Susanna Margaretha Brandt Memorial

The memorial stone, erected in 2021, commemorates the harrowing fate of the young Frankfurter Susanna Margaretha Brandt, who was convicted as a "child murderer" at the end of the 18th century and buried in the "Schandfriedhof" of the Gutleuthof, which was located at this point.
It is likely that Susanna Margaretha Brandt is the model for the character of Gretchen in Goethe's Faust, although this is not supported by sources. The director of the Freie Deutsche Hochstift Ernst Beutler (1885–1960) considered this to be likely as early as the 1930s, because Goethe’s father’s library also contained a copy of the autopsy report of the child who had been killed.
Susanna Margaretha Brandt never went to school, lost her parents early and worked as a maid in a simple inn. She had sexual intercourse with a journeyman who was allegedly passing through and became pregnant unintentionally. The child that Susanna Margareta Brandt gave birth to was found dead a short time later. In the criminal trial that followed, she confessed to the urgent questions of the trained lawyers that she had killed the child. They communicated their verdict: "murder" to the city's decision-making council. He (only now) ordered a defense attorney who, despite a great, sensitive plea, could only achieve the mildest death penalty at the time, beheading.