NUREMBURG 1931
Karl Schmidt stared at the exhibited curiosity. His friend Johannes said it would have been much better if a waxwork model of a victim had been stood in it, Karl silently disagreed - he preferred it empty so he could imagine a naked, terrified young woman in it waiting for the doors to be closed onto, into, her pale flesh. He looked across the room at Miss Dieter; she would fit into it nicely. He wished he could ask her to step over the rope barrier and stand in the open cabinet; impossible of course.
Miss Dieter started gathering the rest of the class together to hurry them on to the next exhibit on their tour of the Nuremberg Castle.
Karl hung back, getting deliberately left behind so he could again read the description of the 'Virgin of Nuremburg'. How on August 14, 1515 a forger of coins had been placed inside the device and the doors shut "slowly, so that the very sharp points penetrated his arms, and his legs in several places, and his belly and chest, and his bladder and the root of his member, and his eyes, and his shoulders, and his buttocks, but not enough to kill him; and so he remained making great cry and lament for two days, after which he died".
He jumped as an elderly voice behind him said "Of course it was all a fraud."
Startled, Karl turned to see an elderly man with a monocle leaning on a stick.
"Professor Siebenkees made up that story in 1793 after he bought the device from a travelling fair." He paused before continuing "It would be a bit pointless really, it would probably kill the victim almost instantly unless it was carefully fashioned to fit a particular individual. One of those spikes would pierce a vital organ or a lung, either that or a thin man might hardly be pierced at all." He stroked his beard, thinking "Yes, that might be the worse option; standing upright unable to relax without a spike tearing into his flesh if he slumped..."
"Karl Schmidt!" To his disappointment Miss Dieter had noticed his absence from the group.
Many times after that school trip Karl, awake in bed at night, thought of ways to improve and perfect the device. There would need to be multiple threaded studs welded in different positions onto which the spikes could be screwed, to suit the varying stature of victims. Also the threads should be of sufficient length to allow adjustment of the lengths of individual spikes... Of course he also dreamt of possible victims. He almost got to the stage where, on seeing a girl he would be considering the arrangement of spikes that would best suit her body!
CAEN 1941
Kriminalobersekretär Schmidt smiled as his latest prisoner readily surrendered the name of his accomplice. Kriminaldirektor Pohl couldn't really understand how Karl Schmidt had so much success with his interrogations, he didn't really seem the most intimidating of his assistants.
But among the underworld and disaffected members of the population of Caen word had spread, from the elderly blacksmith and metalworker who had helped make it, of the terrible device now kept in a basement storeroom of Gestapo Headquarters.
Herr Pohl kept meticulous records of everyone who passed through their hands. Who interrogated them, how long they were detained for, what their fate was when the Gestapo had finished with them. Karl was always disappointed That the most intense questioning was reserved for male prisoners; being stripped and whipped until unconscious, being hung up by the ankles naked in a cold dark cell. In short all the things that Karl would like to have done to a female subject.
But then the Kriminaldirektor received a telegram calling him to Paris to assist in the administration of the deportation of Jews from there to eastern Europe.
The bomb had been placed inside the former Wagon-Lits saloon reserved for Herr Pohl and several SS officers; there were no survivors. Officials responsible for coordinating military traffic from Caen at Gare de l'Oest had recognised a young woman who had stepped down from the carriage shortly before Herr Pohl's party boarded it. Within 24 hours she was arrested and delivered to Gestapo Headquarters and into the care of Kriminalobersekretär Karl Schmidt.
GESTAPO HEADQUARTERS, CAEN, 22 AUGUST 1941
Marie Le Maigre had known when she volunteered to place the bomb in the carriage reserved for the SS that it was likely that she would be identified and arrested.
But as the only survivor of her family her hatred of the Nazis was complete. She only knew codenames of her contacts in the Resistance but was confident that she would never divulge even that Information, no matter what they did to her. She had been told of the tortures and whippings which had sometimes broken even the strongest fellow partisans, but she was already resigned to the expectation of the most extreme physical pain, while there was no one close to her that the Gestapo could seize and threaten.
She had of course heard rumours of a terrible device built for Herr Schmidt, but the more she considered it the more likely it seemed that it was made just to threaten and terrify rather than being of practical use as an instrument of torture.
Now sat shivering in her cell she felt growing unease, verging on panic. She wished she was wearing something warmer than just her cotton nightdress. Looking down at her bruised and bleeding bare feet she still felt confident that she would be able to withstand any amount of pain the Nazi bastards might inflict upon her. She again thought of the spiked cabinet her comrades had speculated about. She tried telling herself that being put into that device might well be the best she could hope for rather than being something to dread. Surely of all those multiple spikes piercing deep into her body at least one would cause sufficient damage to a vital organ to hasten her inevitable death?
