Twice ToldReichs-Post-Reuter, 4 April 1755: the dispatch "Aus Oberschlesien, vom 16 März"
- Language
- German
- Reading
- transcribed from the page image
- Translation
- ours
- Retrieved
- 5 October 2026
A Hamburg newspaper printed this dispatch under the dateline “Aus Oberschlesien”, from Upper Silesia, 16 March. It names no author and no village but Hermsdorf, and says it comes from “this region”. It is the first report we found in print, and it appeared about a month before Vienna’s own notice (see the document for the issue of 6 May).
Aus Oberschlesien, vom 16 März.
Die berüchtigte Blutsauger, oder so genannte Vampyrs, haben lange nichts von sich hören lassen; nunmehro aber kan man aus hiesiger Gegend folgende zuverläßige Nachricht davon ertheilen. Schon vor 2 und einem halben Jahr, verstarb zu Hermsdorf oberhalb Troppau eine Weibsperson, welche man in ihrem Leben die Tyroler Doctorin genennet. Diese Weibsperson curirte auf dem Lande herum, und konnte dabey allerhand vermeintliche Zauberkünste vorstellen. Man sagt, sie habe vor ihrem Absterben, ihrem Mann aufgetragen, nach ihrem Tode ihr den Kopf abzuhauen, und sie nicht auf den Katholischen Kirchhof begraben zu lassen. Immittelst hat sich bald nach ihrem Absterben allerhand geäussert, davon man überzeuget worden, sie sey eine Vampyre gewesen; wie denn nach und nach in dem Dorfe Hermsdorf viele Personen gestorben, von denen man glaubete, daß sie von Blutsaugern zu Tode gequälet worden. Da dieses Uebel weiter gieng, und mehrere Personen sturben, auch dabey verharreten, daß die Vampyrs ihren Tod verursacheten, so wurde verordnet, eine Untersuchung gerichtlich anzustellen, die dahin ausfiel, daß man die als Blutsauger in Verdacht gerathene Personen, diesem obrigkeitlichen Befehl zufolge ausgraben sollte, und wurden an der Zahl 30 ausgegraben; 10 davon wurden unschuldig befunden, und wieder verscharret; bey 19 erwachsenen Personen aber, und einem Kinde, wurde noch Blut gefunden, ohngeachtet die Leichname 1 Jahr, auch etliche 2 Jahr und darüber bereits in der Erde gelegen hatten; diesen wurden als Vampyrs erstlich die Köpfe abgehauen, das Herz durchstossen, und sodann die Körper zu Aschen verbrannt. Diese Execution ist auf Kayserl. Befehl vor 6 Wochen in dem Dorfe Hermsdorf geschehen, wozu Knechte und Scharfrichter von Troppau, Jägerndorf, Teschen und den umliegenden Orten gezogen worden.
Translation
From Upper Silesia, 16 March. The notorious bloodsuckers, the so-called vampyrs, have not been heard from for a long time. Now, however, we can give the following reliable report from this region. Two and a half years ago a woman died at Hermsdorf above Troppau whom people had called the Tyrolean doctor while she lived. She went about the country treating people and could put on all sorts of supposed magic tricks. It is said that before she died she told her husband to cut off her head after her death and not to have her buried in the Catholic churchyard. Soon after her death all sorts of things happened that convinced people she had been a vampire. Gradually many people in the village of Hermsdorf died, and people believed they had been tormented to death by bloodsuckers. As this evil spread, more people died, and they kept saying that the vampyrs were causing their deaths, it was ordered that a judicial inquiry be held. It ended with the persons suspected of being bloodsuckers being dug up, on this official order, and thirty were dug up. Ten of them were found innocent and buried again. In 19 adults and one child blood was still found, although the corpses had lain in the earth for a year, some for two years and more. These had their heads cut off first, as vampyrs, and their hearts pierced, and then the bodies were burned to ashes. This execution was carried out on imperial order six weeks ago in the village of Hermsdorf, for which servants and executioners were brought in from Troppau, Jägerndorf, Teschen and the places round about.
Notes
- The dispatch is a news item, written by someone in Upper Silesia for a paper elsewhere. Nobody signs it, and it was printed about nine weeks after the burning it describes.
- Where it differs from the later files: it says thirty were dug up, where Vienna’s protocol of 17 March and van Swieten count 19 burned; it says the bodies were beheaded and staked before burning, which neither Linzbauer’s protocol, van Swieten’s note nor Enenklová’s account of the church and manor files mentions; it says the burning was on imperial order, where the church and manor files, and the empress’s own letters, show the order came from the Olomouc consistory and the manor’s court. The story that she asked her husband to have her head cut off is in no other source we read.
- “Tyroler Doctorin” is the dispatch’s name for the dead woman. It names her nowhere else; the church and Vienna papers call her Marianna Saligerin, or Richter Wenzlin.
- “Two and a half years” before March 1755 is September 1752; the register date of her death is 27 August 1753.
- Transcription conventions: the long s is printed as s; “März” is read from the heading, whose last letter is a z with a tail; we read only the Hamburg page image.