Kleinbasel neighborhood is perhaps one of the most haunted places in Basel, Switzerland. In an unassuming house at Rebgasse 38, the well known exorcist Johann Jakob von Brunn visited twice to banish the ghosts lingering in it.
In the winding alleys of Kleinbasel, where centuries-old buildings lean toward one another and twilight seems to gather early, there once stood a house that no one in their right mind dared approach. At the house that seemingly was also used as a rectory, a married couple who lived there from 1888 to 1907 reported about ghostly occurrences from previous tenants. It also seems that it was haunted long before they moved in.
Read More: Check out all ghost stories from Switzerland
There are a lot of ghost stories around the Kleinbasel district in Basel. At Rebgasse 38, there were supposedly two ghosts haunting this particular building. First the dead wife of a man who remarried after her death, and a woman named Grethi Beck was said to possess the Evil Eye.
A House the Shadows Would Not Leave
The house at Rebgasse 38, also known as the Haus zur alten Trotte (House of the Old Wine Press) had long been shrouded in ominous whispers. Locals spoke of unseen presences, shadows that moved on their own, and the chilling sound of phantom footsteps when no one else was near.
Some claimed it was the work of the “Grey Man”, a spectral figure of indeterminate origin known to haunt certain homes in Basel and this particular working class district..
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Margrethe (Grethi) Beck was said to have been the maid when Pastor Johann Jakob Übelin (1793-1873) lived there. He was a Swiss Protestant theologian , deacon , chronicler , draftsman , botanist and author. He then worked in Basel for 27 years as a deacon for St. Theodor’s Church and, from 1845 to 1867, as a construction clerk. In 1818, Übelin married Margaretha, née Brenner (1798–1840), with whom he had eight children.
It is said that she stole money from the pastor, and when she died, she appeared to him and the later tenants as a ghost. People were convinced that she caused bad things to happen to the people of Kleinbasel. And the way people talk about the case, it looks like it was also when she was alive. There is not much info about how she died, but also in death, she scared her neighbors. She was said to be sitting on the steps on the stairwell, and even though Johann Jakob Übelin got another clergyman to exorcise her, her haunting seemed to persist.
An Exorcism Against the Darkness
The government and the clergy made every effort to counter the superstition and the stories related to it. On Sundays the priests would issue warnings from the pulpit against fortune-telling and devil worship and would advise people not to believe in them. It is unknown whether the haunting happened when Johann Jakob Übelin still lived in the house, or it was after.
At last, the city turned to its most renowned spiritual defender: Pastor Johann Jakob von Brunn, a cleric famed for his boldness in confronting the supernatural and was supposedly a well known ghost hunter in Basel. He had allegedly faced so-called witches, expelled demons from livestock barns, and purified cursed wells — and now he was summoned to confront the menace at Rebgasse 38.
It’s said that von Brunn entered the home armed with holy water, relics, and an arsenal of ancient prayers, undeterred by the suffocating dread that clung to the walls. It is said he banished the ghost of the former housekeeper to a corner of a room on the first floor of the house.
And for a time, peace returned to Rebgasse, although the family dog would howl towards the very same corner of the room as if it sensed a presence there. And later tenants would still see her, sitting on the steps of the stairs.
The Scandal of Johann Jakob Übelin Waking a Ghost
As mentioned, it wasn’t the only ghost said to haunt the house, and the other one, was the dead wife of Johann Jakob Übelin. Margaretha died in childbirth around 1839 and would later come back as a ghost. In November 1845, Johann Jakob Übelin caused a scandal when it came to light that he had an affair with his cook, Henriette Rosine Trautwein.
Because of this he had to resign his position and married Henriette in 1846 as she was now pregnant. Together, they had a son and he lived out his working life until 1867 as a construction clerk. He died in 1873.
After the whole scandal it was said that the ghost of Margaretha came back to haunt them because of her husband’s infidelity, although she was dead. Who knows when it really started. It was said she haunted the rectory until she too was banished by the ghost hunter Johann Jakob von Brunn.
A Shadow That Never Quite Faded
Though the hauntings ceased, the house was never truly free of its reputation after the ghost of Grethi Beck and the dead wife of Johann Jakob Übelin. Some claim that, on certain nights, you can still sense a cold, baleful gaze from the upper window, though no one lives there.
Today, the spot where Rebgasse 38 once stood bears little trace of its haunted history. At the address that used to belong to the building that used to be haunted there is now a kindergarten listed. But the old stories persist in whispered retellings among local ghostwalk guides, a reminder that in places like Kleinbasel, some shadows leave their mark forever as long as someone remembers.
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References:
Spuk und Geister im alten Basel
Tour Description «Walk of legends» Place 1: Claraplatz and Rebgasse
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