After the beatings and rough treatment she had received at the hands of the police who seized her from her home at 4 o'clock in the morning the formal civility of the Gestapo officers held a hidden menace she felt, yet couldn't quite comprehend. The young, smartly dressed, officer brought her another cup of coffee, again politely asking if she would like sugar even though she had previously told him she didnt, then, just as politely, he asked her the names of her accomplices. She didn't answer so he smiled at her then returned to his desk.
He sat talking to a long faced woman with cropped blonde hair for a couple of minutes then left. The woman walked over to Maria then, speaking French much more hesitantly than the man, apologetically explained that they were concerned she might try tearing her nightdress into strips in order to hang herself. "Strip!" she commanded with unexpected ferocity as Marie hesitated.
Marie wondered why she hadn't spat in the bitch's face as she obediently lifted her only item of clothing over her head, then made a point of carefully folding it before handing it to the expressionless woman watching her. Tears welled in her eyes as she watched the woman fling it into the steel waste bin. She was clearly never expected to need clothes again. Ever.
But the cold was making her sleepy; she curled up into a ball ... the air chilled her bare skin ... she couldn't keep her eyes open ...
By the time Schmidt returned the drug in Marie's coffee had fully taken effect. "Hilda, I need her out here on the floor so she can be measured up."
She pushed the girl's limp body over to sprawl on its side, exposing her breasts and crotch which she had covered with her hands and arms as a final gesture to modesty. Taking hold of her ankles Hilda dragged the unconscious naked girl on her back from the cell to the middle of the floor by the officer's desk. Karl stared down at the pale stretched body.
"Pull her across so her feet are flat against the wall." Hilda, puzzled, obeyed. He then laid a tape measure on the floor alongside her and started writing measurements in a notebook. He got Hilda to hold a wooden ruler upright alongside the girl, measuring the depth of various parts of her body off the floor with a long rule steel pressed down across her. Measuring her abdomen between her hips and bottom ribs he measured twice, the second time pushing down so hard on the steel rule that it left red marks across her belly each time he removed it.
"It's a good job she's so thin" he said, more to himself than to his assistant "At least I can feel where everything is!"
"Are you planning on cutting the bitch in half?" questioned Hilda.
Karl glared back at her. "No. You can go home now."
"I'd like to watch if you do; or to help you" she added, but he waved her away "Go home."
Once she had gone he confirmed a few critical measurements, probing the girl with a screwdriver. He feared Hilda had noticed how his trousers stretched over his rigid cock. Exploring more of the pale body of his limp, compliant, prisoner he imagined the many spikes of his device closing onto the smooth, unblemished skin as the door was slowly shut. He imagined the points pressing into the soft creamy flesh, perhaps pressing down on a rib, making her exhale then. ...
Karl hurriedly dropped his trousers and pants releasing his erect member - his heart pounding. Without taking his eyes off that perfect body he straddled her thighs. He could imagine the very tips of the steel points just piercing the skin covering some of the bony exposed ribs as others, slightly longer, gently sank into her soft, hollow belly. Grasping her thin buttocks with both hands he forced his rigid cock into her as if it too was one of the impaling spikes invading her body. While he thrust ecstatically into her he imagined spikes bloodily sinking into her small breasts, spikes tearing open the thin flesh covering her ribs to momentarily expose the white bone before sinking bloodily between them into her lungs. He lifted her loosely hanging head up so he could explore deep into her mouth with his tongue, imagining the blood flooding her perforated lungs gushing up into her mouth...her arms and legs firmly impaled so she couldn't move at all.
Despite his partner being unconscious and oblivious to his abuse of her body that was definately the best fuck Karl Schmidt had ever had! It was certainly more exciting than screwing Hilda.
Karl knew he had to work fast, the effect of the drug would be wearing off soon and he still had to calculate and make the adjustments to his device, the 'Iron Maiden of Caen' as he thought of it.
Once the spikes had been screwed onto the appropriate studs and their lengths adjusted he could bind Marie securely into position. Perhaps he should have had Hilda help him lift her into position, for her floppy body was difficult to position and secure, he didn't want to have to put a rope round its neck. It distressed him that she had already sustained several cuts to her back and buttocks as she slipped against the spikes.
Karl was relieved to get the girl's limp naked body securely tied upright in the casket before she came round and started struggling and wriggling. He stepped back and admired the scene.
