[thunder]
[dramatic theme music]
[narrator] War, in the name of God.
The great world religions preach peace and mercy.
History, even modern history shows that religion and violence are not contradictions.
In the 16th century, there emerges a new Christian denomination.
Latin Christianity already separated
from the Orthodox Church of the East, splits once more
into Catholics and Protestants.
And in the name of Christ, they go to war against each other
and the bloodiest conflict that Europe has ever known.
[soft dramatic music]
[narrator] A new age has dawned in Europe.
A new image of the world...
the Renaissance.
Everything is in a state of flux.
Astronomy and other natural sciences, art and architecture.
The way in which people see each other and their world is radically transformed.
The perspective becomes naturalistic, realistic.
Courageous seafarers, especially the Portuguese
venture out into strange, unknown worlds.
With new instruments of navigation, new maps,
in 1522 Magellan ships prove that the world is round.
A time of upheavals in matters of belief too
the Bible, whose Latin was inaccessible to the common people
becomes the book of books
and a dissatisfied German monk unintentionally changes the world.
Martin Luther does not want a reformation, he only wishes to reform.
But that is not how it turns out.
It is as though his time is ripe for more.
A new invention, the printing press
a technical revolution which makes possible a spiritual one.
Gutenberg's printing press, printing with movable type
encourages mobility
and improves communication to an extent that was previously not just unknown
but unimaginable.
[narrator] The moral authority of the Church, of the Popes,
has reached its nadir in the company of the Borgias.
The children of Pope Alexander VI Lucrezia and Cesare,
rule like their father through intrigue, murder and violence.
When this Pope dies, open jubilation breaks out in the streets of Rome.
The Augustinian friar Martin Luther despairs at the intolerable situation
the corruption of the Church.
He is not a revolutionary, only a medieval monk
but a stubborn one who wrestles With theological problems.
In all probability, he never nailed up his 95 thesis composed in Latin
to the church door in Wittenberg, however popular the image.
After all, who would have been able to read them?
What is true, is that he sent them in the form of a letter
to the Archbishop of Mainz.
His handwritten thesis reach Nuremberg in manuscript form.
There they're translated from the original Latin.
Then, at the end of 1517 they are printed
and copies are distributed in vast numbers throughout the empire.
Luther had nothing to do with this and it certainly wasn't what he intended.
[narrator] The result is uproar. Luther is excommunicated.
In 1521, after a stage kidnapping, the Prince elector Frederick III of Saxony
hides Luther in Wartburg castle
where he translates the new testament into German.
His forceful style has a profound influence on the German language.
One year later, his text is printed with far-reaching consequences.
Luther isn't the first to translate the Bible into German.
In the 15th century we already have translations.
I can't just recall how many
into other national languages, including German.
But Luther's translation, his translation of the Bible into German
is the one that really takes off, really catches fire.
[narrator] A fire that Luther has not intended.
His religious texts are understood as an inspiration to revolution.
Thomas Muntzer debates with Luther
and summons up forces that he can no longer control.
-[Muntzer] I do not can bring in peace but the sword! -[Luther] "He who lives
by the sword can die by the sword!" Matthew 26.
[narrator] Initially sympathetic towards the insurgents
Luther than calls on the ruling Princes to adopt stern measures in his tract
against the thieving and murderous hordes of peasants.
He does not wish to be associated with the brutalities of the peasants.
And unlike Muntzer, he does not want a revolution.
The Peasants' War is just a name and it gives the wrong impression.
There wasn't a war as we understand the term
rather an unknown number of isolated uprisings.
These peasants revolts constitute a tradition
going back into the 14th and 15th centuries.
[narrator] But what the Princes actually do
is also not what Luther intended.
Luther suffers under the reformation as much as he influences it.
He has no control over events.
The reformation attracts fanatics.
Revolts against the clergy spreads like wildfire.
Iconoclasts attack churches.
In Munster, for a few bizarre months, Anabaptists rule a totalitarian state.
