German Peasants’ War: “The greatest attempt at revolution”

Along with the Reformation, the Peasants’ War is one of the most memorable events at the beginning of the early modern period. Tens of thousands of insurgents, mostly farmers, joined forces with urban residents to protest against injustice, to fight against the arbitrariness of the authorities and for a liberal order in the spirit of the Gospel. Driven by fears of existence and the future and in the conviction that they were acting in accordance with the divine will, they demanded fair and secure living conditions. The Twelve Articles, passed in 1525 by representatives of various peasant groups in Memmingen, spread at a rapid pace thanks to the invention of printing and became the model for lists of demands of the insurgents in various territories of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. For Friedrich Engels, the Peasants’ War was “the greatest attempt at revolution by the German people.”

Apparently interest in the struggle of the insurgents for freedom and justice 500 years ago has been renewed. This is shown by the activities surrounding the state exhibition “Gerechtigkeyt2025”, which opened this year. Thomas Müntzer and 500 Years of the Peasants’ War” in Saxony-Anhalt. Next year, the Thuringian State Exhibition in Mühlhausen and Bad Frankenhausen will take place under the motto »freiheyt2025. 500 Years of the Peasants’ War«. In addition, historians, church historians and journalists have used the Peasants’ War commemoration as an opportunity for new studies and publications, addressed to experts as well as readers interested in history, in order to draw attention to the importance of this eventful chapter in German history for the social challenges of the present .

Christian Pantle sees the Peasants’ War as “Germany’s great popular uprising.” The editor-in-chief of the magazine G/History is a natural scientist by training and has a doctorate in human biology. Pantle offers a captivating historical narrative that imparts knowledge and at the same time lets you feel the “flair of the old texts”. It is based on a thorough knowledge of the existing specialist literature, which of course also includes representations prepared by historians in the GDR. He counts some of her books – he mentions works by Manfred Bensing, Siegfried Hoyer and Günter Vogler – among the best that are still worth reading.

Apparently interest in the struggle of the insurgents 500 years ago for freedom and justice has been renewed.

Pantle’s book, which combines non-fiction qualities with subjective narratives and interpretations, offers an overview of the territorial spread of the Peasants’ War, which flared up in southern Germany in June 1524 with the Stühlinger Uprising and developed into a conflagration (as a chapter title states) that spread across the Alps extended to the Salzburger Land and Tyrol. The author concentrates on events in Württemberg, where, under the leadership of Truchsess Georg von Waldburg, an army of murderous mercenaries ultimately defeated the uprisings under their leader Matern Feuerbacher in May 1525. Because of his cruel crackdown, the Steward went down in history as the feared Bauernjörg. In the epilogue, Pantle states: “Even though the insurgents lost every decisive battle in the Peasants’ War, they often showed a courage that we can only admire today.”

“History of a wild plot” – that is the curious subtitle of the extensive book presented by Gerd Schwerhoff, lecturer in early modern times at the TU Dresden. “Wild actions” on the part of the rebellious farmers awaited two noblemen from the castle town of Hüfingen in the Black Forest at the end of September 1524. They warned that unless decisive action was taken, the unrest would spread throughout the country. Schwerhoff uses the lordly judgment as a lead-in, because “wild” seems to him to be “an extremely appropriate characterization for the complex, highly dynamic sequence of interactions and communications that, when viewed together, is referred to as the historical event ‘Peasants’ War’.” Peasants’ War research has so far “not really come to a satisfactory grip on the spatial and temporal dimensions of its event.” The aim of his book is therefore to reconstruct the history of the Peasants’ War.

Thomas Kaufmann from Göttingen, chairman of the Association for Reformation History and member of the Thomas Müntzer Society, chose a different path. He examines the Peasants’ War as a media event. Views of publication and media history can already be found in works by Max Steinmetz (1971) and Günter Vogler (2019/21), which Kaufmann refers to many times and which he consistently pursues based on his detailed investigations of sources. The Protestant church historian also recalls that the term “Peasants’ War” first appeared in 1525 in a chronicle written by the Palatinate court clerk Peter Harer, but associated with a derogatory value judgment. It is not appropriate for farmers to wage wars; this is solely a matter for the secular and spiritual authorities.

Kaufmann examines the ambivalent, denominational and ultimately political-ideologically colored judgments about the Peasants’ War based on journalistic evidence dating back to the recent past. In his book, too, illustrations of contemporary pamphlets, title pages and other print art evidence provide clarity. Martin Luther’s pamphlet “Against the Mordische and Reubischen Rotten der Bawren” printed in Wittenberg in 1525 was followed by similar inflammatory writings by his followers against the representatives of the so-called false faith, especially against Thomas Müntzer. According to Kaufmann, this in turn is ultimately “not as well-known as the fact that Luther and his Wittenberg colleagues fought it in literature.” The fact that Müntzer’s enemies were convinced of the effectiveness of the rapidly spreading printed word is shown not least by the fact that they forced the closure of his printing workshop in Allstedt and the confiscation of his writings in order to make him mute and forgotten for all time. Kaufmann concludes: “Without the printing press, the Peasants’ War would not have existed… It was the first major conflict scenario in European history initiated by journalists, which was fought militarily and cost tens of thousands of lives.” Kaufmann ends with personal words about the pointlessness of all wars : “War damages man’s innermost being, his soul.”

If these new publications examine the Peasants’ War as a supra-territorial event, other authors also turn to individual areas of rebellion, such as Ralf Höller in his book about Michael Gaismair and the Peasants’ Wars of 1525/26 in Tyrol or Joachim Bauer about the Peasants’ War of 1525 in Thuringia . The historian from Jena and long-time head of the university archives there conveys condensed basic knowledge about the economic, political and legal conditions and religious struggles that shaped the territorially fragmented area in the 16th century and helped ensure that the Reformation and its radicalization found many followers.

The Peasants’ War in Thuringia reached its violent climax on the so-called Schlachtberg of Frankenhausen, when on May 15, 1525 the insurgents gathered there were overrun and massacred by the princely troops. The eloquent clergyman Thomas Müntzer supported the farmers as a field preacher. Only a few months earlier he had come into contact with their demands during his stay in Hegau and Klettgau. In Thuringia, says Bauer, “greater diversity can be assumed in the various areas of uprising,” which was not exclusively related to Müntzer’s work.

Finally, it should be noted that the publications presented are all characterized by reader-friendly and individually catchy writing styles.

Christian Pantle: The Peasants’ War. Germany’s Great Popular Uprising. Propylaea/Ullstein, 335 p., hardcover, €22.
Gerd Schwerhoff: On the way to the Peasants’ War. Unrest and revolts at the beginning of the 16th century. CH Beck, 720 p., hardcover, €34.
Thomas Kaufmann: The Peasants’ War. A media event. Herder, 544 pages, hardcover, €35.
Ralf Höller: The Peasants’ Wars 1525/1526. From the fight against oppression to the dream of a republic. W. Kohlhammer, 268 p., hardcover, €27.
Joachim Bauer: “It all started with this anger.” The Peasants’ War in Thuringia. Published by the Thuringia State Center for Civic Education, 120 pages, br., €22.90.