizens open their homes. Each family was assigned soldiers who were to be given shelter and food. The burden is heavy, for the winter stores are scarcely finished, and this year’s harvest has not yet come in. I heard women weeping as their beds were taken, and children giving up their places to rough men who spoke no German except a few curses. I myself was spared from soldiers in my house, perhaps because no one dares to burden me in my office. Yet I see the tension in the streets: carts of hay and grain vanish into the barracks, barrels of beer are tapped for the troops, and our citizens stoop under the levy. I thought back t...

  The wind had wedged itself into the corners of the city, sharp as rust. The snow had melted, but left behind a grey sludge — mud, straw, dung. The streets around the defensive tower, the Zwinger, where the city lets its filth sink away, steamed with rot and stagnant water. My servants from the knacker’s yard came to me, three weeks without pay. Their hands torn from scraping, their shoes black up to the laces, their coats soaked with the stench of cesspits. They did not complain aloud, but their eyes spoke. Boys from Seesen and Liebenburg, who had seen more entrails than bread. They did what no one else would do. They emptied pits, removed carcasses, pulled half-decayed dogs from the water by the city wall. And still … no payment. I wrote a letter to the Small Council, with a steady hand: “Your Most Wise may consider that he who bears the city’s filth should not be forgotten when the treasury is closed.” I signed with my full name. Not as executioner. Not as knacker. ...

 Today we prepared the second nursery. Anna brought extra straw mattresses from the market, had new blankets made of coarse wool, and arranged the woodwork as if it were a feast. The room still smells of resin and fresh lime. The winter air hangs heavy over Goslar, yet in the house there is the laughter and babbling of two voices: Wilhelm and Hans Caspar. Hans Caspar already runs like a young dog through the house — the wooden floor thunders, the old cupboard shakes when he bumps into it. His feet are often dirty from the street, his hair full of straw, his voice loud. Anna laughs when I urge them to be quiet. “Let them live,” she says. And I fall silent. For that is what they do: they live. Without fear, without judgment. As if the shadow of my office did not touch them. Anna says that I smile more these days when I come home from work. Perhaps that is true. Perhaps I let fall part of the outer armor as soon as I close the gate and the scent of lentil porridge or fresh bread...

  The air hung heavy over the city today. Not from storm or rain — but from something else. A tension that drifted through the streets, rolled across the marketplace, clung in people’s eyes like dust. Margarete Lichten stood trial. She was the widow of a mercenary, dead in the emperor’s service, somewhere between Halberstadt and Magdeburg. No one knew for sure. She was left with a ragged skirt, three children, and the name of a man who had slain more faces than he had kissed. She was accused of stealing offerings from the church — candles, bread, coins from the alms chest. But it did not stop there. The pastor, a young man with fiery eyes and an unbending back, called her a witch. He said: “She touched the holy with unclean hands.” And: “God’s curse rests upon him who disturbs the grave.” For during her interrogation, under the first torture, she confessed that she and her dead husband had desecrated graves — that she had gathered blood, mixed it with wine, and sold it as...

 The days grow longer, yet the wind remains sharp. The trees along the Gose show only buds, hesitant whether they may bloom. In the house a candle still burns in the evening, but the light is meager — not out of poverty, but out of restraint. It is Lent. As every year we eat simply: rye bread, stewed turnips, applesauce. Anna makes the sauce in her own way — with a dash of vinegar and a spoon of honey, so that it both tightens and softens. It fills the room with a scent I have come to know as sobriety, but also as homeliness. Son Hans Caspar does not yet ask for meat. He knows the rhythm of the calendar better than some pastors. Anna says: “He who abstains remembers better.” And I know: she is right. But last night, as I closed the window on the market side, I smelled it unmistakably: roast. Pork belly, perhaps veal. A scent that cut through the evening air like a call in a silent church. The neighbors do not fast. Their table follows laws other than those of the church. Pe...