They demand common ownership of property and prohibit marriage.
When the riots are suppressed the corpses of the ringleaders are displayed in cages.
The reformation spread throughout Europe dividing into ever new factions.
Zwingli in Zurich, Calvin in Geneva.
Even Scotland has its own local hero in the form of John Knox.
And in London, Henry VIII seizes the opportunity
and funds the Anglican Church
principally in order to secure himself a divorce.
Reformation also means a reallocation of power.
1546, the Catholic Emperor is at war with Protestant Princes.
The first interdenominational war.
After the Emperor's victory
a process begins which finally leads to a peacemaker's compromise.
Subject citizens must adopt the faith of their ruler.
The religious Peace of Augsburg does result in something new
in that it's strengthened something that already exists.
Namely, the States of the Empire as a whole on a level above the warring parties.
A level where the King and the imperial estates
worked together a supreme arbiters or referees...
responsible for safeguarding peace and the rule of law within the empire.
[narrator] Peace among Christians?
A frightful error.
In 1572, in France the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre
actually a royal marriage between the denominations
is intended to bring about peace but then, betrayal.
Protestant Huguenots, gathered for the wedding,
are slaughtered in tens of thousands by Catholics.
Christians against Christians.
The denominations are at war again.
It's about religion, but also about power.
The new religious faith is an opportune means for ambitious Princes
to pursue their aims of dominion
against the Emperor, the Kings and the Church.
Then, in 1618 the prelude to a European catastrophe.
The Prague Defenestration.
Actually the second: Protestants against Catholics part two.
In fact a long smouldering powers struggle.
The revolt of the estates against the Emperor is a Bohemian tradition.
This time they immediately elect a King of their own liking.
The success of the Prague defenestration can best be understood
if we look at the Bohemian active confederation of 1619.
Here, we have a document in which the Bohemian estates
define what they want in terms that we will later call 'estate'.
They don't abolish the monarchy.
They need the King to legitimize their own positions.
But they reduce his role to such an extent that this Bohemian King
in the concept of a Corporate State, as defined by the Bohemian nobility
ends up as nothing more than a master of ceremonies.
[narrator] In Bohemia, the Protestants union musters its troops.
Alliances are made.
Maximilian of Bavaria calls on the Catholic lead to fight.
Vienna, Bohemian Protestants refuse to recognize the newly elected Emperor.
War breaks out.
decades of conflicts now explode.
Emperor Ferdinand fights for Catholicism.
[reverent music]
Wallenstein, a brilliant general and entrepreneur.
As yet, there is no such thing as a national army.
Wallenstein recruits an army of mercenaries
and fights on the side of the Catholic league, for money.
When the Emperor asks
"Can you provide me with an army?"
Wallenstein sees himself as ideally suited.
As a private individual, a businessman to offer this service.
[narrator] The first Catholic victories,
the Bohemian rival King is defeated.
The Protestants lose a series of bloody battles
in Bohemia, Catholic successes
are followed by brutal suppression of the new denomination.
But now, the Dane's fear for the security of their power in Europe.
They enter the war against the Catholic Habsburgs.
The fortunes of war are fickle
but Wallenstein is almost always victorious.
Again, the Emperor triumphs over the Protestants.
It's fair to say that in the 1620's
the Thirty Years' War is mainly a religious war
with powerful, political groupings already getting involved.
And, at the latest, from 1630 onwards
the Thirty Years' War becomes a secular conflict.
A European power struggle in which religion still pays a role
albeit no longer a dominant one.
[narrator] A war which perpetuates itself.
The powers take up their positions.
No one dominates for long.
A power which achieves a short-term advantage
is soon brought down by the others.
[dramatic music]
And everywhere the armies of mercenaries
take what they need from the civilian population.
"War feeding on war", people say.
Soldiers are seen as the brutal scum of the earth who kill for money.
For the mercenaries, only money counts.
These mercenaries were simply playing their trade.
Above all, they made sure they were paid on time.
And, if they weren't they changed sides.
