Hartmut Hegeler

Hartmut Hegeler (born 11 June 1946 in Bremen) is a German Protestant pastor and author, who is engaged to exonerate the victims of the witch hunt in Europe and has a homepage about Anton Praetorius.

Hegeler attended school in Bielefeld and was an exchange student in Senior High School in Renton, Washington in 1964. He studied theology in Germany in Bethel, at the university of Marburg and Heidelberg. As a vicar of the Evangelical Church of Westphalia he was in India and as pastor he served in Recklinghausen. 1974-1976 he worked in the field of development aid in North Yemen. 1976-1982 he was parish pastor in Dortmund, afterwards he worked as a pastor and religious education teacher in a vocational training college in Unna, North Rhine-Westphalia, where he lives. Since 2010 he is retired.

Persecution of witches

Questions of his students in 2001 about the persecution of witches were the impulse for his studies on this subject: writing books and holding lectures. He is fighting for the exonoration of the victims of the witchcraft trials, that they should be given back their dignity as human beings and as Christians. Places of remembrance should give witness to their fate.

There have been many reports in the media about his activities.

• Literature by and about Hartmut Hegeler in the German National Library catalogue
• "Anton Pretorius" Homepage of Hegeler about witchcraft trials
• Hegeler in the lexicon of authors in Westphalia
• List of his publications in German