 The night was harsh. The east wind drove over the Rosenberg as if it sought revenge on everything that rose upward. It whistled through cracks, howled past the chimney, tore at the shutters. The house groaned like a ship at sea. I lay awake, listening to the storm, and around the third night hour I heard two blows, hard and sharp. As if stones struck the pavement. Then the unmistakable rush of falling roof tiles. By morning I saw it with my own eyes: two tiles gone, the slates shifted, an opening through which rain and wind forced themselves mercilessly inside. It was not raining yet, not yet, but the sky was gray and threatening. I knew I could not wait a day. I pulled on my old boots, the leather coat torn at the elbows, and took up the tools. Anna stood in the doorway. Her face was pale, her arms folded. She already knew what I intended. “Why not a carpenter?” she asked softly. I looked at her and said: “Because a carpenter does not come to an executioner.” She was silent, ...

 The snow lay thick in the alleys of the Altstadt, hardened under the feet of the city guards who came to take her. It was shortly after morning prayer when Magda vom Bruch was brought in — not shouted at or beaten, but quiet, her head slightly bowed, as if she had expected her arrest herself. People had whispered about her for weeks. She lived in a small house behind the Brauergasse, close to the Gose, where dampness gathers and the walls sweat in winter. She sold herbs at the market: chamomile, asafoetida, lady’s mantle, vervain. Sometimes she told old stories, gave a recipe against sores or a potion against cramps. Too many had sought her out at night. Too many women had said they had “something from Magda.” And when the young wife of the merchant Christoph lost her child twice, and the neighbor Gertrud whispered that Magda had “murmured words over the bed,” the accusation was born. I knew Magda only faintly. In her youth she had served as a maid to a surgeon’s wife from Halbe...

 This morning I went to the church with Anna, resting upon a stretcher, and our eldest son Hans Caspar. Our neighbors, insofar as they tolerate us, stood still at the Rosentor and watched us with that mixture of curiosity and fear we know so well. The executioner remains, for many, a man of ill omen, even when he brings his child to baptism. The Sankt Stephanikirche was cool and still. The candles burned. Pastor Friedrich was already waiting for us, his hands washed, his robe immaculate. He looked long at little Wilhelm in my arms, yet spoke nothing but blessing. I stood there before the altar, the child in my hands and the mother behind me, and I felt something gentle, something vast pass through my chest — as though God Himself, for a moment, spoke in the breath of my son. “Wilhelm,” Friedrich spoke loudly and clearly, as he let the cold baptismal water glide over my son’s forehead, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” And Wilhelm, thank God,...

  It is evening. My hands still tremble from what the day has brought me. Not blood, not steel, not death — but life. Our son is born. Anna has brought a strong boy into the world, red in color and with a voice like a storm bell. We have named him Wilhelm, after my grandfather on my mother’s side. The room smells of warm linen, of iron, and of something indefinable — the sweat and blood of birth, mingled with tears of joy and relief. I have wept. I, Caspar, executioner of four cities, wept like a child. The pregnancy was long and hard. Anna had often been ill these past months. In the early mornings she bent over the basin, her face pale, her breath gasping. The smell of meat, of beer, even of my leather belt, made her retch. Her appetite came and went; most days she endured with nothing more than porridge and a boiled carrot. At times I feared for her life, and for the child’s, and every evening I laid my hand upon her belly, spoke a prayer, and whispered to the unborn life that I...

 His name was Bastian. A boy from the Harz, from Clausthal, where the air smells of ore and pine. He did not come to me out of calling, nor out of need, but out of Zwischenraum. A silent figure, tall of stature, with hands that fit tools like vises. When I asked him why he applied, he said: “I have learned little. Except carrying.” Bastian became my servant when I had only just taken over my father’s office. I already knew the tools, but not the silence of assistance. He filled that silence. Not with words, but with presence. He always stood one step behind me, but never hesitating. Screwed thumbs like a carpenter working with softwood. Laid ropes with care for the knot, not for the flesh. After the first interrogation with him, I saw his shoulders tremble. He sat outside the Ulrichskapelle on the stone ledge, his hands black with oil and blood, his eyes fixed into the distance. I asked nothing. He said: “My father was a carpenter. He made windows. I do not know how I ended up ...

