The Biggest Massacre of Jews You've Never Heard Of Before

Happened in Germany too, to no one's shock.

It would be a mistake to think antisemitism spontaneously appeared in Germany in 1933. Or that Martin Luther was the poisoner of the German mind. Germans have had a long tradition of pogroms and blood libels against Jews. In fact, this lingering habit and ingrained attitude led to one of the worst and most devastating massacres against Jews throughout a history already littered with them. 

Blood Libels, Their Mother’s Milk

In 1287, a young 16-year-old lad by the name of Werner was found inexplicably dead soon before Passover. It quickly led to the accusation that Jews had killed him so as to use his blood as part of a satanic Passover ritual. 

It immediately sparked a series of violent pogroms that spread from the Middle Rhine to the surrounding nations. Jews petitioned King Rudolf I to stop the massacre. The King was convinced that Jews were faultless in this whole affair, fined those who had murdered Jews, and ordered for Werner's corpse to be burned for the sake of avoiding further veneration and incitement. (Werner's corpse was secreted away, and he was ultimately canonized as a saint and revered until Pope John XXIII officially apologized for "unrightfully affix[ing this] to the Jews' name.")

It would be a mistake to assume that Rudolf I was friendly to the Jews. A year prior, as a matter of fact, he enacted the servi camerae measure on Jews, turning them into "serfs of the treasury" and suspending their political freedoms. Many tried to flee Germany consequently, including Rabbi Meir of Rothenburg, one of the greatest Ashkenazi luminaries of all time. He was captured on his way to Zion and famously refused to be ransomed for a large sum of money, all for the sake of not creating further incentives for the kidnapping of Rabbis for profit.

He died in prison seven years later.

Games of Throne

July 15th, 1291. The wicked Emperor, Rudolf I of Habsburg, has died. Although he made his wish very public that his son Albrecht should succeed him, both the Archbishop of Cologne and King of Bohemia worked to prevent Albrecht from ascending to the throne. Selected, not elected, by the College of Electors, King Adolf of Nassau is considered to be a very weak king. He was also never to receive assent from Pope and, as such, never gained the title of Emperor. Instead, he kept the temporary "King of the Romans" moniker awarded to German kings prior to the Vatican bestowing unto them the title of Emperor. 

Many treaties were made, many treaties were broken, and territorial lords started to gain power over the kingship. Overall his reign was poor, and he was considered untrustworthy by foes and enemies alike. His attempt to launch a war against France ended in humiliation when the Pope forbade him under threat of excommunication were he to open the hostilities. He was forced to retreat and disband in shame. 

The same Electors who had selected him decided it was now time to depose him in 1297, though the process would only be complete roughly a year later. Adolf refused to step away from the throne. Soon after, Bavaria and the surrounding region were engulfed in a civil war between him and the newly elected King of the Romans, Albrecht of Habsburg. At the head of their respective armies, the two met at what would become known as the Battle of Göllheim on July 2nd, 1298. Adolf perished alongside his entourage. By 1303, the man dubbed Albrecht the One-Eyed, who had become King Albrecht, would then be known as Emperor Albrecht.

King Adolf’s last moments at the Battle of Göllheim

Jews never fared well when gentiles went to war. Especially not in Germany. In the midst of a civil war between Adolf & Albrecht, Jews were left defenseless. While the Imperial family had been reliable protectors of Jews (as property and a good source of labor and capital), they were currently in turmoil and, as such, left the Jews of Germany without the protection usually afforded to them.

On Sunday, April 20th of 1298, a man called 'Lord Rindsfleisch' claimed that the Jews of Rottingen had stolen & tortured a consecrated host, a typical medieval accusation. His moniker came either because he was a knight (Lord), a butcher, or he was so nicknamed because of his acts of butchery (Rindfleisch meaning 'Butcher,' 'Beef' in modern German).

As a result of the alleged crime against the eucharist wafer, he assembled a mob, and they proceeded to burn alive all of the Jews of Röttingen.

 Rindfleisch and victims, Hartmann Schedel, Liber chronicarum, Nuremberg, 1493.

That wasn't enough to satiate their thirst for blood.

Claiming that he had received a mandate from Heaven, he proclaimed that he had been authorized to exterminate “the accursed race of the Jews”. After gathering a band of plunder-happy anti-semites, Rindsfleisch started to go from town to town to fulfill his "heavenly mandate."

From April to October, Rindfleisch and his merry murderous band burned through 146 communities in Bavaria, killing over 100,000 Jews.

Yes, 100,000 Jews.

Eventually, some populations were offered the choice of either baptism or death by fire. Contemporary chronicles describe how Jewish women jumped straight into the pyres with their children in tow rather than being forcibly converted. 

The massacres continued well into autumn, the last massacre taking place in Heilbronn in mid-October. Only two Jewish communities, Regensburg & Augsburg, escaped the massacres due to the protection of the non-Jewish rulers of the city who refused to turn them over. In Nuremberg, some of the citizens tried to help the Jews, but they were overcome by Rindsfleich and his men, and all those who had taken refuge in the fortress were butchered. 

The Aftermath

Though Emperor Albrecht I of Austria eventually called for Landfriede ("peace of the land") and warned against further pogroms, attacks against Jews were to continue throughout his reign. Many of them were directly inspired by the evil deeds of Lord Rindsfleich.

Even for an Emperor, medieval Instagram filters were rough

It took a few hundred years for the Jews of Germany to recover and thrive again, as they would suffer from what has been dubbed the "Medieval Holocaust" 50 years later in 1348 (which I will eventually cover, iy"h. Many kinnot and selichot were written to commemorate the massacres and their victims, though many have fallen to the wayside due to the other carnages that have happened since then. 

Regarding Rindsfleich, it is widely speculated that he was one of King Adolf's commanders, which was reprisal as the King blamed his defeats on treasonous local Jews. It is also quite possible that he initially received the ok to kill the Jews of Röttingen due to the amount of money owed to the community by a local Lord. 

It is recorded in the Chronicles of 95 Seigneurs, written about a century later, that King Albrecht had Rindfleisch arrested and hanged (or possibly beheaded) and that all the cities that had participated in the killing of Jews were forced to pay reparations to the Crown. 

The Jews were, after all, just serfs to the treasury.