[The following is taken from the memoir of Johann Daniel Friese, the son of a city secretary in Magdeburg, who experienced a massacre in his hometown when he was twelve years old.]
As we went through a couple of alleys, we saw various dead laying atop each other, and often in the great crowd we had to step over the corpses. Amongst others we saw a peasant jump out of a gable, who was scalded by hot water, and he was smoking mightily. He lay in the alley writhing and crying piteously. Farther along in the alley lay a maid, who had been carrying meat in a basket. She had been shot, and a dog was standing nearby, eating the meat… We saw very many dead in the alleys and a number of women lying totally naked, with their heads in a large beer barrel, which was standing full of water in the street. They had been pushed in and drowned, but half their bodies and their legs were hanging out, which was a wretched spectacle.
Source:
Medick, Hans, and Benjamin Marschke. “Battle and Massacre: Experiences of Mass Violence and Death.” Experiencing the Thirty Years War: A Brief History with Documents. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2013. 136. Print.
Original Source Listed:
From “Historischer Extract aus einem Manuscripto, welches herr Daniel Frisius, Canncell. Secret. zu Altenburg von seinen Fatis hinter sich gelassen… Vom Magdeburger Unglück” (“Historical Extract from a Manuscript, Which Daniel Frisius, Chencellery Secretary in Altenburg, Left Behind Regarding His Fate… Relating to the Catastrophe in Magdeburg”), in Friedrich Friese, Leichte historische Fragen (Light Historical Questions) (Leipzig: Groschuff, 1703), 311-12, 316-17. Translation of the first part of this text by Pamela Selwyn, quoted in Hans Medick, “Historical Event and Contemporary Experience: The Capture and Destruction of Magdeburg in 1631,” History Workshop Journal 52 (2001): 40-41.
Further Reading:
Magdeburgs Opfergang / Magdeburger Hochzeit (Sack of Magdeburg)
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