The Diary of Caspar Kruse III, Executioner: Goslar, 23 June 1636 – Dietrich Henning

 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 harsh questions, a few blows to the soles of his feet. He groaned, but kept silent. His lip bled from biting. His gaze stayed fixed on a crack in the wall, as if he hoped to find an escape in that thin fissure. That evening, at supper, my wife Anna said: “If he is guilty, he must speak. If he is innocent, he must be stronger than anyone.” I could give her no answer. Only silence.

On the second day I was requested to use the rack. The torture bench, with its leather straps and iron wheels, stood ready in the Ulrich Chapel. We bound him fast: ankles apart, knees slightly bent, arms spread like a cross. He looked at me. There was no plea in his eyes. Only a single word, whispered: “Mother.”

At the first stretching he moaned like an animal. At the second — when the shoulder joint began to tear and his thigh muscles strained like ropes — he began shouting incoherent sentences. “He beat me — I hated him — I... it was bitter — I wanted to sleep.” His voice broke like kindling. He named no herbs, no time, no intention. Only fragments. Story shards without beginning or end. The preacher beside me whispered: “The devil dwells in his mouth. He speaks through him in riddles.”

But I knew better. Pain does not make poetry. It tears reason apart. His mind had gone up in smoke from what I had done to him — on orders, yes, but still with my own hands.

We let him rest. The doctor brought wine with opium. That night, in my own bed, I could not forget the boy’s voice. Not the words — they were empty — but the tone, as if his soul was being torn to pieces. I dreamed of him. He sat on a dung heap, arms dangling like empty sleeves. He looked at me and said: “You know it.” And I did not know whether he meant: “You know I did it,” or “You know I did not.”

On the third day the Council wrote a declaration based on his confession. Not because it was coherent, but because they were satisfied with an admission of guilt. He was to face the gallows. Not for what he said, but for what he was — a poor boy without protection, without a name. Anna laid her hand on mine and said nothing. But I felt the trembling in her fingers.

I, Caspar Kruse, executioner of Goslar, bound up his knees, stretched his shoulders, heard his cries. And I write this down because no man is made of words alone. Because sometimes guilt is fashioned from fragments, not from deeds.

And because I fear that in his final moments he did not think of poison, nor of his master, nor of me — but of that crack in the wall, and of his mother.




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