Jon Smithie
Tribune
Dietlinde looks so sweet bound and gagged. I wish the bad guy had had a little more time with her. I guess he felt rushed, trying to cover up his crime and whatnot. Stop and smell the roses, dude.
-
Sign up or login, and you'll have full access to opportunities of forum.
Judicial Corporal Punishment Of Women: Stories And Novels
- Thread starter elephas
- Start date
nsur1
Governor
I don't know -- I think the baddie wasn't so rushed that he didn't manage to fit a bit of R&R in while he had Dietlinde tied up. Listening to the dialogue, time as shown on the clock in the room is important: when the baddie makes his phone call with her already tied and gagged on the chair, he says "it's now exactly ten past nine". He then tells the damsel that at exactly 9:30, the turbine will be blown up (whatever that means for the plot, nothing good presumably). For dramatic tension, we get occasional shots of the clock at the back of the room -- the hero bursts into the room at around 9:26 or so. I make that at least 15 minutes free time for enjoyment with a struggling damsel. In fact, there may have been several hours between the capture and the 9:10 phone call: at the very start of the clip, Dietlinde asks the anonymous co-worker she passes in the corridor whether the baddie "was still in his office", and was told "no, he has already gone home". That would be a strange exchange to have at 9pm, sounds much more like around 5pm to 6pm, normal office closing time. We do see the clock in the background a few times during the gagging and tying up sequence, but the resolution is too poor to read it. Still, it looks a lot earlier than 9 o'clock. So, feel free to fill in any spare time as you see fit...
Jon Smithie
Tribune
Thanks for the clarification. My understanding of German is spotty at best. I was going by my best guess as to what was going on in the scene, but lack your eye for detail.
It is comforting to know that the baddie would in all likelihood have had the odd moment to pursue a more intimate acquaintance with our lovely Dietlinde. Nevertheless I have to note that she does not appear particularly disheveled for all the extra time he may have spent with her. It's possible that he repaired whatever clothing he may have disarranged, but that seems unlikely given the fact that he didn't even tuck in her gag properly.
As you say, I'll just have to fill in the spare time as I see fit.
I think there is a movie about these events I remember seeing a clip somewhere ? Anyhow it was a bit of legal chaos since he was a military governor of occupied Spanish territory and basically Spanish law which allow torture was in power, local court still working under Spanih law...
Tiredny
Guard
Thiere is a lot of good "on topic" discussion here and my post clearly adds nothing to the current posts. It's just that in several earlier posts Dedaux's Clotilda was mentioned. Indeed, even chapters were linked to download.
Well, by where accident I stumbled across a link to the complete Clotilda:
Having found one complete Dedeaux, l just had to see if there were more and I found The Tutor:
This is one of my favorites. Now most of the story deals with harsh punishment dispensed by the tutor. Surprisingly, I find that tedious and somewhat boring. What really interests me is the punishment dispensed to servants. Nobody does this as well as Dedeaux. Fortunately you don't have to wade through the entire novel as it's all concentrated in the first five chapters.
Enjoy,
Tired
Well, by where accident I stumbled across a link to the complete Clotilda:
Cloitilda -- The Victorian Era by P.N.Dedaux (BM-045)
mr double, sex stories, sexstories, erotic stories, adult stories
www.asstr.org
Having found one complete Dedeaux, l just had to see if there were more and I found The Tutor:
The Tutor: Being the Reminiscences of Thomasina Wragg by P.N. Dedeaux
mr double, sex stories, sexstories, erotic stories, adult stories
www.asstr.org
This is one of my favorites. Now most of the story deals with harsh punishment dispensed by the tutor. Surprisingly, I find that tedious and somewhat boring. What really interests me is the punishment dispensed to servants. Nobody does this as well as Dedeaux. Fortunately you don't have to wade through the entire novel as it's all concentrated in the first five chapters.
Enjoy,
Tired
nsur1
Governor
That particular directory at ASSTR appeared about a year ago when another story paysite closed down -- they had a comprehensive collection of commercially-published pulp porn novels from about the 1960s to 1980s, which was dumped unsorted onto two ASSTR folders. There are about 12,000 full novels there (!), but there is no index of any sort, the file names are non-descriptive and there are lots of duplicates. You're best off downloading them all to your own hard disk and using a local search app to find what's of interest to you. The Firefox plug-in "HTTP Directory Downloader" is very useful for this as you can get the entire directory downloaded with a single click.
The folder links are:
In addition to Dedaux (or Dedeaux, both spellings seem to be used), you may want to check out F.E. Campbell, A de Granamour and Paul Gable (each of them has multiple books there), but there are a fair few others in the spanking/flogging genre as well. As you would expect, the quality of writing is wildly uneven.
I think the two books you have linked are the only Dedaux ones there -- "The Prussian Girls" is not in this collection, but can be found at the link I posted earlier in this thread. However, while we are talking about the Prussia of King Friedrich Wilhelm I, here is another pulp novel with that setting:
Torture Of The Tawse by A. de Granamour
mr double, sex stories, sexstories, erotic stories, adult stories
www.asstr.org
Last edited:
Tiredny
Guard
Great informative post, nsur! Thank you!
Another Granamour that folks here would appreciate is Castle of the Whip:
Castle Of The W.... by A. de Granam
mr double, sex stories, sexstories, erotic stories, adult stories
www.asstr.org
This is a long thread and this story might have been posted here already. If so, sorry for the duplication.
Anyhow the real man behind the Granamour pseudonym is a fellow who lived in Chicago named Paul Little. Turns out this guy had 100's of pseudonyms and he wrote over 700 books. The bad news is he sold the same story under different names to different publishers. Many of those "publishers" were run by the mob so enforcing copywrite was done on the street vs courthouses. Anyhow, John has done an excellent job researching some of Little's French translations and naturally... claiming as original:
Paul Little and French Erotica
The most prolific of erotic discipline authors, best known as Paul Little, is well known as the author of a prodigious quantity of erotic fiction in various genres and under many pseudonyms. Some o…
cpbiblio.wordpress.com
nsur1
Governor
Thanks, Tiredny. Clearly, you don't need me to tell you about these authors!
Speaking of Granamour's Torture of the Tawse, as @elephas has posted back in post #130 in this thread this book contains a fictionalised version of the Doris Ritter story, with names changed and the action moved from 1730 to 1739 for no readily-apparent reason. Some of this is pretty good, but I don't think it quite works overall, largely because what Granamour (or Little) has changed. He has also used some of Sabatini's material, but of course unlike Sabatini he did not wimp out of the explicit parts of the virginity test (@Jon Smithie feel free to imagine Dietlinde Turban in the role)!
Now that I have posted all the original source material, it's pretty straightforward to substitute the right names (e.g. the actual Potsdam hangman in 1730, Hans Caspar List) and delete extraneous detail from Granamour's narrative to come up with this account of Doris's arrest, virginity test and flogging. It's not how I intend to interpret it if and when I manage to stop researching and get writing in earnest, but it's a perfectly valid way of interpreting it -- Granamour's version of the flogging consists of 52 lashes while being dragged around the market square, 13 at each side of the square, which is just about a plausible reading of Doris's verdict, in view of the fact that the Town Hall and Doris's father's house were both on the Old Market Square in Potsdam -- with a bit of poetic license we do get her being "whipped first in front of the Town Hall, then in front of the Father's house, then at all corners of the town [square]":
Frederick Wilhelm I was suffering this day from the gout, as well as from the other indispositions which were soon to terminate his life.
Lying on a couch, his foot swathed in bandages and propped up on a brocaded cushion, his face was livid as he read Katte's letter. "So this doxy thinks she can outwit her king does she? I'll have her flogged at the carttail! I'll have her paraded around the public streets with the marks of the lash on that soft skin of hers to teach other folks what it means to come between a prince and his duty! And as for that bastard of a son of mine, he's to be kept under lock and key at Küstrin do you hear, Grumpkow? Have Mayor Klinte prepare the warrant and have the girl seized and quartered in the local jail. Tomorrow morning at ten, she will have to expose her fine young Butzen for the executioner's lash and the admiring eyes of the common folk. Perhaps it will remind her that she should not dare attempt to lure a prince of the blood to the bed of a trull!"
* * *
Doris Ritter had not expected her father home so soon and she was startled at his rude knock upon the door. Wonderingly, she opened it, only to draw back with a cry of surprised alarm when she saw two halberdiers stand before her.
"You are the woman known as Doris Ritter, Fraulein!" one of them demanded.
"I am she. But I don't understand-"
"There's no need for you to, woman," the other halberdier rudely interrupted. "You're under arrest by the order of His Majesty himself. Get a cloak or whatever else you need and come with us this minute. You're to be lodged in the Town Hall jail cells. And let's hope for your sake, woman, that tomorrow brings the sun and greater warmth than now, or you'll be chilled to the marrow. Though, of course, it will only be for a little time until the executioner really warms you, ech, Fritz?"
With this, he poked his fellow soldier in the ribs, and the other guffawed.
"But-but I don't understand. Why am I being arrested? What have I done?"
"We're only soldiers doing our duty, woman. Come along quickly, and no more talk! We've the warrant, and it's signed by Frederick Wilhelm himself. Here it is!" The older halberdier drew forth a paper and showed it to the horrified young brunette.
