A haunted house in Germany - a horror story

Shirts and more

Designs Redbubble
https://www.redbubble.com/people/ReneMM/shop?asc=u

Spreadshirt.at
https://www.spreadshirt.at/shop/user/renemm/?srEdit=pa#?affiliateId=1257693

Spreadshirt.com
https://www.spreadshirt.com/shop/user/renemm/?srEdit=pa#?affiliateId=11625

Shirtee.at
https://www.shirtee.com/de/catalogsearch/result/index/designer_id/112048/all_stores/
1/

In 1923, an abandoned manor house was documented in a remote village in the Eifel region of Germany, which had been owned by the von Aschenbach family since the 18th century. The last occupant, Helena von Aschenbach, died in 1798 in unexplained circumstances after locking herself in her bedroom for months. At the time, villagers reported hearing screams coming from the house at night and lights flickering in windowless rooms. After her death, the house was sealed, but from 1830 onwards there were more and more reports from travellers who claimed to have seen a ‘white figure’ on the upper floors, standing silently at the windows. In 1892, a local priest examined the building and noted in his diary that he had felt ‘icy cold air currents’ on the ground floor, although no windows were open, as well as ‘footsteps overhead’, although the upper floor had been inaccessible for decades. In 1911, a farmer who was trying to break stones out of the house wall suddenly fell down an embankment and later swore that an invisible hand had pushed him. In 1923, the historian Dr Elisa Vogt entered the property to secure archive material from the family. In a letter to her brother, she described how the door to Helena's former bedroom would not open despite the hinges being intact - until it popped open by itself on the evening of 12 October. She found an untouched layer of dust in the room, apart from indentations in the floor that resembled the footprints of kneeling people. The following night, she heard voices that seemed to come from the walls: a monotonously repeated whisper in old High German, which she later identified as ‘They're taking my air’. The next morning, she discovered cracks in the bedroom wall that formed a pattern reminiscent of scratch marks. When she left the house, she realised that her notebook, which she always carried with her, was missing. It turned up years later in the estate of a village teacher, with the last page written in a script that resembled Helena's diaries: ‘The stones breathe me in.’ The house was demolished in 1934, but workers reported ‘black shadows’ that seemed to writhe in the brickwork and tools that had rusted away overnight. When the foundations were dug out, a walled-up hole in the ground was discovered containing seven skeletons, including three children. The bones showed no signs of injury, but were buried in a foetal position with their hands in front of their faces. Archaeologists dated the remains to the 16th century, long before the time of the von Aschenbachs. In 1958, a laboratory analysis revealed that the children's skulls contained unusually high levels of carbon monoxide, as if they had been suffocated alive. It is still unclear how the pit got under the manor house. Residents of the surrounding villages avoid the site as a ‘dry wheezing’ can often be heard at night, accompanied by an odour of musty stone. In 1997, a student who wanted to document the phenomenon filmed a fog bank that formed over the property around midnight and, according to a report by the University of Bonn, ‘followed no meteorological logic’. The film shows how the fog condensed into a human silhouette that bent forward twice before dissipating. The student later stated that the inside of his tent was covered with a ‘slimy, grey substance’ that night, but this could never be analysed - the sample disappeared in the laboratory. No grass has grown on the site since 2008, although the soil is fertile. A geologist who took soil samples in 2019 reported an ‘unpleasant vibration’ under the ground, as if machines were lying deep underground - but there are no mines in the region. The last entry in the municipal archive from February 2023 notes that a hiker saw ‘a woman in white linen’ at the edge of the forest, silently pointing to the empty field, exactly where Helena's bedroom once lay.