This day the Swedish troops, under the command of Colonel Bergström, have departed from our city. Since their entry in January of the last year, their presence has weighed heavily upon Goslar. Now they marched once more through the gates, but this time outwards, their carts laden with treasures stolen from houses, churches, and guilds. The people have suffered terribly during their stay. The farmers brought scarcely any grain to the market, for their stores were ever seized. Many homes were plundered, and some families utterly ruined. I saw women weeping along the streets—not from joy that the soldiers were gone, but from grief at what was left behind: empty cellars, silver vanished, lives torn apart. The city, once proud, remains desolate. For myself, little has changed through all these months. My work went on as always. The dead kept coming, the cattle kept dying, and the executioner’s blade still awaited command. Where once my orders came from the Council, in these months they ...

 The morning was gray and still. The snow that had fallen in the days before lay like an old cloak over the roofs of the Klosterviertel, heavy and melting. In the Sankt Stephani Church it was cold, and the breath of the congregation drifted like mist through the dim space. The preacher spoke in solemn tones of purification, of the body and the blood, of communion with Christ in bread and wine. I knelt as was proper. Among the people. Not at the back, not at the front — but somewhere in between, as if in doing so I could forget my place. When the deacon came to me, I saw his hand hesitate. Just for a moment. It was no grand gesture, no theatrical shock. Merely a brief delay, a split second of tension at the breaking of the bread. As if he doubted whether my mouth — with which I pronounce sentences, with which I give orders for torture — was truly worthy to receive the body of Christ. I did not look at him. I opened my mouth. He offered the bread. I took it, chewed, swallowed. ...

  The snow had already melted for the most part in the streets of Goslar, yet the air remained sharp. My work for the day was done: an inspection, a brief interrogation, a visit to the knacker’s yard. The sun had set, the city slipped away into twilight. And I was thirsty. I went to the inn “At the Golden Stag,” as I often did when I wished to be alone — and yet among people. The innkeeper recognized me. I saw it in the way his hand lingered for a moment above the tap before he nodded. He said: “Back room, Master Kruse. As always.” I sat down at the table by the small window, with a view of the back courtyard. The bench creaked beneath my weight, the wood cold from the stone wall. The fire in the hearth burned low, but glowed enough to ease my back. They brought me barley beer. Warm, with foam that slid lazily over the rim. Beside it: sour pickles in a small earthen pot, lentils stewed with bacon, and a thick slice of black bread. The meat was fatty. The bread heavy. But it fi...

 The morning began with mist over the rooftops of the old town. The cobblestones of Marktstraße glistened damp, the air smelled of wet wood and candle wax. It was Candlemas, the Feast of the Presentation, the day when one gathers in the Church of St. Stephani to remember the light of the world — and to bless the new year. I went. Not because I was expected, for no one expects me. But because I sometimes still wish to believe that there is something that cleanses, that softens. The Church of St. Stephani was filled with breath, voices, scraping chairs. High above us the organ resounded. The preacher — a gaunt man with a sharp nose — spoke of Simeon, the old priest who had held the Christ child in his arms. “Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace; for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation,” he quoted in a loud voice, as the light fell through the stained glass windows. I sat in the back, by the pillars, where the shadow is deeper and the wood of the pews splintered. Befor...

 The snow lay thick upon the roofs of Goslar. The chimneys smoked sluggishly in the dusk. The house was warm from the fire, and it smelled of stewed cabbage and spice cake when my brother-in-law Marten Voigt arrived from Dannenberg. His cloak dripped with meltwater, his boots crunched with strewn salt. He greeted me with a short nod, as he always did—no embrace, no words of affection. Marten is a man without adornment. His face bears the hard land in which he lives, his voice is deep, his gaze sharp. He is executioner of Dannenberg, as I am of Goslar. His wife is Ilke, the sister of my Anna, and whenever we are together, there is always a tension in the air—not hostile, but heavy with the unspoken. That evening we sat together at the hearth. The children had gone upstairs, Anna had withdrawn with her knitting. The fire crackled lazily. I poured us each a cup of the dark Goslar beer we had only just brewed. After a while he began to tell a tale. Of a case three weeks before: a m...

