Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"After eighteen months in control of the city of Munster, Westphalia, the Anabaptists--radical believers who held that only confessing adults could be baptized--were ousted on June 24, 1535. . . . Melchior Hoffman was a fanatical Anabaptist preacher whose prophetic message proclaiming the speedy approach of the Day of Judgment attracted large numbers of flowerers, two of whom--Jan Matthys, a baker from Amsterdam, and Jan Bockelson (John of Leyden)--spread his ideas to Munster, which they declared to be the New Jerusalem. . . . the iron cages in which their corpses were displayed to the public are still hanging on the tower of St. Lambert's church. . . . it has been estimated that no fewer than 30,000 Anabaptists in the Netherlands alone were put to death in the ten years after the fall of Munster." [Furtado: 1001 Days]