Translated material
Girl against demons
Anneliese Michel was born and raised in Germany. As a child, she developed a rare disease that could not be accurately diagnosed. Every year she became worse, and at some point she and her parents turned to the priest to have the demons cast out of her. The priests performed 67 ceremonies - they took place in Michel's house once or twice a week. What this led to is in the material of the weekly true crime column “Cold”.
A young girl suffered from a strange illness since childhood. Her parents turned to the priest and asked him to remove the obsession from their daughter.
On April 20, 1978, the screams of a young girl were heard in the courthouse of the Bavarian city of Aschaffenburg. The voice belonged to 23-year-old Anneliese Michel, who by that time was already dead.
At the hearing in the case of her death, an audio recording of the ceremony was played , in which the girl shouted curses in response to a prayer in Latin. Dozens of people came to the trial; the whole of Germany watched the trial.
As a Washington Post journalist who came to this small German town to cover the trial wrote in a report, most viewers listened to the recording while staring at a wooden cross on one of the walls of the courtroom. At some point, the sister of the deceased ran out of the hall in tears.
Four people sat in the dock : priests Ernst Alt and Arnold Renz, as well as Joseph and Anna Michel, Anneliese's parents.
Slept on a cold floor
Anneliese Michel was born in 1952 in the Bavarian town of Leiblfing.
Her father's three aunts were nuns, and his mother wanted his father to be a priest, but he ended up becoming a carpenter. In his youth, Josef Michel served in the army, fought with the Wehrmacht in World War II and was captured by the Americans. In 1945, he returned from the USA to Germany and began working as a carpenter again.
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Annelise's mother Anna graduated from three classes of the lyceum and studied another three years at a private school. She met Josef while working at her father's sawmill. In 1950 they got married. Before meeting him, Anna gave birth to a daughter out of wedlock, rumored to be from a local priest. The girl was named Martha. Anna was so ashamed of the child that at her wedding to Josef she covered her face with a black veil. When Martha was eight years old, she died after complications due to the removal of a kidney tumor.
Anneliese's parents were very religious people. The Michel family attended mass twice a week, and Anneliese sang in the church choir. In winter, she sometimes slept on the cold floor, believing that this way she could atone for the sins of her peers.
However, from the outside, her childhood looked like the childhood of other children. Anneliese loved playing at her father's sawmill, she did well in school, took piano and accordion lessons, and dreamed of becoming a teacher.
Devil face
In 1968, when Anneliese was 16 years old, she had her first attack: during a brief loss of consciousness, she bit her tongue.
A year later the attack repeated. Waking up at night, Annelise felt a heaviness in her chest, could not move, speak or call loved ones for help. She had briefly lost consciousness again the previous afternoon.
In 1970, Anneliese developed tuberculosis and was hospitalized.
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She was prescribed anticonvulsants, but they did not help. At the same time, she began to say that she saw the face of the devil. After this incident, the doctor suggested that she had temporal lobe epilepsy - this disease is accompanied by memory loss, spasms, for example, in the hands, and hallucinations. In 1973, she was prescribed carbamazepine, an antiepileptic drug. It helped for a short time, but later her condition began to worsen again.
Annelise experienced depressive episodes and began to hallucinate. As she told her parents, sisters and doctors, during prayers voices told her that she was cursed and would “rot in hell.” In audio recordings made during the attacks, she said that demons were telling her to kill herself.
When Anneliese was 20 years old, she decided that she was possessed by demons. Together with her father, in 1973, Anneliese made a pilgrimage to San Damiano, where shortly before there had allegedly been a vision of the Mother of God. During the trip, she became close to their accompanying Thea Hein, who “confirmed” the possession: Anneliese could not touch the crucifix and refused to drink holy water, Hein later said.
Returning home, Annelise's parents took her to the priests with a request to perform an exorcism on her - expelling demons. They refused and recommended continuing treatment. The priests also told the Michels that in order to perform an exorcism, they needed to obtain permission from the diocese and make sure that Anneliese was possessed.
Between attacks, Anneliese tried to study. In 1973, she entered the higher pedagogical school: classmates later described her as a “closed and extremely religious” student. In 1975, Anneliese passed the exams to receive the Missio canonica, a special permit for educational activities on behalf of the church.
Her health continued to deteriorate. Her family later said that during the attacks, she began tearing her clothes, eating spiders and coal, barking like a dog, licking her urine from the floor and speaking in different languages. Her family members said that she seemed to speak in different voices. At such moments, Anneliese called herself Cain, Judas, Nero, Adolf Hitler and the names of other famous personalities.
Ritual
Desperate, Anneliese's parents agreed that their daughter could only be saved by an exorcism ritual. A local priest recommended the clergyman Ernst Alt to them.
Alt served as a priest in the parish of St. Agatha in Aschaffenburg. In religious circles they believed that he had the gift of foresight. When they brought him a letter from Anneliese and her mother, the priest felt bad. Alt mentioned the girl during Mass: at that moment, according to him, he felt the wind blowing in his back and the smell of burning, and he was able to finish the prayer with great difficulty. The priest was sure that he felt a demonic presence, and told other clergy about it. Alt later experienced several more similar attacks. They stopped when he prayed for an exorcism.