   This morning I was summoned to the town hall, at the first toll of the bell, before the mist over the Rosenberg had lifted. A messenger of the council had knocked at the door—with the back of his dagger, it seemed—short and firm. My wife looked at me, yet remained silent. She knows that look in my eyes when the day will not be an ordinary one. On Breite Street there was only the scraping of my boots on the wet stones. The market lay deserted, the morning light cut slantwise across the façades of the houses. Only the weathercock shrieked metallic in the wind. When I entered the town hall, no one greeted me. I am accustomed to it. The council’s servants stepped aside without a word. My footsteps echoed too loudly upon the marble of the vestibule. All breathed the gravity of what had not yet been spoken. In the Small Council Chamber there was silence, only the scratching of a quill to be heard. Colonel Bergström sat at the head of the table, his hands folded, as though in pr...

September 07, 2025 Lord, You who know all hearts, mine as well— grant me strength to fulfill justice without pride, without the vanity of power, without the coldness of habit. Grant me obedience, yet not the kind that makes one deaf to what is just. Let my hands be hard where they must, yet let my heart not turn to stone. I do not ask You to release me from my office, but see my struggle within it. See not only what I do, but also how heavy it weighs upon me. Give me fire, Lord— not to burn, only to remain warm within. Amen.

 It was a gray morning, damp and still. Autumn came early that year; the wind chased leaves across the market square by the town hall, as if they were remnants of something not permitted to remain. No bell rang. In my room at the edge of the Rosenberg I sat at my writing desk when there came a knock at the door. Three times. Short blows. Not with knuckles, but with the back of the hand. It was a boy, no older than sixteen. A servant of the city treasurer. He carried a coarse linen cloth in his hand, carefully bound with string. His eyes were lowered. He said nothing. I asked nothing. He handed me the bundle as though apologizing for existing. I took it, felt the weight, smelled the bread through the cloth: rye bread, sour, fresh from the same oven that nourishes the city—yet from which I never receive anything without preceding blood. In the cloth there was also a leather pouch. Inside: Two talers. Clear. Heavy. One bearing the imperial crest, the other with a cracked edge. An...

 The letter came with the evening post, in the rain, its edges already soft with damp, the seal of Quedlinburg torn open. The messenger was silent and drunk, his eyes shining with pity or with beer—I do not know. He handed me the letter, only nodded, and left. I recognized the handwriting at once. Hans Mosel. His style was matter-of-fact, as always, as if he were writing about a delivery of hides or an appointment with the council. “My dear Caspar, Your mother Magdalena, my wife, died of the plague on May 8. It was quick. She complained of fever for only two days, then the skin broke out and she grew weak. On the third day she no longer spoke. She died in peace, on her resting bed, with a candle and the crucifix she had taken from you. The burial is set for May 10, in the small church by the market in Quedlinburg. If you and Anna wish to come, you are welcome. Your mother asked in her last hour after your son. — Hans Mosel” I read it three times. Anna wept softly. Not a...

 Today I was summoned to the Swedish commander, Colonel Bergström, who has ruled the city with a firm hand since the surrender. A soldier fetched me from my house at the Rosenberg. I followed him through the cold streets, where the presence of the foreign troops was felt everywhere. Musketeers stood at the gates, riders patrolled, and in the inns the murmur of foreign tongues resounded. At the town hall, which now resembles a garrison more than a council house, the colonel awaited me. He was a man of strong build, his eyes sharp, his voice harsh. Without preamble he said: “Kruse, you will continue your work as before. The city may be occupied, but order and justice must remain. Only now you act in the name of the Swedish crown.” I bowed my head and replied that I would not let my office rest so long as God granted me strength. He nodded with satisfaction and declared that my payment would henceforth come from the military treasury, and that I was to turn directly to him or his a...