Desc: Cautio Criminalis: Directed by Hagen Müller-Stahl. With Gerd Böckmann, Horst Frank, Doris Schade, Gaby Dohm. The film Cautio Criminalis deals with the work of Friedrich Spee. Not everyone followed the blood fever of the witch hunt: in his work Cautio Criminalis, published 1631, Friedrich Spee dealt critically with the Inquisition and stood up for the alleged witches. For this he was accused and nearly executed himself. Friedrich Spee von Langenfeld (25 February 1591 near Düsseldorf - 7 August 1635 in Trier) was a German Jesuit and Professor. He became famous as a critic of the witch trials, through his writing Cautio Criminalis, but also as a hymn writer. With his writing "cautio criminalis", Spee contributed significantly to the end of the witch hunts not only in Germany but also in Europe. Apart from the fact that Spee did not recognise confessions obtained under torture as an admission of guilt, he also rejected that the witch hunters invoked the Holy Scriptures and pleaded for the abolition of torture in his writing "cautio criminalis". He also developed other important principles of the rule of law such as "in dubio pro reo" (Latin for "in doubt for the accused") in this writing. The Thirty Years' War and the outbreak of the plague must always be kept in mind to understand this time.