A War or a Revolution that is the Question

New in 2025, and again, there is an anniversary: 500 years of the German Peasants' War, or was it a Revolution?

   

Spirited Horst Buszello making his points:
The Peasants' War is an example on par with the French Revolution.

Last Thursday, Professor Horst Buszello explored this question in his lecture entitled: "Bauernkrieg" oder "Revolution"? - Der Aufstand von 1525 im Streit der Meinungen“. 

In Wikipedia, you find the notions of the Great Peasants' War or Great Peasants' Revolt, a widespread popular revolt in some German-speaking areas in Central Europe from 1524 to 1525. It was Europe's largest and most widespread popular uprising before the French Revolution of 1789. The revolt failed because of intense opposition from the aristocracy, who slaughtered up to 100,000 of the 300,000 poorly armed peasants and farmers.

One of the rare originals of the 12 Artikel

The revolt was launched as a charge raised against the Swabian League in Memmingen in March 1525 in a pamphlet of 12 Articles: Dye Grundtlichen Und rechten haupt Artitkl, aller Baurschafft und Hyndersessen der Gaistlichen und Weltlichen oberkayten von wölchen sy sich beschwert vermainen  (The thorough and lawful main articles of all peasantry and vassals of the secular and ecclesiastical authorities, of which they believe themselves to be aggrieved).

Under these 12 articles, the rural population from Swabia to Thuringia, from Brandenburg to Bavaria, formed fraternal associations, gathered for Christian meetings, or joined evangelical heaps in which they wanted to uphold the gospel and support justice: "Here there is neither slave nor master, we are all one in Christ."

In November 1520, Luther published one of his most essential writings, On the Freedom of a Christian. In it, he cites the first letter of Paul to the Corinthians: "A Christian is a free lord of all and subject to none. A Christian is a servant of all and subject to everyone."

The new spiritual freedom of the believer is a life in the grace of God and not a turning away from the Ten Commandments. Brother Martin demands that people give charity freely, willingly, cheerfully, and without charge out of faithful obedience to God and the authorities, too. He emphasizes verse 13 of Paul's letter to the Romans: "Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves."

Luther advocates his "two kingdoms doctrine," which states that the worldly kingdom and the kingdom of God are separate. Since power is ordained by God, all those who have not been called to govern are subject to the duty of obedience if they do not want to resist God's order. Let every soul be subject to the authorities with fear and honor.

Luther was of no help to the rebels. However, Christoph Schappeler wrote the political tract "An die versamlung gemayner Bawerschafft (To the Assembly of the Common Peasantry,)" probably during the gathering of Upper Swabian farmers and craftsmen at Memmingen in March 1525. The work appeared anonymously in print in Nuremberg in May 1525. 

On the pamphlet's title page, the farmers are on the left, and the nobles and prelates are on the right. They are standing armed against each other at a wheel of fortune, and the papacy is tied to the wheel. 

In his pamphlet, Schappeler justifies the right to resist tyrannical authorities with many quotations from the New Testament, trying to prove that all people have a right to personal freedom and political participation. His historical models are the Roman Republic, the Israelites, and the Swiss Confederation (Wer meret Schwytz). 

Although the authorities had been established by God, when they acted tyrannically, they forfeited their right to rule. He advocated that the rebels base their actions on divine law, opposing Luther's "two kingdoms doctrine." So Schappeler's belief that society and politics could be reformed for the better through the Old and New Testaments is close to Huldrych Zwingli, who had written, "All earthly laws must be conformed to the commandments of God and the spirit of the gospel." 

Nevertheless, throughout history, the Great Peasants' War was interpreted in the zeitgeist.

Günther Franz published the most extensive monography about The German Peasants' War on October 1, 1933, the Day of the German Farmer. He, a devout Nazi, could not help but criticize earlier publications in the preface to his book, "Consciously or unconsciously, all these works made the history of the Peasants' War serve political purposes and thus blocked the path to fundamental knowledge."

"Today, at the end of the first victorious German revolution, the peasant in the Third Reich has finally gained the position in the nation's life that he was already striving for in 1525."

This obviously was no political statement. Still, Franz's book, written in a narrative style and expurgated of Nazi passages in later editions, remains a standard reference of German peasants' revolts that started much earlier than 1524. Red Baron reported about a precursor in the Freiburg region.

In 1524, the common man (der gemeine Mann) stood up and demanded that the Old Law be re-established. The divine law stipulates that men/women are created equal. As Adam was plowing and Eve was stretching, where was the nobleman?

The Great Peasants' War was a genuine political revolution, 

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