The plain-faced little maid, hearing the altercation, had hurried into the parlor. Doris turned to her. "Fetch my cloak, Dolly, dear, and don't let my father worry. This is all a dreadful mistake. Don't tell him I'm going to jail-tell him that-tell him-"
"Tell him, you bitch, that the prince has sent for her to fuck all night long!" the older halberdier obscenely broke in, and then slapped his thigh with coarse merriment.
The little maid, beginning to snivel, hurried back with Doris's cloak, and it was Doris who had to kiss her and console her, until at last the two guards angrily commanded her to follow them down the chilly street towards the Town Hall.
It was the beginning of the martyrdom of an innocent virgin, and it was more than that, if truth be known.
***
Doris Ritter crouched in the corner of the dank, windowless cell of the Town Hall jail, her shoulders convulsively heaving as she covered her face with her hands and strove to muffle her desperate sobs. She had been given only gruel and black bread for her supper, and no one in the jail, not even the turnkey, had deigned to tell her why she was being held here or what she had done to deserve this nightmarish experience.
Now, as the hour struck nine, a sadistically smiling, tall, flaxenhaired matron and a doctor entered, and the latter in a dry, impersonal voice had just told her, "You are to undress so that I may make a physical examination of you, Fraulein." And when she had shrunk back against the wall of her narrow cell, her eyes enormous, gasping, "But why? What have I done? What is to happen to me? Won't anyone tell me before I go mad?" the matron had burst into jarring laughter and pitilessly replied: "Isn't she the little innocent, Dr. Resing? As if she doesn't know that she's to be whipped round the public square on the morrow." Then, glaring at the shrinking, trembling girl, she had added, "Yes, you little Dame! You're to be thrashed. Do you understand at last? And that's why the physician is here to make certain you have the stamina to take the whip on your bare back and shoulders, for the weather's cold."
"Wh-whipped-before the people-Herr Gott, but it cannot be-I have done nothing in my life to deserve such punishment!" Doris exclaimed.
"His Majesty thinks otherwise. Strip, bitch!" the matron had snapped. "If I have to do it myself for you, you'll get a taste of the strap when the doctor goes. Now make haste."
And that was why, after having removed her dress, her petticoats and corsets, reduced to camisole and drawers and her long cotton hose and dainty pumps, Doris had begun to shudder as if with fever and had begun to weep hysterically in a last hope that perhaps this nightmare would end and the normal reality of her unruffled life be restored to her.
"I've other fish to fry!" the doctor snapped. "Matron, get the rest of her things off, even if you have to use force."
"Oh no! No one is to touch me! I'll do it myself!" Doris cried as the matron advanced in greedy anticipation. Then, with a supreme effort, she lofted the camisole and let it flutter to the floor, then rucked down the drawers and let them festoon her ankles, and once again covered her face with her trembling hands as she stood naked in her hose, garters and pumps.
The creamy beauty of her body was magnificent. Even the coarse matron had to admire those proud pear-shapted titties, the delicate shaping of the belly with its wide sweet navelniche, and the crisp black triangle of pussyhair which marked her virgin core, with those long and gracefully lissome thighs contrastingly sheathed in white, which was not, however, so white as the rich warmth of her naked flesh.
"All right, you're not posing for His Highness now, you slut," the matron scolded, wanting to reassert her authority before the physician. "Come over here now so Dr. Reising can examine you. Or do you want me to come get you? I vow, if that happens, you'll have some stripes to warm you when you go out there in the cold of a morning, and they'll be laid on well tonight so they'll linger!"
The weeping young woman moved listlessly forward, and even the fat little doctor could not conceal his lustful admiration of that lovely, naked body. There was only a stool and a rude cot in the cell, and he gestured her to the bed, compelling her to sit first while he took his stethescope and listened to the strong beat of her young heart and then thumped her back and shoulders, while Doris shuddered as wave on wave of revulsion went through her. To be brought out into the public square, stripped to the waist, flogged by the common executioner like an ordinary felon or prostitute for theft and lechery, with her neighbors watching, and perhaps her father, too! Despite her plea to have the little maid lie to her father, she knew in her heart that he must suspect the very worst. And he would blame dear Frederick, that loyal and gentle person, who would not let this happen if he knew. It was the malevolence of the King himself, Doris Ritter understood, striking out at her, the innocent victim, only because she had touched the fringe of his son's life. And yet that thought was not enough to console her for the hideous fate she must suffer on the morrow.
"Now then, bitch, lie on your back-that should be easy enough for you to do-" the matron jeered, "and lift your legs up."
"Oh Heavens give me strength," Doris Ritter murmured dully to herself as she obeyed. Her beautiful long legs rose in the air, as she twisted her face away and sobbed. But the matron, standing behind her, reached out and gripped the hollows of those stockinged knees and drew the girl's knees back against her titties, thus arching up and spreading the cheeks of that enticing, upstandingly rounded, resilient ivory bottom and distending the trough of the ambery-shadowy groove between those globes, as well as the pink lips of the tender young cunt, framed by the crisp silky black curls of her pubis.
"Now hold yourself still so Doctor can see if you're sick with the Viennese pox!" the matron hissed.
"Ohh! You've no right to say such a detestable thing!" Doris hysterically cried out. "I'm a decent girl-no man has ever had me!"
"No mere man, I'll be bound. But then the Prince of Prussia is no ordinary man," jeered the matron as she dug the girl's legs pitilessly against those sweet, panting titties and poor Doris winced and groaned in pain. Already the doctor's pudgy fingers were touching the most intimate parts of her being, never before exhibited to anyone. The salacity and the ignominy of her pose made her sob aloud as he methodically continued, donning a glove and probing her asshole till she moaned and sobbed anew. And then the inspection of the vulva and the vaginal sheath, while a cold metal dilator was thrust down till it would go no further.
"She's telling the truth," the fat little doctor squinted, then eyed the matron suspiciously. "This one's a virgin."
"Come now, doctor, you're just making a joke, aren't you?" the matron sneered. "She has all the earmarks of a harlot to me, and that's why I can hardly wait to watch her get the lash!"
"But it's true, Frau Bielmann! She has her hymen intact. No man has ploughed her, and I will tell His Majesty himself that not even the Prince could have done so, unless he be able to perform a miracle, which I much doubt, for all that he is royal!"
The matron disgustedly flung the girl's legs down on the cot and walked to the door of the cell. "So the little bitch just cuddles and kisses, and lets His Highness touch her here and there, like a school-girl. I can't say I've much stomach for that either, and I'd almost wish she were at least an honest bawd. But bawd or virgin, she is still for the lash in the morning. You can put back on your clothes, girl, and take what little warmth from them you can. It'll be a chill morning till Herr List begins to warm your back and shoulders. If I'd my way, Doctor, I'd have this piece peeled down bare as a worm so that the whip could decorate that fine haughty Arsch of hers, I would indeed."
The cell door clanged on the weeping, shamed and naked young woman. One arm over her face, she began to pray. But the man who could have saved her, and would have done even at the cost of embattlement with his own father, was now in his own fortress cell, and armed guards were stationed at each exit door. Nor had he been told what degradation was to be exacted from this gentle girl whom he had so generously befriended, so innocently, simply because the King of Prussia had the fear of death in his avaricious, warped and sadistic soul.
...
[Continued in next post...]
Last edited:
nsur1
Governor
[... continued]
***
It was a very cold morning, at the freezing point almost, in the market place outside the Town Hall, and the square was thronged with eager spectators, of both sexes, with children as well, eager for the treat of seeing a young woman stripped to the waist and flogged by the public executioner, Herr Hans Caspar List, a cadaverous looking, tall man in his fifty-second year, who prided himself on his ability to dispatch condemned criminals with the axe at one whack, and who had boasted that no executioner in Europe could more neatly center brands that would remain indelible on the fair shoulder of some Hure or inflict a more decorative pattern on the backside with the leather thongs of the whip.
Two halberdiers stood side by side with Doris Ritter standing between them, her wrists bound behind her back with a hempen rope, her cheeks tear streaked and red with shame, and she tried not to hear the hooting of the crowd as they led her out of the Town Hall onto the busy market square. Her lips moved in prayer, but she prayed not so much for herself as for her gentle father. If he were to learn what was being done to her this morning, even though it were at the command of the king, it would break his dear heart. Oh, if only Frederick could be told of this! She did not know what would happen after the-after the punishment; perhaps she would be returned to her house, and she could try to console her father as best she could, then. After all, she knew a whipping was really nothing-it was not death or torture and it did not maim. It pained, yes, and it would be humiliating to her to have to expose her person to all of these hostile eyes who saw in her mere sport for their cruel lusts. And then they emerged onto the square and she uttered a faint little cry of terror. The moment was at hand. The halberdiers jumped down from the stairs, seized hold of her waist, lifted her up in their arms and set her down on the hard flagging of the street. Her limbs seemed numb, and she looked around her, seeking a familiar face. Old and young, wise and elderly beldames, and even the curious, smirking faces of children surrounded her as in a hideous nightmare. But the cold air and occasional gusts of air tugged at her cloak, for she wore only those clothes in which she had been arrested, reminding her that this was not a nightmare, but a real horror.
