Conflagration in Loosen

Fire in the Hall - Füer op de Deel!

We go back to 1679. It is Saturday the 19th of April, one day before Easter. The people in the small village of Loosen, situated between Ludwigslust and Doemitz in the region called "Griese Gegend", prepare for the holiday. The women had cleaned the houses, swept the floor, straw lying around had been cleared away, and even the cobwebs in the hall had been eliminated. In the morning people had baked bread, now they are occupied with their daily duties.
Old village mayor Thies Blancke is tending his oxes on the meadows, his wife Anna Luetken is working together with her maid in the hop garden near the house. In the living room ("Doens") young mayor Juergen Buseke is sitting with his three months old son Juergen Christian in his arms. Also his wife, Trin Jalitz, is in the living room, producing butter.
It is early afternoon, around 1 o'clock p.m.The young woman throws a glance through the little window into the hall ("Diele"). At first she is astonished about the unusual brightness, but then she recognizes: There is fire in the hall!
The young couple is running flusteredly into the hall and sees that the maid's bed is burning. The young mayor runs into the yard and calls the old mayor's wife who is working in the hop garden. Then he hurries back, lays his young son on the floor outside the house and starts, together with his wife, to save as much as possible from the flames.
Ann Luetken and her maid also run into the house hastily.The old woman rushes to her bed which is also in the hall. There she gets a key out of the bed and opens her chest which is standing beside the bed. She grabs as much clothes and sheets as she can carry. But when she wants to leave the burning house the smoke has already spread around the hall. She thinks she is going to suffocate, so she goes down on hands and knees and crawls out of the house inspite of being nearly eighty years old. But on her way out she has to leave most of the clothes behind.

The young mayor's wife is also still in the house. Because of the thick smoke she looses her bearings. But then she hears her brother-in-law calling and reaches the door just in time.

Arson?

The gathered village people must watch helplessly how, besides the mayor's farm, also seven more farms go up in flames. Nearly half of the village burns down.

Village map showing the burned farms. The fire went up on farm no. XII.

The farmers agree on the guilty person: young mayor Juergen Buseke. With fury and desperation they pounce on him and beat him severely.
But why do they think young Buseke must be the arsonist? We can read about it in the protocolls of the official interrogation which followed the occurrence:
Juergen Buseke's family had been leaseholder of the mayor's farm some time before. Buseke had been hoping for a long time to take over the farm after the death of the old mayor Thies Blancke. He is living in Blancke's house with his wife and two young children. Blancke, now about 80 years old, took over the farm about 30 years ago. He obviously has no surviving children and so he confirms Buseke that he will get the farm in the future. But then he changes his mind and writes to the ducal chamber. Buseke gets the order that he must not take over the position of the mayor and the farm and he even has to leave the farm. Buseke thinks he was betrayed of his inheritance.

Quarrel among Neighbours

From now on both families live in permanent quarrel. One of the village people who is one of the witnesses in the official interrogation says that it was a shame to listen to the permanent row. All witnesses agree that Buseke had quarreled with all his neighbours and had called them "blackeyed witches" and "crooked and lame rascals". He had been jealous of everybody. He had also threatened Blancke to reduce him to beggary and to do something about which following generations would still talk.
Before the conflagration he had also been taking grain supply, livestock and other possessions to his father-in-law in Picher.
Buseke does not deny but he explains that the grain was to be sold. The chicken he had to take away because Blancke had ordered him to do so. Most of his possession had been still in the house and was burned. He made a list of all things he had lost:
Shirts belonging to his wife, his farmhand, his maid and himself, shirts and aprons of the children, his wife's aprons, bedclothes, tablecloths, towels, trousers (with bare money in one of its pockets), the farmhand's new hat and gloves and other clothes. He only mentions the more valuable household things: kettles, spinning wheel, butter cask, tin can, beer casket, scythes etc. The lost wooden supplement he could not list, it would be too much.

