A Lutheran weaver and churchwarden named Asmus Teufel, who lived in the North German town of Münden, recorded his memories of the fighting he saw in June 1626. More than two thousand people were killed when the emperor’s army stormed the small town. Sieges and attacks on towns with military garrisons took place frequently during the war.

At your request I will write, at least as much as I can remember, about the terrible, unmentionable blood bath in this city. Much has gone forgotten because of my often difficult situation, and therefore it is not possible to describe everything.

. . . In the days of the siege there was an unceasing firing of large cannon from several places where they had batteries, and they killed many. On Tuesday 748 shots, including 200 exploding shells, horrible fire balls, which I recorded with my own hand. Then came the assault and the slaughter with halberds [poles with ax blades], and neither young nor old, not even the child in its mother’s womb was spared. The truly blind, crippled, and dumb were cut down, even 8 preachers who had fled to the city from the villages. . . .

And although some people wanted to save their lives with money, and gave up hundreds, even thousands [of florins], the bloody murderers took the money from them, but then others came, who received nothing, and they cut them down. It’s easy to imagine how they dealt with the womenfolk, many of whom they took back to their camp with them.

You can imagine what a wailing and screaming there was up at the castle, where they threw living and dead from the roof and out of the windows, even mothers with their children, so that in the trench behind the moat there was later more than enough evidence. They also cut people down, so that their blood flowed down the steps [of the castle], and at present there is still blood to see on the walls and on the tapestries.

Source: Asmus Teufel, The Siege and Capture of Münden (1626). Text discovered in the Münden town archive by Thomas Kossert, translated by Hans Medick and Benjamin Marschke.

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