The Thirty Years' War
A war of religion and power fought largely on German soil kills at least a fifth of the Empire's people.
- Europe's Tragedy: A History of the Thirty Years War — Peter H. Wilson, Allen Lane (2009)
- Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire — Peter H. Wilson, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2016)
- Germany: Memories of a Nation — Neil MacGregor, Allen Lane (2014)
The war began in 1618 when Protestant nobles in Prague threw two imperial officials out of a castle window (they survived) in protest at Habsburg Catholic policies. A Bohemian revolt became a European war: Spain, Denmark, Sweden and Catholic France all intervened, and German lands became the battlefield.
- Europe's Tragedy: A History of the Thirty Years War — Peter H. Wilson, Allen Lane (2009)
Armies lived off the land, plundering, burning and spreading plague. The sack of Magdeburg in 1631 killed around 20,000 people and became a byword for horror.
- Europe's Tragedy: A History of the Thirty Years War — Peter H. Wilson, Allen Lane (2009)
- Germany: Memories of a Nation — Neil MacGregor, Allen Lane (2014)
- Europe's Tragedy: A History of the Thirty Years War — Peter H. Wilson, Allen Lane (2009)
The Peace of Westphalia, signed at Münster and Osnabrück in 1648, recognised Calvinism alongside Lutheranism and Catholicism and confirmed the princes’ wide powers within the Empire. It kept German lands divided and gave foreign powers a say in their affairs, but it also set rules that kept religious peace for the rest of the Empire’s life.
- Europe's Tragedy: A History of the Thirty Years War — Peter H. Wilson, Allen Lane (2009)
- Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire — Peter H. Wilson, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2016)
Older accounts claimed the Empire lost a third or even half of its people. Peter Wilson estimates at least 5 million deaths, about a fifth of the population, with some regions losing far more and others almost untouched. Most deaths came from disease and hunger rather than battle.
- Europe's Tragedy: A History of the Thirty Years War — Peter H. Wilson, Allen Lane (2009)
Why it matters today
For centuries the war was Germany's great folk memory of catastrophe, passed down in stories, hymns and Grimmelshausen's novel Simplicissimus. It fed a lasting fear of chaos and of foreign armies fighting over German land, and a deep value placed on order, peace and settled rules. The Peace of Westphalia is still cited as a model of negotiated coexistence.