Protesting Innocence

Buseke refuses any guilt of arsoning. Again and again he and his wife confirm that the beds had been already up in flames when they noticed the fire. But they contradict themselves because the old mayor's wife had been able to get the chest key out of her bed which had not been burning at that time. So how could Buseke state the bed had been burning?
Buseke has several suggestions how the fire could have been set:
Only a short time before the maid had carried coal from the baking oven in the yard into the house to the stove in the hall. Either burning ash could have fallen down or sparks could have sprung from the stove to the beds. But the witnesses declare that the coal had been carried into the house in the morning, long before the fire started. It had nearly stopped burning at noon. The maid describes her way through the house. She did not even come near the beds. There also could not have been flying sparks because no fresh wood had been lying on the stove which could have been able to produce sparks. The beds had been standing too far away, anyway. Cobwebs which could have set on fire had been cleaned away thoroughly before.

Cats as Arsonists?

Now Buseke makes the suggestion that the cats could have swept the coal down from the stove. When examined the cats show no trace of fire damage. So they can be cleared from the suspicion of beeing arsonists. Buseke's next idea is that the fire was caused by the old mayor's swearing. But all witnesses deny this remark. Blancke never had sweared but had prayed a lot. Also none of the farmers believes that the devil would be mighty enough to set fire to houses, because then no house in the whole world would stay as most of the time people would swear more then pray.

Torture for Buseke

Again and again the accused couple and the witnesses are interrogated. Buseke travels to Hamburg and stays there for some time. When he comes back he is arrested. On the 12th of July truth shall be found by torturing him. At first he is requested to admit his guilt. But Buseke insists on his innocence. Would he have come back from Hamburg if he was guilty? The torturer shows him the instruments of torture but Buseke is insisting on his innocence. Then torture starts. But inspite of his terrible pain he does not admit any guilt. God would be his witness. He calls to God to give a sign of his innocence. Buseke demands that the Loosen people should be responsible for causing his pain in front of God. Even when told that his wife had admitted everything he insists on his innocence. He would like to admit everything, even if his parents would have been the arsonists, just to escape the torture. But how could he admit something he had not done? The injustice he had to suffer should come upon the Loosen people and their descendants. He would prefer to die instead of bearing this pain any longer.
After a long time the torture is stopped because the interrogators are sure that Buseke will not admit his guilt.

Buseke's Wife in Front of the Rack

They also threaten Buseke's wife with torture. She does not know that because of her baby they are not going to torture her. She also calls to God to be witness for her innocence. Nakedly she is lead to the rack. In her fear she prays to God to show mercy to her. She would have killed herself some time ago to escape the shame but because of her children she did not do it. She is also told that her husband had admitted their guilt but she insists on being innocent.
Finally the interrogation stops because it is obvious that she will not admit anything.

Release

The couple's steadfastness is judged to be a sign of their innocence. They are released but have to stay away from Loosen - for their own security. They have to swear an oath not to take revenge for the shame and the pain.
At the end of July Buseke writes from Hamburg and asks to be allowed to gather his scattered livestock and to bring in the harvest from his fields. He gets the allowance, and some ducal officials get the order to care for his security.

Old Thies Blancke dies in 1683. His successor as village mayor is Hartwig Tiede. In November of 1679 he marries Christin Laudan. She is probably a niece of Thies Blancke. The farm stays with the Tiede family until today. We do not find any more traces of Juergen Buseke and his family in the region. Probably he stayed in Hamburg because even with his wife's family in Picher they would not have been save. The furious farmers would not have left him alone. He would have been under suspicion of arsoning for the rest of his life.
The burned down houses are rebuilt. Also the farms that were not yet occupied in 1679 after the destroyances of the long war 1618-1648 get new leaseholders during the following years. But the farmers had to suffer for many years from the heavy damages. We never will get to know what the reason for the conflagration really had been.

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