At first, Alt sent Annelise and her parents to the doctor, but they said that they had been undergoing treatment for a long time and without results. Then he finally decided to carry out the ceremony.
Permission for the exorcism was not issued immediately. In the summer of 1975, local bishop Joseph Stangl allowed Ernst Alt only a “minor” exorcism - a rite to consecrate a place. Later, another priest, Arnold Renz, was given permission to directly exorcise demons from Anneliese. The rituals were ordered to be kept secret.
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Arnold Renz was born on the family farm in January 1911. Since 1933, he first studied philosophy for four semesters, and then theology for another six semesters. In 1938 he was elevated to the rank of priest; in the 1950s he was a preacher in China, where he was engaged not only in missionary work, but also in exorcism. Renz gained fame when in the 1960s he sought the beatification of Barbara Weigand, a nun who, according to her, received revelations from Jesus and the Virgin Mary.
Alt and Renz held their first session on September 24, 1975. Together with them at the ceremony were members of the Michel family, local pastor Herrmann, Thea Hein and several other people. In one of the rooms of the Michel house there was a small home altar with a crucifix, statues of Christ, the Virgin Mary, the Archangel Michael and Father Pio, who, Renz believed, “fought demons” and healed people (in 2002, Father Pio was recognized as a Catholic saint).
Renz began the ceremony with a litany (a prayer in the form of a chant) to all the saints, and then continued to pray in Latin. He sprinkled Annelise with holy water and touched her with a blessed ribbon. After this, the “demons” inside the girl allegedly began to scream and go wild: Anneliese tried to attack those present and insulted them.
Her father and two other men had to hold her.
Renz asked the “demons” inside Anneliese questions: he asked their names, number, reasons for possession, instructions for the girl and much more. They did not answer and instead hit Annelise in the ribs, she complained after the ceremony. The priest conjured the demons many times in the name of God and called on the Mother of God, angels and saints to free the girl and return the demons to hell. Five hours later the session ended. Renz never learned the names of the demons.
After the ceremony, Anneliese looked exhausted. She said that the demons had temporarily retreated and that the rituals were worth continuing. After this, she refused to take the medicine prescribed by the doctor and decided to rely entirely on exorcism.
Over the next 10 months, the priests performed 67 ceremonies - they took place in Michel's house once or twice a week. Each session could last up to four hours. 42 rituals were recorded on tape.
After some time, Anneliese decided to give up food and water. She was sure that quick death was inevitable.
Anneliese died in her bed on July 1, 1976. An autopsy revealed that her death was not directly related to the exorcism. She died from exhaustion and dehydration. Before her death, she lost up to 31 kilograms and could not move without assistance. Later, the investigation found that Michel's death could have been prevented even 10 days earlier if she had resumed treatment.
Court
The case of the death of Anneliese Michel in Germany became resonant; its progress was closely followed not only by German, but also by international media. Listeners came to the hearings on the case, the press wrote about progress in the investigation. Investigators ended the case only in 1977 - almost two years after Anneliese's death.
In court, the priests and parents argued that they still believed in Anneliese's possession. Priests Alt and Renz declared that death had “finally set her free,” but Anneliese’s parents doubted this. After her funeral, they demanded that the body be exhumed because a nun they knew told them about her vision: Michele’s body allegedly did not begin to decompose, which, in her opinion, was evidence of possession.
The body was exhumed , and experts determined that the body was decomposing as usual.
Priests Alt, Renz and Anneliese's parents were charged with criminal omission leading to death by negligence.
Initially, Bishop Joseph Stangl of Würzburg, who allowed the ceremony, was also under investigation. He said that he acted according to the laws of the church, but promised that in the future he would give permission for rituals only if the possessed person agreed to the presence of a doctor during the rituals. Among the accused was Adolf Rodevik, another candidate for performing an exorcism on Anneliese, who was confident in her possession. Charges against both were dropped before the case went to trial.
Lawyer Erich Schmidt-Leichner (left) with Fr. Arnold Renz at the Aschaffenburg District Court. March 30, 1978. Photo: Picture Alliance/Getty Images
Alt and Renz were defended by lawyers hired by the church; Anneliese's parents were Erich Schmidt-Leichner, one of the best lawyers in Germany who worked at the trials of the Nazis. Schmidt-Leichner insisted that exorcism was legal and that the German constitution allowed for the rites to be carried out - it included freedom of religion.
Despite this, the defendants were found guilty. The prosecution asked that Alt and Renz be sentenced to a fine, and that Anneliese's parents be found guilty, but released from punishment. According to the prosecutor, they had already suffered enough. But the court handed down a more severe sentence: the defendants were sentenced to six months of suspended imprisonment with a probationary period of three years.
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Doctors never established an exact diagnosis for Annelise. They suggest that she may have suffered from dissociative identity disorder, aggravated by schizophrenia, and the seizures may have been caused by chronic stress. In their opinion, the doses of drugs were insufficient, and the treatment was poorly thought out.
In 2005, the horror film The Exorcism of Emily Rose, based on the story of Anneliese, was released. He talks about the trial of the priest who performed the rituals.
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Author: “Cold” editors Photo: film “The Exorcism of Emily Rose” / Screen Gems