The device he had designed looked very different to the ornate, 2.1 metre tall Virgin of Nuremberg. His Iron Maiden was smoothly finished burnished steel on the outside, rounded in form and narrower at the top where the victims head might be. Cords secured Marie's shoulders, wrists, waist and ankles to some of the numerous eye-bolts down the sides designed for that purpose. He hoped he had calculated the positions and depths of the adjustable spikes correctly for her anatomy.
He waited anxiously for her to recover consciousness. She should have come round by seven pm, yet two hours later she still hung unconscious. He checked she was still breathing. Looking at her pathetic body hanging there he realised he should have reduced the dosage to account for her light weight. He hoped the amount of the drug he had administered wouldn't prove fatal ...
Marie's head swam, her vision was blurred, for a minute she couldn't recall where she was or what was happening to her. She felt still chill air on her bare flesh. Cords were cutting into her shoulders, but when she tried moving to relieve the dull pain she found her wrists were similarly secured and sharp points dug into her back. A single light bulb little the small windowless room, an empty chair faced her.
She closed he eyes and shook her head. Reopening them confirmed what she feared. A hollow iron door was swung open to her right. Inside it were fixed about two dozen long steel spikes as well a similar number of much shorter threaded studs.
So the Nazi Iron Maiden of Caen did exist. Her heart beat faster. Her mouth was dry "Water!" she cried out shakily. She was alone. She started shivering. Looking at the empty chair facing her she felt exposed, vulnerable. Her vagina was sore; as she realised the significance of that she screamed at the empty space "Fuck you! Fucking perverted bastards. Do what you want to me, I don't care any more."
There was no reply. "Fuck you!" she screamed again. She tried shaking her bonds free but any movement just made the spikes behind her sink into her tender skin. She released her bladder, the warm liquid splashing her feet. She would like to have defecated there as well but her bowels and belly were empty, she'd not eaten while on the run.
It was about half an hour before the Gestapo officer returned. He was relieved to see that she had at last awoken. "Are you going to give me the names of your accomplices then?" he quietly asked again.
Marie spat ineffectively at him; he smiled at her saying "Good!" as he slowly walked up to her, staring up and down her still perfect naked body. Although already shivering from the cold damp air a deeper chill ran through her body as she anticipated his next action.
Marie held her breath as the door was slowly, silently, closed on her. As the light from the room was shut out she felt the tips of some of the spikes press into the soft flesh of her breasts and belly. The door overlapped the casket slightly so all the light was shut out slightly before it was fully closed. Though her skin was so cold it was slightly numb she felt the hard steel points puncture her small breasts, those against her flat belly pressed relentlessly into it making her suck it in, forcing her to empty her lungs as yet more of the points touched against her ribs. She was going to have to breathe in very, very soon!
But first the door was pushed fully shut with a firm click, spikes pinioning her arms and legs. Marie felt her warm blood running in little trickles down her chest, down her arms onto her hands and down her legs.
She actually held out for just over a minute before she involuntarily had to gulp in some air, with spikes cutting through the thin skin covering her ribs she was forced to breathe with just her diaphragm, pushing her soft tummy onto those sharp unyielding steel spikes so they sank maybe 4 centimetres into her flesh.
Then she screamed, deafening herself in her steel tomb. Her chest tried to heave driving the spikes impaling her breasts hard against the ribs beneath while some of those lower down her chest slipped slightly between those ribs to tear the muscle connecting them. Still she screamed. Her tummy heaving onto and off those spikes embedded in it. Any attempts to relieve the pressure from one spike only pushed another opposite one slightly further in. Spikes even pressed into the soft flesh between her pubic mound and her hips, which could only be relieved by driving her buttocks further onto the spikes behind which had already sunk into them.
For half an hour she screamed and twitched, no longer cold sealed inside her own tiny world, her private hell, sweat started to mingle with the rivulets of blood. Then, exhausted her body gave up, hanging still as she continued to take shallow, painful, breaths.
Yet she remained conscious even when cramps seized her immobile legs. She had no idea of time. She perhaps slept fitfully, supported by the spikes which had now become almost a part of her.
As the hours went by she learnt to live with the unceasing pain from every part of her body, but then a burning thirst began to take over. Weakly she cried out once again, but this time for water. However each pathetic cry embedded the spikes deeper between her ribs and that pain once again came to the fore ....
Karl had sat staring at the closed casket. He had, of course, been sorely tempted to open it after her muffled cries had faded away but, desperately hoping his measurements, calculations and assumptions had been correct, he watched it, for hour after hour. He tried to imagine what the poor girl must be going through, assuming she still lived. Poor girl? What made him think that? She had recently murdered his superior and five SS officers. Bitch was too good a word for her! He stood, walked up to the Maiden and embraced its smooth steel. He dropped his trousers and, thinking of the girl inside it started masturbating. Knowing her naked frail body was suffering just centimetres the other side of that beautiful burnished steel!