The halberdiers seized her by the elbows and thrust her towards the clearing in the center, where a magistrate in morning coat and top hat awaited, clearing his throat to test it against the raw air, and beside him the masked public executioner, in somber black raiment, with a young, stocky assistant behind him fingering the tails of a seven-thonged leather whip with heavy stock hand;e. She caught sight of that dreadful instrument and closed her eyes, stumbling so the halberdiers had to catch her up, and one of them grumbled in her ear, "There'll be time for fainting later on, little bitch! Now get along with you!"
She found herself at last flanked by her guards, facing the bearded magistrate, who sententiously declaimed the edict of the royal court: "It is the sentence herewith of Frederick Wilhelm, this the seventh day of September in the Year of Grace 1730, that the woman known as Dorothea Ritter, having been arraigned on the charge of malicious treason...."
"But this is a lie!" the young brunette cried out, staring incredulously at her accuser.
"Silence, woman! This is from the King himself!" the magistrate replied in shocked tones, and a mutter ran through the spectators who crowded near to hear each word: "How she fancies herself-ja, but wait till she feels Herr List's good whip on her soft backside-she'll sing a different tune, you'll see-what a pity they'll only let us see her naked to the waist-I'd give a week's wages to see the whip come down on the sweet bare Arsch of her!"
"But I am not guilty of treason!" Doris Ritter said in a clear, sweet voice. "I have done no crime. I am loyal to the King of Prussia, as is my father, who teaches the young what the king's justice is!"
"Gag the bitch, so that she may be silent until I have read the sentence," the magistrate glared.
"No! It is not right-oh stop! You're hurting me," Doris cried, as one of the halberdiers yanked her wrists sharply upwards behind her back, while the other stuffed a dirty handkerchief between her lips and tied a strip of her own petticoat around her mouth and knotted it at the back of her neck, after having squatted down and run his hands under her cloak and dress and torn off what he needed-to the hilarious approval of the fascinated spectators.
The magistrate went on: " ... of malicious treason against the personage of Prince Frederick of Prussia, it is hereby ordained and decreed and the Royal Seal is hereby appended in verification, that the aforesaid Dorothea Ritter shall be delivered over to the public executioner to be given the upper discipline in the public square and thence held at the disposition of Frederick Wilhelm I."
Again the magistrate cleared his throat and added, "And here is the seal of our beloved and gracious ruler. Herr List, carry out the sentence."
The tall, cadaverous-looking man nodded and made a sign to his burly young assistant, who handed him the whip. The assistant moved towards the terrified, gagged young woman, whose eyes widened with horror as she saw this leering face approach. The halberdiers, however, seized her by the elbows to steady her, while the assistant ripped off the cloak, then the dress, tore the camisole and the batiste underdress and yanked the garments down until the magnificent ivory body of Doris Ritter was naked to the belly.
The admiring gasp chorused from the spectators as they stared avidly at her magnificent titties, rising and falling in turbulence. The cold air made the nipples harden, and some of the men called out, "She's ready for her warming, whether it be bed or whip, Heir List! Don't spoil her too much, then give her to us-we'll warm her where you can't!"
Now the young assistant untied the rope around Doris's wrists, then moved around and corded them more securely with a rawhide thong, at one end of which was a short handle-grip by which he would draw the young woman around the square in her destined tour. "Let the gag be taken out!" the magistrate decreed. "Let us hear what penitence she is willing to offer for her crime when she has her punishment."
One of the halberdiers swiftly ripped away the gag and tore out the dirty handkerchief. Doris bowed her head, shivering with cold. A fat harridan standing next to a stocky, red-faced butcher, bawled out, "It's the right weather for it, little bitch! The whip will be good and warm for you! What a fancy lady she is, Herr List! I'm wagering you can make her curse and scream as nastily as any trollop!"
The gloomy face of the executioner was lighted now by a tiny little smile to acknowledge this grotesque compliment. He was drawing the seven tapering thongs of the leather whip through his gloved hands, shaking them out, weighing the heft and balance of the instrument. The assistant eyed him and winked, and he nodded in return. The time had come.
"Move along behind me, or you'll be dragged," the burly young aide muttered to the half-fainting, half-nude victim. "Yell all you want-they'll like it all the more, you know. There are four sides of this square, and you will have thirteen strokes at each. Get yourself ready. It won't do you no good to faint-I'll only give you smelling salts and drag you around till the sentence is carried out. Come along." He gave a yank to the handle-grip of the heavy thong which had bound those slim ivory wrists, and Doris stumbled forward. As she did so, the executioner raised the lash and brought it down with a sickening crack over the middle of her ivory back. She stiffened, her head rose, her eyes widening with agony, but she ground her teeth together so that only a muffled gasp exuded from her trembling lips. On the smooth ivory sculptuary of her bare back, harsh, darkening splotches rose at once. The cold air seemed to tighten her skin and make it more vulnerable to this brutal lashing.
The assistant drew her forward in slow, calculated steps. A second lash fell to the right of the first about a moment later, then the third to the left, so that her entire middle back had been visited by the burning kisses of the seven leather bands. The crowd marveled at her stamina: not once had she cried out, though each time she had stiffened and then stumbled, but her teeth were clenched and her mouth tight, and only the jerkings of her wrists against the thongs told the executioner's young aide of her real suffering.
They had reached the right-hand side of the square now and there she was halted to take three more cuts lower down to where her clothes circled the beautiful symmetry of her deeply hollowed young back. And there were men who cried out, "Ten thalers, Heir List, if you'll have your man strip her down to the Arsch and lay it down right well there!" But this, fortunately, could not be done without royal decree.
Now they moved on a few steps, and the seventh lash whistled across her dimpled shoulders, making her twist from side to side and gasp in agony. The movement made her pear-shapted titties jiggle, and more cries of lewd excitement greeted this evidence of her vivid young beauty.
Down the street now, halfway, with two more lashes over the shoulders, making a count of nine in all. Each lash seemed to burn and tear the fine skin of her shoulders just below the neck, and she bent slightly over, as if to protect herself. Tears had started down her cheeks, and her lips trembled uncontrollably. The cold was intense now, and her teeth had begun to chatter as well, thus adding to her torment, but the burning pain in her shoulders distracted her from the gusts of wind which kissed her naked titties and the upper slope of her dimpled belly.
A few more steps and still another lash, this one wrapping around her waist, and the tips of the whip biting into her belly itself. It was the cruelest blow of all, and the young brunette finally uttered a hoarse cry: "Oh God, help me! God, deliver me from injustice!"
"Watch your tongue, you bitch!" an old man called from the crowd. "If you revile our beloved king, we'll finish what the executioner doesn't do!"
The young aide dragged her forward now, her back and shoulders throbbing mercilessly. How could she endure the remaining three sides of the square, with thirteen more lashes at each? Her mind strove to calculate, by way of distraction, thirteen here, and then another thirteen, and twice more thirteen would be-fifty-two lashes in all. Oh dear God, it was a sentence for a strong man, not a helpless girl and ... The whip interrupted her frantic thoughts, making her lurch forward with a shriek as the whip wrapped around her ribs and darted against the proud ivory turrets of her titties.
"Oh no! Mercy! Not there, not on my breasts!" she cried, twisting her tearstained face back to plead with the cadaverous man in black who stood there with the whip raised.
"The upper discipline, bitch, and if it bothers your titties, you shouldn't have grown them," the young aide heartlessly intoned, as he dragged on the rough halter which forced her wrists forward and thus dragged the weakening, stumbling, pain-wracked body after him.
When at last the thirteenth stroke had been delivered at the end of this side of the street, she was given a two-minute respite. This she took by sinking down on her knees on the pavement to pray, only to be interrupted by the catcalls and jeers and obscene comments of the avid, excited spectators. Then again the stocky young assistant dragged her to her feet, and again the whip whistled down to visit her naked shoulders once more, and the punishment was resumed.
By the time half of it had been completed, blood pearled on the left shoulder and the naked rib, while the skin was purplish at the lower right edge of her back, almost where her clothes were rolled. She was trembling so violently she could no longer stand, so the young assistant moved up closely in front of her, muttering, "Lean those titties of yours against my back, you little bitch, and it will make it easier for you. But you'll have to pay me for it when Herr List finishes, mind."
At this point the tortured young woman did not care. The cries and jeers of the populace did not reach her ears now. She prayed only for death or a cessation of this atrocious suffering. She leaned forward, feeling her titties flatten against the rough coat of the burly aide, and at that exact moment the whip whistled out to smack with a sickening emphasis, diagonally from the right shoulder down to the left side of her back. A wild cry was torn from her and she stumbled and sank to her knees, only to be wrenched up as the young assistant whirled and faced her, jerking on the handle-grip of the thong that held her. Another stroke whistled toward her, this time smashing around her waist, the tips biting around her belly, and she twisted and jerked and then bent over, sobbing," Oh, dear God, I can't bear it, it's too much-I'm only a poor girl-have pity, have pity on me!"
In this Golgotha, it was time to move to the side of the street which had been at her left at the beginning of the punishment. She was nearly fainting and the executioner's assistant, at his master's sign, took out a bottle of schnapps and forced some down between her panting lips. She panted, coughed and choked, whimpering, and then he took a tighter grip of the thong and pulled her up, so that her head rested on his shoulder. Then again came the whip, and wild screams as the tips darted out to nip her right side and make her twist and jerk in convulsive torment.
