A Demon-Haunted Land

August 31, 2020
University of Tennessee history professor Black (Death in Berlin) delivers a fascinating, richly detailed look at the origins of “mass supernatural events” that occurred in West Germany after WWII. Black focuses primarily on the rise of faith healer Bruno Gröning, and on the scores of “witchcraft trials” that took place across the country from 1947 to 1965. Gröning, who believed that “evil people... stopped good people from being well,” lectured to large crowds before authorities cracked down on him for violating a law against treating the sick without a license. He was eventually convicted of negligent homicide in the case of a young girl who stopped her tuberculosis treatments while under his care. Gröning’s “obsession with evil,” Black writes, links him to the country’s simultaneous “witchcraft scare,” in which neighbors took each other to court for spreading rumors of spell casting and evildoing. Black suggests numerous sources for these phenomena, including guilt and shame over the Holocaust, trauma caused by the large numbers of Germans killed or displaced in the final months of the war, and the residual influence of anti-Semitism. Vivid character sketches and keen psychological insights enrich her impressive historical research. The result is an arresting portrait of an unexplored chapter in German history.