"Herr Schmidt!" Was it morning already? Hilda called out upstairs, in rising panic "Herr Schmidt, where is the prisoner?"
He had to refasten his trousers and adjust his clothing before going up to her, turning off the lights. "She's downstairs, waiting to talk to me soon, I hope." Hilda moved towards the open cellar door. He tried to pull her away but she stepped on down.
Unable to find the light switch in the unfamiliar surroundings she fell over a storage box on the floor. Karl pulled her to her feet then pushed her back against the wall. "Where is she? What are you doing to her? I want to see... " pleaded Hilda. Karl hit her in the stomach, hard. As she bent forward her caught her by the neck and pinioned her against the wall while ripping open her blouse with the other. As she struggled to release the grip of his right hand round her throat he pulled down her skirt and panties together. But he wasn't really thinking of Hilda at all as dropped and discarded his trousers then thrust viciously into her; he was thinking of the girl sealed in the casket only a couple of metres away.
"Go home and change" Karl commanded as soon as he finished in her.
Coughing, Hilda spluttered "You hurt me!"
"I'm sorry."
"I'm not." she replied with a grin, leaving after a final look round the gloomy cellar.
"Fuck off, slut" was his gracious reply to her "Heil Hitler" as she shut the door behind her.
Then he realised faints cries seemed to be coming from the casket behind him. Marie lived then!
Turning on the light he cautiously released the latch. What would he find inside? With sudden embarrassment he realised he was naked from the waist down and about to interrogate a prisoner.
So what? It wasn't as if she was ever going to be released. His rigid cock certainly didn't feel as if it wanted to be confined!
He opened the door. With big, dark, tear filled eyes Marie looked straight at him. Her glistening pale body was now defiled by multiple small red puncture marks and thin rivulets of blood. Her mouth opened and she hoarsely croaked "water!"
Instantaneously nearly every wound exploded crimson, no longer plugged by the steel spikes blood cascaded freely over her ruined body.
Forgetting any sense of modesty Karl almost ripped his own clothes off, casting them well clear of the blood already puddling on the floor, then embraced her. He felt her warm sticky blood against his chest, trickling down his thighs, as he reached behind her to feel the erotically cold steel of the spikes still slightly embedded in her back.
He pushed himself tight against her, embracing her blood soaked body tight to him, she was unable to move or resist, apart from turning her head aside as he tried to kiss her.
"I won't tell you anything" she gasped "Ever. "
"Good!" he replied, grabbing her jaw and forcing her face round to look at him.
She was crying and her whole body shuddered involuntarily.
"You don't know how beautiful you are" Karl said as he released her, picked up a wrench, and hurriedly set about adjusting each spike to its full extent, panicking as he realised her sobs were getting weaker by the second.
"I forgive you for killing Herr Pohl" he said quietly before slamming the door shut with a resounding metallic bang.
Marie felt the now fully extended spikes sink into her chest, through her already ruined breasts deep into her lungs. The spikes behind now overlapped those fixed to the heavy door. One rear spike pushed her left shoulder blade forward as another crushed the top of her breastbone. Simultaneously other spikes caused her pelvis to snap open allowing those organs not now skewered into place to drop down alongside her womb which was itself torn open. She felt the blood spurting from her gaping mouth splashing back into her eyes, wide open in the pitch darkness. It was over, pain had won; if she could have stopped it by telling him anything he wanted to know she would have. But she couldn't.
EPILOGUE
Ten days later Karl Schmidt was transferred to an SS unit on the Eastern Front with the rank of Untersturmführer. He was killed in action within six weeks.
Despite Marie Le Maigre's heroic action the deportation of Jewish refugees from Paris to concentration camps continued.
In 1978 the shattered skeleton of a166cm tall female probably aged somewhere between 17 and 24 was found during agricultural drainage improvements at a farm 10 kilometres west of Caen. As the date of death could not be established and the damage to the bones wasn't consistent with either accidental injuries or a casualty of war the case remains open with the police.
The Iron Maiden, or Virgin, of Nuremburg was totally destroyed by allied bombing in 1944, so we will now never know it's true age.
You ask about the Iron Maiden of Caen? Why, it's in my basement. There are still dark stains in it which I assume to be the blood of Marie Le Maigre, as it was only ever used the once. My mother, Hilda Weiss, brought it back as she said it was the only thing she had to remember my father by. It's just about tall enough for me to fit into. Even though the spikes are now screwed right back so there's plenty of room inside it's quite scary stood in it with the door pulled shut; in the dark, naked.
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