[narrator] 1630, Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden enters the war.
His power based, the Baltic region is claimed by the Catholics, a mistake.
The Swedish monarch is now the standard-bearer of the Protestant cause
and luck is on his side.
An irony of fate, Wallenstein has just been dismissed by the Emperor
a concession to the Jesuits, the Spaniards and the estates who hate him.
In 1631, Catholic forces besiege and then storm the city of Magdeburg.
What happens there is without parallel, even for the Thirty Years' War.
An orgy or brutality, the city is raised to the ground.
The population virtually completely slaughtered.
Gustavus Adolphus, the Protestant from the North is set on revenge.
His victorious troops push southwards.
Augsburg, a Protestant stronghold,
a city where once the peace between the denomination was ratified.
There, the soldiers of the Swedish King
are now greeted like angels of salvation.
A hysterical hope in a land-laid waste.
But these men too, will only bring death, misery and devastation.
The Swedish soldiers are also mercenaries, war is their trade.
What the Bavarian suffer only a short time later
comes close to the accounts of the few survivors of Magdeburg.
The mercenaries are all alike.
For the first time in the Thirty Years' War
the peasants resist the mercenaries.
The soldiers leave behind them a trail of devastation
no matter whether there is fighting or not,
no matter what cause they serve.
In this hour of peril, a call goes out for Wallenstein.
There are many who distrust this vain and unscrupulous General
but he alone is capable of putting a stop to the Swedish advance.
Desperate times demand desperate measures.
The two commanders clash directly in Southern Germany.
A battle of the titans: Wallenstein against the army of Gustavus Adolphus.
The result, a victory for Sweden but a victory bought at the price of disaster.
[dramatic music]
[narrator] In the Battle of Lutzen...
Gustavus Adolphus is killed.
A shock.
The messianic leader gone, rumors spread.
He isn't really dead.
The Swedes are now losing battles but they believe they can still secure
their influence by negotiation.
They are deceived, at this time nothing is stable.
Wallenstein's officers have to swear personal allegiance to him
even if this conflicts with orders from the Emperor.
In the case of Wallenstein he was always successful in his business ventures.
But when it came down to it, maybe it wasn't the money that mattered after all.
But rather, for instance, becoming the Duke of Mecklenburg.
A promotion in social rank which put him on a par with the Princes
of the holy Roman Empire.
[narrator] Wallenstein has grown too powerful.
What are is real aims?
Among other things,
he is negotiating with the Swedes for a peace agreement.
Does the commander want to become something more than a duke?
Not only the Jesuits would like to be rid of him.
The Emperor orders him captured: dead or alive.
The Irish captain who stubs him in anger
is only the long arm of the numerous enemies in his own camp.
An inglorious end for this notorious commander of armies.
[morose music]
[narrator] The war continues.
At the beginning the Hapsburg dynasty
had sought war to secure their dominion.
By now, they are fighting to retain their existence as a power.
[soft dramatic music]
[narrator] Then, in 1635, at the urging of Cardinal Richelieu
France enters the war.
Once again the fighting lays waste to South Germany and Bohemia.
[dramatic music]
[narrator] Not before 1648 do people finally grow tired of the slaughter.
Sweden and France, the remaining great powers
guarantee the end of hostilities.
The Peace of Westphalia is signed.
The basis for the religious articles of the document
is the Peace of Augsburg of 1555
after thirty years of devastating war, a bitter truth.
It's back to square one.
And yet, everything has changed.
However, for the ordinary people the signing of the treaty did not bring about peace.
Only when the last mercenary has left the country
or even the village, does peace return for the common people.
And, because this doesn't happen in Saxony until 1650,
documentary sources there refer to the "End of the 32 years' war".
[narrator] Finally an end to the killing.
[unsettling music]
[narrator] The cost of the war, the destruction of a continent.
The conflict over the right interpretation of Christianity
leads to an orgy of cruelty which takes human beings to the brink of the abyss.
The accepted world view is damaged forever.