Her back was bloodied in a dozen places by the time the thirty-ninth stroke had been administered. During this final respite, the young aide made her drink more schnapps, and then, out of a refinement of cruelty, tilted the bottle down her bleeding back. She screamed and twisted, flinging herself down on her knees, trying to jerk her bound wrists loose to rub at her wounds. And the jeers, the catcalls, the mocking and obscene cries were a jumble of noise and meaningless hubbub around her. Once again she was forced to her feet, and Herr List sent her on the final quadrant of her infernal journey, by directing the whip backhandedly from left side to right. Again she screamed, wildly and raucously, twisting her face back to entreat the executioner with tear-blinded eyes and babbling words for mercy.
And when the final stroke came, she hung, almost lifelessly, against the back of the young aide, while the executioner lowered the bloodied thongs and then, commanding a rag from some nearby woman, callously wiped off the blood and flung the rag into the street. The justice of Frederick Wilhelm I had been carried out.
***
It was a very cold morning, at the freezing point almost, in the market place outside the Town Hall, and the square was thronged with eager spectators, of both sexes, with children as well, eager for the treat of seeing a young woman stripped to the waist and flogged by the public executioner, Herr Hans Caspar List, a cadaverous looking, tall man in his fifty-second year, who prided himself on his ability to dispatch condemned criminals with the axe at one whack, and who had boasted that no executioner in Europe could more neatly center brands that would remain indelible on the fair shoulder of some Hure or inflict a more decorative pattern on the backside with the leather thongs of the whip.
Two halberdiers stood side by side with Doris Ritter standing between them, her wrists bound behind her back with a hempen rope, her cheeks tear streaked and red with shame, and she tried not to hear the hooting of the crowd as they led her out of the Town Hall onto the busy market square. Her lips moved in prayer, but she prayed not so much for herself as for her gentle father. If he were to learn what was being done to her this morning, even though it were at the command of the king, it would break his dear heart. Oh, if only Frederick could be told of this! She did not know what would happen after the-after the punishment; perhaps she would be returned to her house, and she could try to console her father as best she could, then. After all, she knew a whipping was really nothing-it was not death or torture and it did not maim. It pained, yes, and it would be humiliating to her to have to expose her person to all of these hostile eyes who saw in her mere sport for their cruel lusts. And then they emerged onto the square and she uttered a faint little cry of terror. The moment was at hand. The halberdiers jumped down from the stairs, seized hold of her waist, lifted her up in their arms and set her down on the hard flagging of the street. Her limbs seemed numb, and she looked around her, seeking a familiar face. Old and young, wise and elderly beldames, and even the curious, smirking faces of children surrounded her as in a hideous nightmare. But the cold air and occasional gusts of air tugged at her cloak, for she wore only those clothes in which she had been arrested, reminding her that this was not a nightmare, but a real horror.
The halberdiers seized her by the elbows and thrust her towards the clearing in the center, where a magistrate in morning coat and top hat awaited, clearing his throat to test it against the raw air, and beside him the masked public executioner, in somber black raiment, with a young, stocky assistant behind him fingering the tails of a seven-thonged leather whip with heavy stock hand;e. She caught sight of that dreadful instrument and closed her eyes, stumbling so the halberdiers had to catch her up, and one of them grumbled in her ear, "There'll be time for fainting later on, little bitch! Now get along with you!"
She found herself at last flanked by her guards, facing the bearded magistrate, who sententiously declaimed the edict of the royal court: "It is the sentence herewith of Frederick Wilhelm, this the seventh day of September in the Year of Grace 1730, that the woman known as Dorothea Ritter, having been arraigned on the charge of malicious treason...."
"But this is a lie!" the young brunette cried out, staring incredulously at her accuser.
"Silence, woman! This is from the King himself!" the magistrate replied in shocked tones, and a mutter ran through the spectators who crowded near to hear each word: "How she fancies herself-ja, but wait till she feels Herr List's good whip on her soft backside-she'll sing a different tune, you'll see-what a pity they'll only let us see her naked to the waist-I'd give a week's wages to see the whip come down on the sweet bare Arsch of her!"
"But I am not guilty of treason!" Doris Ritter said in a clear, sweet voice. "I have done no crime. I am loyal to the King of Prussia, as is my father, who teaches the young what the king's justice is!"
"Gag the bitch, so that she may be silent until I have read the sentence," the magistrate glared.
"No! It is not right-oh stop! You're hurting me," Doris cried, as one of the halberdiers yanked her wrists sharply upwards behind her back, while the other stuffed a dirty handkerchief between her lips and tied a strip of her own petticoat around her mouth and knotted it at the back of her neck, after having squatted down and run his hands under her cloak and dress and torn off what he needed-to the hilarious approval of the fascinated spectators.
The magistrate went on: " ... of malicious treason against the personage of Prince Frederick of Prussia, it is hereby ordained and decreed and the Royal Seal is hereby appended in verification, that the aforesaid Dorothea Ritter shall be delivered over to the public executioner to be given the upper discipline in the public square and thence held at the disposition of Frederick Wilhelm I."
Again the magistrate cleared his throat and added, "And here is the seal of our beloved and gracious ruler. Herr List, carry out the sentence."
The tall, cadaverous-looking man nodded and made a sign to his burly young assistant, who handed him the whip. The assistant moved towards the terrified, gagged young woman, whose eyes widened with horror as she saw this leering face approach. The halberdiers, however, seized her by the elbows to steady her, while the assistant ripped off the cloak, then the dress, tore the camisole and the batiste underdress and yanked the garments down until the magnificent ivory body of Doris Ritter was naked to the belly.
The admiring gasp chorused from the spectators as they stared avidly at her magnificent titties, rising and falling in turbulence. The cold air made the nipples harden, and some of the men called out, "She's ready for her warming, whether it be bed or whip, Heir List! Don't spoil her too much, then give her to us-we'll warm her where you can't!"
Now the young assistant untied the rope around Doris's wrists, then moved around and corded them more securely with a rawhide thong, at one end of which was a short handle-grip by which he would draw the young woman around the square in her destined tour. "Let the gag be taken out!" the magistrate decreed. "Let us hear what penitence she is willing to offer for her crime when she has her punishment."
One of the halberdiers swiftly ripped away the gag and tore out the dirty handkerchief. Doris bowed her head, shivering with cold. A fat harridan standing next to a stocky, red-faced butcher, bawled out, "It's the right weather for it, little bitch! The whip will be good and warm for you! What a fancy lady she is, Herr List! I'm wagering you can make her curse and scream as nastily as any trollop!"
The gloomy face of the executioner was lighted now by a tiny little smile to acknowledge this grotesque compliment. He was drawing the seven tapering thongs of the leather whip through his gloved hands, shaking them out, weighing the heft and balance of the instrument. The assistant eyed him and winked, and he nodded in return. The time had come.
"Move along behind me, or you'll be dragged," the burly young aide muttered to the half-fainting, half-nude victim. "Yell all you want-they'll like it all the more, you know. There are four sides of this square, and you will have thirteen strokes at each. Get yourself ready. It won't do you no good to faint-I'll only give you smelling salts and drag you around till the sentence is carried out. Come along." He gave a yank to the handle-grip of the heavy thong which had bound those slim ivory wrists, and Doris stumbled forward. As she did so, the executioner raised the lash and brought it down with a sickening crack over the middle of her ivory back. She stiffened, her head rose, her eyes widening with agony, but she ground her teeth together so that only a muffled gasp exuded from her trembling lips. On the smooth ivory sculptuary of her bare back, harsh, darkening splotches rose at once. The cold air seemed to tighten her skin and make it more vulnerable to this brutal lashing.
The assistant drew her forward in slow, calculated steps. A second lash fell to the right of the first about a moment later, then the third to the left, so that her entire middle back had been visited by the burning kisses of the seven leather bands. The crowd marveled at her stamina: not once had she cried out, though each time she had stiffened and then stumbled, but her teeth were clenched and her mouth tight, and only the jerkings of her wrists against the thongs told the executioner's young aide of her real suffering.
They had reached the right-hand side of the square now and there she was halted to take three more cuts lower down to where her clothes circled the beautiful symmetry of her deeply hollowed young back. And there were men who cried out, "Ten thalers, Heir List, if you'll have your man strip her down to the Arsch and lay it down right well there!" But this, fortunately, could not be done without royal decree.
Now they moved on a few steps, and the seventh lash whistled across her dimpled shoulders, making her twist from side to side and gasp in agony. The movement made her pear-shapted titties jiggle, and more cries of lewd excitement greeted this evidence of her vivid young beauty.
Down the street now, halfway, with two more lashes over the shoulders, making a count of nine in all. Each lash seemed to burn and tear the fine skin of her shoulders just below the neck, and she bent slightly over, as if to protect herself. Tears had started down her cheeks, and her lips trembled uncontrollably. The cold was intense now, and her teeth had begun to chatter as well, thus adding to her torment, but the burning pain in her shoulders distracted her from the gusts of wind which kissed her naked titties and the upper slope of her dimpled belly.
A few more steps and still another lash, this one wrapping around her waist, and the tips of the whip biting into her belly itself. It was the cruelest blow of all, and the young brunette finally uttered a hoarse cry: "Oh God, help me! God, deliver me from injustice!"
