In the ruins of the Jungfernturm in Munich, some say the victims of the mythical torture device is still haunting the street where the tower once stood.

The Jungfernturm, or Maiden Tower on Munich’s old city wall was said to once be the site of feared death sentences and mysterious disappearances. Although the tower itself was torn down, still to this day, people still talk about experiencing strange things while walking through the street of Jungfernturmstraße. 

Read more: Check out all haunted places in Germany 

The Jungfernturm served mainly as a battery tower for the defence of the city, but according to legend, it is said the tower got its name from torture and executions carried out with the Iron Maiden said to be within it.

By Carl August Lebschée (1800–1877)

History of the Maiden Tower

The first city wall around Munich was built as early as the 12th century, but the construction of the defensive tower didn’t begin until 1493. It stood between the second city wall and the inner wall for the protection of its people. As it was a battery tower, it had no windows, only hatches for firing projectiles and it was difficult to say what went on inside of it from the outside. 

It could only be accessed from within the city. With the dismantling of Munich’s fortifications in 1791, it became obsolete as a means of defence and ended up as a storage room for the opera nearby. It remained in its place for over a decade before its demolition finally began in 1804 as a means to modernize and beautify the city.

The Iron Maiden and the Statue of Virgin Mary

Did something else happen within the tower though except for preparing for an attack on the city? According to the legend, death sentences were said to have been handed down in the Maiden’s Tower in secret. 

Most legends claim that the victims were taken to the tower by carriage. Often the legends talk about men in black being the ones taken from them. This is often in connection to the mysterious Guglmänner, a secret and veiled society in Munich, although officially, these were mourners at funeral processions. At night, these men in black robes with pointed hoods would knock on the door and collect the offender in a black carriage, taking him to the Jungfernturm.

The Guglmänner: Originally, they were attendants of a funeral procession. As early as the 14th century, penitents veiled themselves from head to toe, leaving only a peephole for their eyes. Since around the late 1990s, the term has mostly referred to a Bavarian secret society whose members see themselves as guardians of the monarchy and contribute to the perpetuation of the legends surrounding the death of King Ludwig II of Bavaria in 1886. Their motto, referring to the deceased, is Media vita in morte sumus , which translates as: “In the midst of life we ​​are surrounded by death.”

According to legend, there was a statue of the Virgin Mary at the tower, which the condemned man had to kiss before a trapdoor opened beneath him and he fell into a dungeon below, being impaled in the Iron Maiden torture device. 

The iron maiden: this mythical torture device, believed to have been first created in the 19th century. It consists of a solid iron cabinet with a hinged front and spike-covered interior, sufficiently tall to enclose a human being. While often popularly thought to have been used in the medieval period, there is no known mention of the iron maiden from before the 19th century. The most famous iron maiden that popularized the design was that of Nuremberg, first displayed possibly as far back as 1802. The original was lost in the Allied bombing of Nuremberg in 1945. The 19th-century iron maidens may have been constructed as a misinterpretation of a medieval Schandmantel, which was made of wood and metal but without spikes.

The Ghost of Captain Franz von Unertl

The popular legend links the mysterious powers of the Iron Maiden to the time of Elector Karl Theodor in the mid 1700s, whose secret committee, headed by the notorious Privy Councilor Lippert, issued banishments and death sentences without a court trial, carrying them out secretly and without fanfare. 

A time of unease in the realm: Between fighting for Bavarian reign, wars and the brewing French Revolution that would affect nobles across Europe, there was much unease and scheming going on in the shadows. Illustration showing Privy Councilor Lippert informs Karl Theodor that the people of Munich are dissatisfied and are resisting his orders.

According to this legend, individuals deemed dangerous to the state due to their revolutionary principles were suddenly arrested, taken to the residence, interrogated and condemned by the secret committee in the dreaded Yellow Room. They were then sent to the Maiden’s Tower to be murdered by the arms of the Iron Maiden.

One such alleged executed person was Captain Franz von Unertl. He was reportedly picked up from an inn by a horse-drawn carriage on the evening of January 6, 1796, after Munich had already dismantled its fortifications, and taken to the tower. The story tells that the Captain met his death by the Iron Maiden at 3:00 a.m. on January 7. 

