Walpurga Hausmännin was a widowed, licensed midwife living in Dillingen an der Donau, Bavaria. She served her community in this role for approximately 19 years, during which time she delivered countless infants—an occupation that, while respected, also exposed her to suspicion when infant mortality rates were high due to medical limitations of the era. 

Historical accounts suggest that misfortunes surrounding infant death or crop failure were sometimes blamed on medical practitioners like Hausmännin, making them vulnerable to accusations of maleficium. A widow since around 1556, she purportedly experienced a supernatural encounter: she had arranged a tryst with a male worker, only to be visited that night—according to her torture-induced confession—by a demonic figure dressed in his clothes.

Under duress of torture, Hausmännin delivered a confession steeped in the classic motifs of witchcraft mythology. She claimed to have made a pact with Satan through a demon named Federlin, who took her to the "real Devil" to seal the contract. She described indulging in wine, cannibalism involving roasted infants, and sexual acts with Federlin—all familiar tropes in early modern witch narratives. She additionally confessed to receiving a malevolent salve from this demon, which she allegedly used to harm children, livestock, and crops, even admitting to killing and sucking the blood of forty children—many before they were baptized—through methods such as applying a salve, suffocation, and vampiric feeding.

Her case quickly escalated. Tried under the jurisdiction of the Prince-Bishop of Augsburg, the sensational nature of her confession captured wide attention. A city clerk in Dillingen allowed the dissemination of her trial details, which were printed in a pamphlet known as the Newe Zeitung (“New Newspaper”), a sensationalist woodcut typical of South German witch pamphlets. An accountant from the Fugger commercial house also reprinted her confession in the Fuggerzeitung, ensuring its spread across the region. 

Following her confession, both ecclesiastical authorities and the imperial secular court convicted her. Her property was confiscated. On September 2, 1587, she was transported through Dillingen in a cart, enduring excruciating torture at five stops along the way: her left breast and right arm were torn with red-hot tongs in front of the town hall; her right breast was mutilated under the city gate; her left arm at the mill stream; and her left hand near the execution site. There, her right hand—used to swear her oath as a midwife—was severed. Finally, she was burned alive at the stake. To prevent any relics, her ashes were swept into a nearby stream instead of being buried.