"Watch your tongue, you bitch!" an old man called from the crowd. "If you revile our beloved king, we'll finish what the executioner doesn't do!"
The young aide dragged her forward now, her back and shoulders throbbing mercilessly. How could she endure the remaining three sides of the square, with thirteen more lashes at each? Her mind strove to calculate, by way of distraction, thirteen here, and then another thirteen, and twice more thirteen would be-fifty-two lashes in all. Oh dear God, it was a sentence for a strong man, not a helpless girl and ... The whip interrupted her frantic thoughts, making her lurch forward with a shriek as the whip wrapped around her ribs and darted against the proud ivory turrets of her titties.
"Oh no! Mercy! Not there, not on my breasts!" she cried, twisting her tearstained face back to plead with the cadaverous man in black who stood there with the whip raised.
"The upper discipline, bitch, and if it bothers your titties, you shouldn't have grown them," the young aide heartlessly intoned, as he dragged on the rough halter which forced her wrists forward and thus dragged the weakening, stumbling, pain-wracked body after him.
When at last the thirteenth stroke had been delivered at the end of this side of the street, she was given a two-minute respite. This she took by sinking down on her knees on the pavement to pray, only to be interrupted by the catcalls and jeers and obscene comments of the avid, excited spectators. Then again the stocky young assistant dragged her to her feet, and again the whip whistled down to visit her naked shoulders once more, and the punishment was resumed.
By the time half of it had been completed, blood pearled on the left shoulder and the naked rib, while the skin was purplish at the lower right edge of her back, almost where her clothes were rolled. She was trembling so violently she could no longer stand, so the young assistant moved up closely in front of her, muttering, "Lean those titties of yours against my back, you little bitch, and it will make it easier for you. But you'll have to pay me for it when Herr List finishes, mind."
At this point the tortured young woman did not care. The cries and jeers of the populace did not reach her ears now. She prayed only for death or a cessation of this atrocious suffering. She leaned forward, feeling her titties flatten against the rough coat of the burly aide, and at that exact moment the whip whistled out to smack with a sickening emphasis, diagonally from the right shoulder down to the left side of her back. A wild cry was torn from her and she stumbled and sank to her knees, only to be wrenched up as the young assistant whirled and faced her, jerking on the handle-grip of the thong that held her. Another stroke whistled toward her, this time smashing around her waist, the tips biting around her belly, and she twisted and jerked and then bent over, sobbing," Oh, dear God, I can't bear it, it's too much-I'm only a poor girl-have pity, have pity on me!"
In this Golgotha, it was time to move to the side of the street which had been at her left at the beginning of the punishment. She was nearly fainting and the executioner's assistant, at his master's sign, took out a bottle of schnapps and forced some down between her panting lips. She panted, coughed and choked, whimpering, and then he took a tighter grip of the thong and pulled her up, so that her head rested on his shoulder. Then again came the whip, and wild screams as the tips darted out to nip her right side and make her twist and jerk in convulsive torment.
Her back was bloodied in a dozen places by the time the thirty-ninth stroke had been administered. During this final respite, the young aide made her drink more schnapps, and then, out of a refinement of cruelty, tilted the bottle down her bleeding back. She screamed and twisted, flinging herself down on her knees, trying to jerk her bound wrists loose to rub at her wounds. And the jeers, the catcalls, the mocking and obscene cries were a jumble of noise and meaningless hubbub around her. Once again she was forced to her feet, and Herr List sent her on the final quadrant of her infernal journey, by directing the whip backhandedly from left side to right. Again she screamed, wildly and raucously, twisting her face back to entreat the executioner with tear-blinded eyes and babbling words for mercy.
And when the final stroke came, she hung, almost lifelessly, against the back of the young aide, while the executioner lowered the bloodied thongs and then, commanding a rag from some nearby woman, callously wiped off the blood and flung the rag into the street. The justice of Frederick Wilhelm I had been carried out.
nsur1
Governor
Other books of likely interest to CF members include:
"The Book of Torture" by John Swain (a non-fiction book with a review of historical torture methods):
The Book Of Torture by John Swain
mr double, sex stories, sexstories, erotic stories, adult stories
www.asstr.org
"The Whip The Rack And The Sword" by Kenneth Harding (a pulp novel set in Roman times, with preface by John Swain):
The Whip The Rack And The Sword by Kenneth Harding
mr double, sex stories, sexstories, erotic stories, adult stories
www.asstr.org
elephas
Senator
A few more novels by A. de Granamour from this magnificent ASSTR collection.
A. de Granamour
The Knout And The Nihilists
The Sadistic Inquisition
Tasmanian Whipping Shed
Spanked Suffragettes
A. de Granamour
The Knout And The Nihilists
The Sadistic Inquisition
Tasmanian Whipping Shed
Spanked Suffragettes
Last edited:
elephas
Senator
Some more novels with JCP scenes.
"School For Scandal" by Anonymous [Richard Manton]
"Aphrodizzia" by Anonymous [Richard Manton]
"Wealed Venus" by Chaucer Cartwright [P.N. Dedeaux]
"Desert Discipline" by Mark Stewart
"Whipping Memoirs" by Ronald Worlin
"School For Scandal" by Anonymous [Richard Manton]
School For Scandal by Anonymous
mr double, sex stories, sexstories, erotic stories, adult stories
www.asstr.org
"Aphrodizzia" by Anonymous [Richard Manton]
Aphrodizzia by Anonymous
mr double, sex stories, sexstories, erotic stories, adult stories
www.asstr.org
"Wealed Venus" by Chaucer Cartwright [P.N. Dedeaux]
Wealed Venus by Chaucer Cartwright (NK-450)
mr double, sex stories, sexstories, erotic stories, adult stories
www.asstr.org
"Desert Discipline" by Mark Stewart
Desert Discipline by Mark Stewart (SM-22)
mr double, sex stories, sexstories, erotic stories, adult stories
www.asstr.org
"Whipping Memoirs" by Ronald Worlin
Whipping Memoirs by Ronald Worlin (SP-361)
mr double, sex stories, sexstories, erotic stories, adult stories
www.asstr.org
nsur1
Governor
Returning to Potsdam and Prussia in 1730, here are five separate stories I have come across while doing background research on Doris Ritter. Except for the first, they are only incidentally related to Doris's own story in that they happened by coincidence in that same year of 1730 in this quite small German residence town of Potsdam -- a startling concentration of gory public trials and punishments in a short period of time providing a colourful back drop to the sources directly concerned with the Prince's desertion and Doris's flogging. In any case, all five of these stories are on-topic for CF in general and in this thread. These are all quite lengthy, so I apologise for posting them in the original German without translation, but only posting a summary and selected quotes.
Three of these are from the Mitteilungen des Vereins für die Geschichte Potsdams [Proceedings of the Society for the History of Potsdam], a club of local history enthusiasts founded in 1862 for monthly gatherings of discussions and presentations on a range of topics. These presentations were collected as essays in the proceedings published about every two years in the early period, thereafter more infrequently. Full scans of six of the first seven volumes published between 1864 and 1878 are available online at the Bavarian State Library website (link), and a fascinating read they are, too, not least for the minutes of the meetings themselves with their everyday details of club luncheons and outings along with the learned debate. In retrospect, the essays are illuminating not only about the more-or-less ancient events they cover but also in that they reflect the morals and values of the time they were written -- the period of 1864 to 1878 was the very high point of Prussian nationalism with Bismarck's three consecutive victorious wars against Denmark (1864), Austria-Hungary (1867) and France (1870) leading to German unification under Prussia's lead in 1871, and the Prussian king becoming emperor of Germany, the end point of a historical arc that started with the successive reigns of Friedrich Wilhelm I and his son Friedrich II (The Great) in the 18th century. That made it tricky for the typical patriotic local worthy and hobby historian to be critical of those great hero kings of the past, even where they were fighting each other as during the Crown Prince's mutiny in 1730.
1) "Doris Ritter" by School Teacher Wagener (1868):
Of course, the fate of our tragic heroine Doris was an obvious topic for the local history society to cover, so my first essay I attach is their research into the source material at the local Town Hall archives. I won't say much about this as I have already posted all of the sources quoted in the essay (and more that were not known to the author), and Wagener's discussion is somewhat pedestrian and partly superseded by other sources which he didn't have access to. Still, this was the first ever serious acedemic paper on Doris Ritter (albeit by an amateur historian).
2) "The Last Use Of Torture In Potsdam" by Dr G. Sello (1876):
This essay concerns a different criminal trial and judicial punishment, but also with a young female subject, 26-year-old Anna Katharina Petsch, the unmarried daughter of a poor casual labourer, accused and convicted of killing her newborn baby. As the title of the essay indicates, she was the last one ever to be put to the torture in a criminal trial in Potsdam -- torture was abolished in Prussia in 1740 on the accession of Friedrich II. By coincidence, the protracted trial took place in 1729/30, and culminated with Anna's execution by drowning in the River Havel, stripped naked and sewn into a sack, on 25 April 1730 -- a mere four months before Doris was flogged in the same town. Drowning in a sack (sometimes with a live viper or cat, which is not mentioned here) derives from the ancient Roman punishment for parricide and was the standard pubishment at the time for women killing their own children, whether before the birth or (as here) afterwards. After the previous century's craze of witch trials ended, this was by far the most common crime for which women were executed in 18th century Germany.
