Malleus Maleficarum. 1669 First published in 1486 The Malleus Maleficarum "Hammer of the Witches", was written by the German clergyman and unsuccessful witch hunter Heinrich Kramer (c. 1430 – 1505). The book is a treatise on the prosecution of witches, refuting arguments that witchcraft does not exist, the work would become synonymous during the 16th and 17th centuries where a witch hunting hysteria would claim the lives of an estimated 70,000 to 100,000 people. This version is from 1669, during the last decades of witch hunting, the same years that Kramer’s country of birth Germany peaked in accusations from 1561 to 1670. Germany’s witch hunting took place later than the rest of Europe where the hysteria had peaked from the 14th and 15th centuries. In fact in Germany Kramer had failed to get complete endorsement for the work, the Inquisition at the University of Cologne initially condemned the book as unethical and illegal.