Hexenhügel Winningen

The Hexenhügel Winningen stands above the village of Winningen on the Mosel in Rheinland-Pfalz. It was once the site where people were executed. The hill is covered with light deciduous woodland and lies close to Winningen airfield.

The hill carries a memorial to the victims of the Winningen witch trials. Between 1641 and 1651 more than twenty people were burned here during the 17th-century persecutions. The stone stele was raised in 1925, making it one of the earliest monuments of its kind in Germany. Its four sides list the execution dates and the names of those killed, including Maria Knebel, Margarethe Schiffer and Philipp Mölich.

Visitors find the memorial set among beech and oak trees on a gentle slope. The inscription on the stele recalls the dark years of superstition when the hill became a place of death. Names and dates are carved into the stone so that each victim is recognised. The quiet woodland around the hill contrasts with the violence that once took place there.