Of Anna's guilt there was no doubt from the outset as she readily confessed to the killing at the time of her arrest, shortly after a baby's corpse was found outside the city walls on 6 June 1729. That makes it somewhat surprising that it took more than ten months until she was finally executed, after many interrogations and deliberations described in the essay. The reason for the delay, and for the use of torture (although not in the event actually performed -- she made the statement the judges wanted just as the hangman was about to tighten the thumb screws), was that she kept changing her story as to whether she was acting alone or whether the father of the baby (a soldier in the King's "Potsdam Giants" regiment with whom she had a previous baby that died at three weeks-old) told her to kill it. I won't go through the entire story, although it is a good read for German speakers, but there are a few parts of Sello's essay worth highlighting:
Three of these are from the Mitteilungen des Vereins für die Geschichte Potsdams [Proceedings of the Society for the History of Potsdam], a club of local history enthusiasts founded in 1862 for monthly gatherings of discussions and presentations on a range of topics. These presentations were collected as essays in the proceedings published about every two years in the early period, thereafter more infrequently. Full scans of six of the first seven volumes published between 1864 and 1878 are available online at the Bavarian State Library website (link), and a fascinating read they are, too, not least for the minutes of the meetings themselves with their everyday details of club luncheons and outings along with the learned debate. In retrospect, the essays are illuminating not only about the more-or-less ancient events they cover but also in that they reflect the morals and values of the time they were written -- the period of 1864 to 1878 was the very high point of Prussian nationalism with Bismarck's three consecutive victorious wars against Denmark (1864), Austria-Hungary (1867) and France (1870) leading to German unification under Prussia's lead in 1871, and the Prussian king becoming emperor of Germany, the end point of a historical arc that started with the successive reigns of Friedrich Wilhelm I and his son Friedrich II (The Great) in the 18th century. That made it tricky for the typical patriotic local worthy and hobby historian to be critical of those great hero kings of the past, even where they were fighting each other as during the Crown Prince's mutiny in 1730.
1) "Doris Ritter" by School Teacher Wagener (1868):
Of course, the fate of our tragic heroine Doris was an obvious topic for the local history society to cover, so my first essay I attach is their research into the source material at the local Town Hall archives. I won't say much about this as I have already posted all of the sources quoted in the essay (and more that were not known to the author), and Wagener's discussion is somewhat pedestrian and partly superseded by other sources which he didn't have access to. Still, this was the first ever serious acedemic paper on Doris Ritter (albeit by an amateur historian).
2) "The Last Use Of Torture In Potsdam" by Dr G. Sello (1876):
This essay concerns a different criminal trial and judicial punishment, but also with a young female subject, 26-year-old Anna Katharina Petsch, the unmarried daughter of a poor casual labourer, accused and convicted of killing her newborn baby. As the title of the essay indicates, she was the last one ever to be put to the torture in a criminal trial in Potsdam -- torture was abolished in Prussia in 1740 on the accession of Friedrich II. By coincidence, the protracted trial took place in 1729/30, and culminated with Anna's execution by drowning in the River Havel, stripped naked and sewn into a sack, on 25 April 1730 -- a mere four months before Doris was flogged in the same town. Drowning in a sack (sometimes with a live viper or cat, which is not mentioned here) derives from the ancient Roman punishment for parricide and was the standard pubishment at the time for women killing their own children, whether before the birth or (as here) afterwards. After the previous century's craze of witch trials ended, this was by far the most common crime for which women were executed in 18th century Germany.
Of Anna's guilt there was no doubt from the outset as she readily confessed to the killing at the time of her arrest, shortly after a baby's corpse was found outside the city walls on 6 June 1729. That makes it somewhat surprising that it took more than ten months until she was finally executed, after many interrogations and deliberations described in the essay. The reason for the delay, and for the use of torture (although not in the event actually performed -- she made the statement the judges wanted just as the hangman was about to tighten the thumb screws), was that she kept changing her story as to whether she was acting alone or whether the father of the baby (a soldier in the King's "Potsdam Giants" regiment with whom she had a previous baby that died at three weeks-old) told her to kill it. I won't go through the entire story, although it is a good read for German speakers, but there are a few parts of Sello's essay worth highlighting:
- Surprisingly to the modern reader (and probably also to the enlightened reader of the 1870s), Sello starts with a lengthy introduction praising the concept of judicial torture, which he says got a bad rap because of its association with the excesses of the witch trials and the inquisition. Applied "properly", it was -- Sello says -- the most fair and even-handed way of establishing guilt or innocence before the development of the modern criminal trial with cross examination and admission of forensic and circumstantial evidence. I have to say that Sello doesn't do his thesis any favours by recounting this particular case, where the authorities threatened Anna with torture until she finally relented and said she acted alone, thereby providing an excuse to let the soldier go free (although he did have to run the gauntlet) even though her earlier statement that he had coerced her into getting rid of the baby plainly has the ring of truth to it.
- Recounting Anna's relationship with her soldier lover, Grenadier Dempziger, gives Sello the opportunity to lament the poor state of sexual morals in Potsdam at the time, compared to the enlightened 1870s, with the virtue of the women and girls of Potsdam constantly under threat from the soldiery of the garrison and "hordes of loose women, prepared to commit any type of crime" were coming into town attracted by the presence of so many unmarried soldiers. At this point, our old friend Doris Ritter gets a mention in passing: "the sad example of Doris Ritter shows that even daughters from decent middle-class families were thought capable of similar loose conduct".
- When describing the mechanics of torture, we get a passage about the practice of stripping women naked for torture. Sello says that the law provided for women accused to be stripped for torture by respectable matrons and their nudity then covered with a cloth, but that in practice "tales of the greatest outrages committed by men" abound. Although Sello is too mealy-mouthed to say so, he plainly expects Anna to have been stripped by the hangman and paraded naked in front of the judge and magistrates. However, Sello is quite blasé about the sexual humiliation aspect of this, saying that women "in those distant times" were used to casual nudity and one shouldn't apply "the sensitivities of our time" [i.e. the 1870s]. I think he's plainly wrong here and that public nudity was very much a social taboo in the early 18th century -- various other sources say that even for men one of the most humiliating and dishonouring aspects of public flogging was that it was done on the bare, requiring at least partial stripping.
- Among the supporting cast of characters to the tale of Anna Petsch's trial and execution, we get several individuals who also make an appearance in Doris's story a few months later. The trial judge -- presiding at all interrogation and torture sessions -- is Mayor Klinte, to whom the King's order for Doris's flogging was addressed, and who desparately tried to save her from this shame, and Anna's confessor is Pastor Schubert (or Schubart), another one of the worthies who tried to convince the King at the last moment to spare Doris. Plus, of course, there is the King who had to confirm Anna's conviction and execution and the hangman of Potsdam himself, named as Hans Caspar List in this essay, who was responsible for conducting the Anna's interrogation and torture, and thereafter for carrying out her execution by drowning. Four months later, he would have been responsible for flogging Doris Ritter in accordance with the King's orders. We will learn much more about Herr List and his family in the next essay.
- Also relevant background for Doris's tale: during her ten months of incarceration, Anna was kept in the arrest cells "on the third floor of the Town Hall". That is where Doris was also kept from her arrest on 1 September 1730 until her flogging and dispatch to Spandau on 7 September.
- Finally, we get details of Anna's execution: after repeating her confession in public in front of the entire magistrate council, she was conducted by the town militia outside the city walls to a custom-built platform in the middle of the river, where she was stripped naked, put in a sack, drowned, pulled out after one hour, and buried in a shallow coffin -- the latter in accordance with her only repeated wish throughout her trial and detention, that she should be buried rather than left to rot on top of a wheel by the side of the road (the more common fate for executed delinquents at the time).
nsur1
Governor
The Sello essay includes the below rules for applying judicial torture, paraphrased from the 1717 Brandenburg criminal justice regulations (I also attach the original 1717 legal text):
It's a five step programme: two initial steps of "territion" -- first showing and describing the implements of torture ("verbal territion") and then putting the implements (thumbs screws and Spanish Boot) on the subject without tightening them ("real territion") -- followed by three degrees of torture:
1. Putting on and tightening the thumb screws and "making an start" with straps and ropes.
2. Continue with the straps and ropes, tighten the Spanish Boot, the body is stretched "moderately" on the "ladder" [this was a mix of strappado and rack -- see image below].
3. The limbs are stretched on the ladder [as shown below] and the "spiked hare" (wooden rollers with metal spikes) is used on the body. In particularly severe crimes, or if the subject is "particularly stubborn", fire, tar or sulphur may be applied to the body.
Torture should take at least 30 minutes and at most one hour (or "moderately" in excess of this), to be applied early in the morning with the subject not being given food for at least six hours before, and in the presence of the entire court and magistrates. Sello seems to think these were entirely reasonable rules, but I'm not sure quoting them in full does much to support that view!
In the case of Anna Petsch, the two "territion" steps took place on 2 March 1730 at 4 o'clock in the morning (taking the "early in the morning" rule very literally) and the actual torture was ordered to take place on 8 April, again at 4 a.m., initially with the thumb screws (the first degree). However, Anna gave a statement after being placed on the ladder and after the instruments were made ready, so the torture never actually happened.