A symbol of this is the Gallows-tree from which even wounded comrades,
now useless as soldiers, are hanged.
For the first time there is something resembling war reportage
ruthless, brutal, realistic.
Since the middle of the 17th century the Thirty Years' War
has never ceased to be of interest...
because it confronts us with an unimaginable range and intensity of cruelties.
What people experienced at the time
was handed down to those who came after in writings and illustrations.
Illustrations which have no inhibitions about depicting cruelty
in all its hideous detail.
[narrator] For the civilian population the presence of the soldiery,
no matter under whose flag they are serving, means misery and death.
Plundering mercenaries seize what they need.
Marauding troops lay waste to the land, even where there is no fighting.
There is no mercy, no restraint.
This war is seen as an awful event.
Perhaps, something like a natural disaster
which devastates a village and against which there is no protection.
[narrator] War feeds on the war.
The civilian has a great of chance of dying then the mercenary.
So men, from the starving pestilential ravaged villages,
volunteer for military service in order to live a little longer.
Medical care is negligible.
The wounded have little chance of survival.
But it's still better than starving to death
or being slaughtered in your own village.
[ominous music]
[narrator] A European catastrophe.
Most severely affected
is the region which will later become Germany.
How many deaths has the war cost?
All in all, probably 50%.
In some areas, population losses could go as high as 70, 80%.
Judging by a large number of deserted settlements left behind,
after the Thirty Years' War.
In other words, places where people have been living
but which, after the war, are no longer populated.
Abandoned, deserted.
[narrator] But from the ruins of the wars of religion emerges the idea
of the modern nation State...
a mechanism of power.
A neutral structure standing above denominational conflict.
Treaties, civil order and the rule of law are to bring about peace.
An idea whose consequences extend into our own present day.
Hell is human kind itself.
The struggle for religious domination leads to the abyss.
In the name of the one true faith, man is capable of any imaginable cruelty.
So reads the lesson of the Thirty Years' War.
By nature, man is and always has been greedy, selfish, and cruel.
Only an all-powerful constraint compels him to keep the peace.
"Man is a wolf to man" writes the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes.
Hobbes concludes that if man is to live in a condition of peaceful
coexistence, he must be subject to discipline.
He must be constrained in every aspect of his life
by a power that can only be the power of the State.
[narrator] To constrain the greed of man
Hobbes decrees the totalitarian State.
An omnipotent monster, Leviathan, which imposes peace
and dictates what may be thought, said and believed.
An idea which will bear truth.
Absolutism, the State ruled over by the French Sun King, Louis XIV.
One of the practical, political consequences of the Thirty Years' War...
rigid, majestic order.
The jungle gives way to the garden.
The State has a calmly ticking, finely-oiled and neutral clockwork.
Base instincts and conflicts of belief are held in check by the power on high.
The new ideal of the age.
In place of the bans of mercenaries hired when needed
we find standing armies, valuable instruments of the State
to be used sparingly.
Prussia, under Frederick II is the ideal model of enlightened absolutism.
A sober, rational State without an established Church.
The trend is quite clear.
Perhaps Frederick the Great put its best.
"Each man should be blessed as he thinks fit."
And so, religion is shifted firmly into the private sphere.
[narrator] The practical consequences in the late 17th century
the Huguenots pour into Prussia into freedom.
Under Frederick II, there's a time on every 4th Berliner, is a French origin.
A monarchy on the make in which Church and State are strictly separated.
It's a matter of principle.
In Prussia, Kant pursues the idea to its logical conclusion.
His essay towards eternal peace is a blueprint
for the United Nations Organization.
Law should rule over power in a kind of world Parliament,
an idea which has found little favor with every super power to date.
The separation of Church and State is now so taken for granted
that the appearance of the Pope before the United Nations is a minor sensation.
In the past, Popes waged war.
Today the Pope has only moral power, not decretals.
A long way, which has led from the Crusades of the Middle Ages
via the Thirty Years' War to the present day.
[ending theme music]