Thomas Hermann, and Sixty-Seven Others, in the Year 1527

THOMAS HERMANN, AND SIXTY-SEVEN OTHERS, IN THE YEAR 1527 [n579-1]

In the year 1527, Thomas Hermann, a minister of the Gospel and Word of God, was executed. Some people had been arrested at Kitzbuehl, and, through the tyranny of the authorities, had been brought to fall away from the truth. The latter further brought them into a public place before a great crowd of people, where the others shamefully reviled them, and said: "Ah, how finely your teachers and pastors now give their lives for you!" John 10, verse 11; First John 3, verse 16. Then the previously mentioned Thomas Hermann made his way through the people, stepped forward and boldly said: "It is the truth that I have taught you, and I will testify to it with my blood." He was immediately arrested, tortured, sentenced to the fire, and burned. On his way to the place of execution, he composed and sang a hymn, which still survives. They could not burn his heart, so they threw it into the lake that was near the place of execution. After him sixty-seven of his fellow believers were executed in the same place. The judge of Kitzbuehl, who helped to condemn and put many of them to death, and who because of their faith, both before and afterward, called them heretics, was later allowed by God to come to such awful disgrace that he was himself found to be a heretic, and justly regarded as such by everyone. This nevertheless did not happen on account of the faith at all, but because God permitted him to fall into such disgrace that he came to reproach and great infamy, also before the world.

The vengeance of God also came upon the town clerk of Kitzbuehl, who had likewise had a hand in this shedding of innocent blood, and had declared that he would not lay down his head in peace until he had helped to exterminate these people. For as he was out riding in a sleigh in the town, and was about to make a turn, the horse threw him against a wall and against an oak tree in the street, so that his brains were dashed out. So he did not lay down his head in peace, but came to a terrible end, as the brothers Hans Kitzbuehl and Christian Haring have testified about it.