A few months later, after the Crown Prince's arrest, the King actually gave an order to put both the Prince and Katte to the torture using these rules, but he was talked out of it by his Chief Minister.
3) Mutiny of 1730, from "Katte. Ordre und Kriegsgericht" by Jürgen Kloosterhuis (2006)
The Potsdam hangman was a busy man in 1730 -- in addition to the torture and execution of Anna Petsch and the flogging of Doris Ritter, he was also in charge of the public torture, flogging and execution of a group of conspirators among the rank and file of the King's Grenadier Guards (the famous "Potsdam Giants", also the regiment of Anna Petsch's lover and of Lieutenant von Ingersleben, who delivered the Prince's presents to Doris). Here is a summary of the attempted mutiny, and the punishment of the conspirators from the Kloosterhuis book I have cited earlier. The author thinks that this conspiracy which was uncovered in January 1730 is the underlying reason why the King reacted so ferociously to his son's attempted desertion in August that year, and assumed it was a conspiracy against his own life and his reign -- thus resulting in Doris's flogging. According to Kloosterhuis conspiracy to desertion was considered a more serious crime than desertion itself, and could have exposed Katte, Keith, the Prince and potentially also Doris to the same charges and same treatment as the conspirators earlier that year.
The conspiracy was amongst a group of 40 grenadiers belonging to a religious sect. It was discovered in January 1730 and those involved were questioned under torture (no further details given). Then, the three chief conspirators were convicted by court martial and publicly punished by the Potsdam hangman:
1. The head of the conspiracy had his oath fingers hacked off by the hangman, followed by torture with red hot pincers, then he was hanged.
2. A second soldier had his ears and nose cut off, then he was tortured with the red hot pincers (although somewhat less severely than the first), flogged and then half-dead delivered to Spandau prison, where he died shortly afterwards.
3. A third soldier had his face publicly slapped by the hangman, then he was flogged and also delivered to Spandau (and presumably survived, at least in the short term).
There is no explanation for the peculiar detail of the ceremonial face slapping ("Ohrfeige"), but it is presumably intended as a public sign of stripping the delinquent of his honour. Kloosterhuis goes on to say (as I have previously discussed) that the flogging administered by the Hangman would have had a permanently dishonouring effect, barring the delinquent from civic life forever. That would have equally applied to Doris later than year, although we don't know of any face slapping or ears/nose mutilation in her case -- Voltaire at least would have mentioned the latter.
The remaining conspirators had to run the gauntlet, which was at least as severe a penalty as flogging (and often fatal), but would have been conducted internally within the regiment rather than by the hangman, and hence was not dishonouring. They were then sent to Spandau for a term of imprisonment.
Kloosterhuis doesn't say when this execution took place, but it must have been between January 1730 and August 1730, i.e. during the time that Doris was associating with the Crown Prince -- maybe they took one of their purported promenades to watch the spectacle. The military gallows was only a few hundred metres from Doris's family lodgings and the Royal Palace.
4) "The Good Friend Of Potsdam -- History of the Public Hangman's Office in our Town", by Retired Prison Director Major Schelowsky (1866)
Now that we have seen the Potsdam hangman in action three times within a few months in 1730 (Doris Ritter, Anna Petsch and the Potsdam conspirators), who was this man and what did his office entail? Turning again to the proceedings of the Potsdam Historical Society, this essay tells us more about this than you would ever have thought possible, over 29 small-type pages covering the middle ages up to the then-current holder of the office in the 1860s. Schelowsky is much more interested in family history and the economics of the hangman's trade than in the details of torture, floggings or executions, so this is a somewhat non-gory account. Still, some CF regulars may have asked themselves whether they would have fancied the hangman's job, and whether it paid well -- Schelowsky has all the answers!
In all, it doesn't sound a very appealing job, mainly because of the social stigma associated with it (not least because the office was combined with that of the public knacker, responsible for collecting and processing animal carcasses in the town and villages), but the holders and their families were stuck with it as they were social outcasts whose children had no choice but to either inherit or marry within the trade. It does seem to have been quite lucrative, though -- if you could cope with the smells and sights of the knacker's yard and having the rotting bodies of executed criminals being displaced on wheels around your house, the money was pretty good and 18th century hangmen took to wearing fancy formal clothes (various royal edicts unsuccessfuly tried to compel them to wear a special hangman's uniform at all times).
The Potsdam hangman in 1730 was one Hans Caspar List, who came into the office in 1713 when he married the widow of the previous hangman. In turn, he had no sons but three daughters, the oldest of which (Anna Elisabeth List) would have been about Doris's age assuming she was born relatively promptly after the marriage -- in any case she was still unmarried in 1733 when List made his will nominating Anna's "husband if one is found who is willing to wed her" as the heir to the hangman's office. By 1740, she and her then-husband Johann Caspar Koch had taken over, meaning that List died some time between 1733 and 1740 making his time in office almost exactly coinciding with the reign of King Friedrich Wilhelm I. So, now we know who flogged Doris and have a number of additional names to play with as supporting characters (e.g. the hangman's beautiful daughter Anna, full of resentment for Doris's status in society, assisting her father with the planning and execution of the flogging in the absence of a son and heir...).
Linking this essay with Sello's essay on the torture and execution by drowning of Anna Petsch, Schelowsky presents a copy of an statement of expenses reimbursed to Hangman List in 1731, regarding "the child murderess Petsch and the sodomite Lepsch":
We already know that Anna Petsch was tortured, then drowned. Schelowsky tells us that Lepsch was burned at the stake. According to this statement, the hangman was paid:
"In the said year (1731), the King reimbursed 205 Thalers and 21 Groschen in respect of the child murderess Petsch and the sodomite Lepsch, plus
27 Thalers paid to the hangman for the torture and execution of the Petsch female.
16 Thalers was the construction cost of the scaffolding for the drowning.
27 Thalers paid to the hangman for the execution of Lepsch.
16 Thalers and 5 Groschen for the cost of three bundles of wood, straw and tar for the burning.
15 Thalers to the blacksmith for neck iron, gallows and wheel."
Regrettably, the invoice does not cover the cost of the flogging of Doris Ritter -- having a similar statement for her would have given a good indication of how it was actually done. As Doris's flogging took place between the drowning of Anna Petsch in April 1730 and the date of the statement in 1731, it should really have taken place in the same invoicing period. Maybe floggings were charged to a different expense account, or considered too trifling for official expense records...
nsur1
Governor
I had promised five essays on criminal cases related to Doris Ritter, but have only posted four so far. Here is the fifth:
5) Dorothea Steffin - The last woman convicted of witchcraft in Prussia, 1728 (from Gerhard Jaeckel: "Die Charité", 1963)
Unlike the other four essays, this one isn't set in Potsdam but in Berlin and Spandau, but it concerns a woman who we can be certain came to know Doris Ritter very well -- they spent three years together as fellow inmates at the Spinnhaus in Spandau. Dorothea Steffin had already been there since December 1728, when she was 28 years old, and would spend the rest of her life there, having (like Doris) been convicted "for ever" and (unlike Doris) never being pardoned. German readers can get the full story from the attached PDF -- I won't go into much detail as the relevance to CF is tangential, other than the fact that witch trials are on topic by definition, and that she presumably like everybody else would have received a "welcome" and regular refreshers at the Spinnhaus, although in her case no "farewell". Her fate also tells us that although Doris served "only" three years, the prospect of life imprisonment was entirely real and as she didn't know that she would be pardoned, Doris must have spent the entire three years there believing that she would never get out.
Dorothea Steffin's story is pretty bizarre story -- she must be the only witch who not only freely and voluntarily accused herself of witchcraft, but who through being found guilty of that crime saved her own life from being executed as a child murderer! In brief, Dorothea ran away from home at age 16 to become the maid and live-in lover of a corrupt tax official, who threw her out when she became pregnant by him. After giving birth, she took up prostitution and was arrested. While in prison, she killed her child and tried to kill herself as well, but survived. That should have been the end of her -- as we have seen in the story of Anna Petsch, child murderers were executed by drowning in a sack, and this murder happened in front of witnesses in a prison cell. When she was brought in front of a judge, her defence was to say that she had made a pact with the Devil signed in blood, having met him two years earlier in the form of a gentleman dressed in a blue suit, and that she killed her child because the Devil told her to do it. A priest was brought in who declared that she was without doubt a witch. A doctor disagreed and declared her insane. The judge then convicted her for being a witch in league with the Devil, rather than for the murder of her child. That difference should have been academic, as both were capital offences. However, as the King had a few years earlier put a stop to all executions of witches in Prussia, the judge sent her to prison instead of executing her (it is fairly clear from the wording of the judgment that the he actually agreed with the doctor that she was insane, rather than the priest that she was a witch, but the law at the time had no defence of diminished responsibility because of insanity).
5) Dorothea Steffin - The last woman convicted of witchcraft in Prussia, 1728 (from Gerhard Jaeckel: "Die Charité", 1963)
Unlike the other four essays, this one isn't set in Potsdam but in Berlin and Spandau, but it concerns a woman who we can be certain came to know Doris Ritter very well -- they spent three years together as fellow inmates at the Spinnhaus in Spandau. Dorothea Steffin had already been there since December 1728, when she was 28 years old, and would spend the rest of her life there, having (like Doris) been convicted "for ever" and (unlike Doris) never being pardoned. German readers can get the full story from the attached PDF -- I won't go into much detail as the relevance to CF is tangential, other than the fact that witch trials are on topic by definition, and that she presumably like everybody else would have received a "welcome" and regular refreshers at the Spinnhaus, although in her case no "farewell". Her fate also tells us that although Doris served "only" three years, the prospect of life imprisonment was entirely real and as she didn't know that she would be pardoned, Doris must have spent the entire three years there believing that she would never get out.