Franz Xaver Josef Baron von Unertl: (21 February 1675 – 22 January 1750) was a Bavarian politician. Unertl was born in Munich. He served as Electoral Bavarian Privy Council Chancellor and Conference Minister. His role under the Austrian occupation during the Spanish Succession War remains dubious. He died in his home town of Munich.

However, we have no documentary evidence of such mysterious activities during the reign of Elector Karl Theodor. After his death, his successor, Elector Maximilian Joseph, later King, ordered an investigation into the proceedings of the secret committee on March 26, 1799. The thing is, only those dating back to 1796 were found. What happened before that had been destroyed. 

So were there actually secret executions at the Jungfernturm throughout the centuries it stood? Hard to prove, and no Iron Maiden was ever found. However, it is said that the executioner of Munich from this time told that he had once been forced to execute a person unknown to him in the Residence.

The Corpses in the Tower

So what was the truth? With no Iron Maiden found, it’s hard to prove the validity of the legend. However, the remains of people in the tower could point to the fact that more than one person died here. 

General Field Master and Chief Warrant Officer Josef Count von Salern told about a terrible find he encountered working with the costumes for the opera when he was Intendant of the Court Music in 1751. He noticed that a small piece of paving in the first-floor floor was sticking up slightly, making it easy to trip and fall. When they tried to repair it, they discovered a trapdoor leading to a lower room. A few masons lowered themselves into the hole below and found two unattached, almost completely decomposed corpses. 

These bodies with a pile of rags were then removed without further investigation and buried in the churchyard that was located right next door according to the Imperial Police Director Baumgartner. Could this be proof that the tower at least was used as a place of criminal justice? 

From Baumgartners story about the tower: Source

Demolition of the Tower

This tower was demolished and along with it, the proof. What we do have though it the reports from the Royal Police Director Baumgartner who said this: 

“Rumors always circulated among the people that in ancient times a secret court had operated in this tower and perhaps buried some victims there. When the tower was demolished, I, along with the city building director von Schede and the city master mason Ferdinand Zimmermann, examined every nook and cranny. At the top of the first floor, we found an old Gothic door, inside this door a bricked-up thwarted chamber, and at ground level a trapdoor. I descended a ladder with a mason and found myself in a burial chamber, where a kind of resting place had been prepared in a niche. I found no trace of chains or iron rings, but in the vault above the trapdoor itself, I did find an iron hook for a pulley, used to lower or raise things into the depths. There was a musty smell in this recess, and the floor was completely covered with moth husks, which are found on long-buried animals.” dead bodies were found. Some of the bones found inside were from the jaw of a dog.”

From all this, the most probable conclusion is that the Maiden’s Tower, in earlier times before it was used as a decoration storehouse, served as a prison of that barbaric kind.. Such cruel prisons were common in medieval castles, fortresses, and town halls. According to testimonies from people visiting it throughout the years, this would have happened between 1666, when Colonel-Master of Ordnance Baron von Rouyer examined it and found it completely empty, and 1724, when it was designated for the storage of opera decorations.

By Johann Georg von Dillis (1759–1841)

The Haunting of the Tower

Some claim that the screams of its victims who never returned from the tower still echo in the winds. On dark nights, people claim to hear their screams coming from the remains of the tower. 

It is said that on the night of January 6th to 7th, a man in a tailcoat and leather boots can be seen on Jungfernturmstrasse. This is the ghost of Captain Franz von Unertl, said to haunt the area. If it is so that he never went to the tower for his demise, and died in his home, could it be one of the other unfortunate people who fell into the clutches of an Iron Maiden?

The Remains of the Jungfernturm: Image by Moonmausoleum

The Remains of the Tower

The legend of an iron maiden as an execution machine appears in several cities and towns, but not much proof of its existence has ever been found. 

Not much remains of the former defensive tower today. Only a few remnants of the red brick wall on Jungfernturmstrasse still bear witness to its former location. A plaque commemorates it with the inscription: “Here stood the Jungfernturm, built in the year 1493, demolished in the year 1804.” 

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References:

Jungfernturm – Wikipedia 

Die Überreste dieses geheimnisvollen Turms mitten in der Münchner Innenstadt erzählen eine gruselige Geschichte über einen zum Tode Verurteilten – Sein Geist soll noch heute in der Nacht des 07. Januars durch die Straße spuken

Rest der ehemaligen inneren Stadtmauer in München – Jungfernturmstraße 0 (erbaut 1300) | Baudenkmal & Architektur