Dorothea Steffin's story is pretty bizarre story -- she must be the only witch who not only freely and voluntarily accused herself of witchcraft, but who through being found guilty of that crime saved her own life from being executed as a child murderer! In brief, Dorothea ran away from home at age 16 to become the maid and live-in lover of a corrupt tax official, who threw her out when she became pregnant by him. After giving birth, she took up prostitution and was arrested. While in prison, she killed her child and tried to kill herself as well, but survived. That should have been the end of her -- as we have seen in the story of Anna Petsch, child murderers were executed by drowning in a sack, and this murder happened in front of witnesses in a prison cell. When she was brought in front of a judge, her defence was to say that she had made a pact with the Devil signed in blood, having met him two years earlier in the form of a gentleman dressed in a blue suit, and that she killed her child because the Devil told her to do it. A priest was brought in who declared that she was without doubt a witch. A doctor disagreed and declared her insane. The judge then convicted her for being a witch in league with the Devil, rather than for the murder of her child. That difference should have been academic, as both were capital offences. However, as the King had a few years earlier put a stop to all executions of witches in Prussia, the judge sent her to prison instead of executing her (it is fairly clear from the wording of the judgment that the he actually agreed with the doctor that she was insane, rather than the priest that she was a witch, but the law at the time had no defence of diminished responsibility because of insanity).
Jon Smithie
Tribune
Wow. As they say, "Truth is stranger than fiction," if not quite so erotically stimulating (which is what they don't say.) Thanks yet again for your extensive research, nsur. The historical background is fascinating.
Your aside about the executioner's daughter (Anna) put me in mind of a book I haven't read yet, but mean to, called, in English, "The Hangman's Daughter" by Oliver Potzsch. It sounds like it would be of interest to CF'ers in general. Here's the summary from Amazon:
Germany, 1660: When a dying boy is pulled from the river with a mark crudely tattooed on his shoulder, hangman Jakob Kuisl is called upon to investigate whether witchcraft is at play. So begins The Hangman's Daughter--the chillingly detailed, fast-paced historical thriller from German television screenwriter Oliver Pötzsch, a descendant of the Kuisls, a famous Bavarian executioner clan.
Magdalena, the clever and headstrong daughter of Bavarian hangman Jakob Kuisl, lives with her father outside the village walls and is destined to be married off to another hangman’s son—except that the town physician’s son is hopelessly in love with her. And her father’s wisdom and empathy are as unusual as his despised profession. It is 1659, the Thirty Years’ War has finally ended, and there hasn’t been a witchcraft mania in decades. But now, a drowning and gruesomely injured boy, tattooed with the mark of a witch, is pulled from a river and the villagers suspect the local midwife, Martha Stechlin.
Jakob Kuisl is charged with extracting a confession from her and torturing her until he gets one. Convinced she is innocent, he, Magdalena, and her would-be suitor to race against the clock to find the true killer. Approaching Walpurgisnacht, when witches are believed to dance in the forest and mate with the devil, another tattooed orphan is found dead and the town becomes frenzied. More than one person has spotted what looks like the devil—a man with a hand made only of bones. The hangman, his daughter, and the doctor’s son face a terrifying and very real enemy.
Taking us back in history to a place where autopsies were blasphemous, coffee was an exotic drink, dried toads were the recommended remedy for the plague, and the devil was as real as anything, The Hangman’s Daughter brings to cinematic life the sights, sounds, and smells of seventeenth-century Bavaria, telling the engrossing story of a compassionate hangman who will live on in readers’ imaginations long after they’ve put down the novel.
So it sounds like this might have some further insights, even if dressed in fictional garb, into the life of an executioner.
In the interest of full disclosure I will state that I have no financial interest in the sale of this book. I am however, like Potzsch, a proud descendant of the Kuisl family, though more distantly than Herr Potzsch. That is to say my Kuisl ancestor presumably lived sometime between Jakob Kuisl and the point in evolutionary history where the hominid species separated from the panids. But modesty and good breeding forbid me from making too much of the connection.
Your aside about the executioner's daughter (Anna) put me in mind of a book I haven't read yet, but mean to, called, in English, "The Hangman's Daughter" by Oliver Potzsch. It sounds like it would be of interest to CF'ers in general. Here's the summary from Amazon:
Germany, 1660: When a dying boy is pulled from the river with a mark crudely tattooed on his shoulder, hangman Jakob Kuisl is called upon to investigate whether witchcraft is at play. So begins The Hangman's Daughter--the chillingly detailed, fast-paced historical thriller from German television screenwriter Oliver Pötzsch, a descendant of the Kuisls, a famous Bavarian executioner clan.
Magdalena, the clever and headstrong daughter of Bavarian hangman Jakob Kuisl, lives with her father outside the village walls and is destined to be married off to another hangman’s son—except that the town physician’s son is hopelessly in love with her. And her father’s wisdom and empathy are as unusual as his despised profession. It is 1659, the Thirty Years’ War has finally ended, and there hasn’t been a witchcraft mania in decades. But now, a drowning and gruesomely injured boy, tattooed with the mark of a witch, is pulled from a river and the villagers suspect the local midwife, Martha Stechlin.
Jakob Kuisl is charged with extracting a confession from her and torturing her until he gets one. Convinced she is innocent, he, Magdalena, and her would-be suitor to race against the clock to find the true killer. Approaching Walpurgisnacht, when witches are believed to dance in the forest and mate with the devil, another tattooed orphan is found dead and the town becomes frenzied. More than one person has spotted what looks like the devil—a man with a hand made only of bones. The hangman, his daughter, and the doctor’s son face a terrifying and very real enemy.
Taking us back in history to a place where autopsies were blasphemous, coffee was an exotic drink, dried toads were the recommended remedy for the plague, and the devil was as real as anything, The Hangman’s Daughter brings to cinematic life the sights, sounds, and smells of seventeenth-century Bavaria, telling the engrossing story of a compassionate hangman who will live on in readers’ imaginations long after they’ve put down the novel.
So it sounds like this might have some further insights, even if dressed in fictional garb, into the life of an executioner.
In the interest of full disclosure I will state that I have no financial interest in the sale of this book. I am however, like Potzsch, a proud descendant of the Kuisl family, though more distantly than Herr Potzsch. That is to say my Kuisl ancestor presumably lived sometime between Jakob Kuisl and the point in evolutionary history where the hominid species separated from the panids. But modesty and good breeding forbid me from making too much of the connection.
nsur1
Governor
Thanks, Jon. I haven't read the "Hangman's Daughter" novels, but from the summary you have posted it uses quite a lot of the general background I have posted here, regarding how the hangman's trade in Germany and the use of torture to extract confessions was organised. I see that there are now eight volumes in the "Hangman's Daughter" series, so perhaps I should take a closer look. This is set about seventy years earlier than the Doris story, and in quite a different part of Germany (catholic Bavaria rather than protestant Prussia), but the judicial system was I think fairly similar across Germany in those days.
Another related fictional treatment is the movie "The Headsman" (or "Shadow Of The Sword") which we have been discussing here:
This movie involves Nikolaj Coster-Waldau's character (looking exactly like Jaime Lannister) falling in love with the hangman's daughter and becoming the new hangman after her father's death. Here's a screenshot of the daughter:
Last edited:
elephas
Senator
An old spanking magazine Whispers No 4 has a curious questionnaire where the first question of 13 is about JCP. Also of interest is question # 13 about celebrities. Another magazine, Blushes No 19, provides some answers from readers.
spankingmagstories.blogspot.com
spankingmagstories.blogspot.com
1. What in your opinion would be appropriate judicial sentences for girls and young women convicted of the following misdemeanours?
a) possession of cannabis
b) vandalism
c) lesbianism
d) sabotage of a hunt meeting
e) improper dress in a public place
f) failing to control children
g) dropping litter
h) shoplifting
i) adultery
...
13. List the ten female celebrities you feel would most benefit from [judicial] corporal punishment.
It is interesting what do you think on this issue?
Letters from Whispers 4
DOGGEDNESS Dear Sirs, I am writing as one who is generally dissatisfied with the ‘spanking’ magazines currently available, to congrat...
spankingmagstories.blogspot.com
Letters from Blushes 19
In Whispers No 4 we published a letter from a reader who enclosed a questionnaire, expressing the hope that others of our readers would ...
spankingmagstories.blogspot.com
1. What in your opinion would be appropriate judicial sentences for girls and young women convicted of the following misdemeanours?
a) possession of cannabis
b) vandalism
c) lesbianism
d) sabotage of a hunt meeting
e) improper dress in a public place
f) failing to control children
g) dropping litter
h) shoplifting
i) adultery
...
13. List the ten female celebrities you feel would most benefit from [judicial] corporal punishment.
It is interesting what do you think on this issue?
Last edited:
windar
Teller of Tales
I think I already answered this in my stories