The Bloodiest War In History - Faith Life And Death Thirty Years of War Part 1- History Documentary

yesterday life was normal now there is war people have experienced this again and again the 30 years war begun four centuries ago was one of the worst massacres in european history and the last great religious struggle of the west between catholics and protestants accompanied by atrocities we can hardly imagine today [Music] the thirty years war was suffered by people and led by people they left written traces the farmer's wife the merchant the preacher the door to the past has been kept open [Music] but is this past really that far away or is history repeating itself in the trouble spots of the 21st century religious hatred state disintegration unscrupulous military leaders all these ingredients of the 30 years war also shaped the conflicts of our time in our western arrogance we thought that religion was no longer an issue of conflict [Music] much of syria today probably looks like central europe between 1618 and 1648. all instances and institutions of order and protective mechanisms disintegrate here in prague where today tourists like to take pictures the struggle for power and religion in bohemia exploded in may of 1618. on the one hand there was the protestant nobility on the other the catholic king ferdinand a habsburg the bohemians threw two governors and ferdinand's secretary out of the window of prague castle and elected a new king frederick of the palatment a calvinist in the catholic habsburg's view a heretic the bohemians knew that this was a provocation they had no idea that it would start 30 years of war [Music] a few minutes walk from the castle in brickengasse lived the merchant hunts de vita he came to prague from antwerp as a young man and made a career for himself when the new king moved into town with great pomp and ceremony devitta played both sides on the one hand he did business with the habsburg rulers on the other hand he was a calvinist himself [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] the prague uprising had consequences for the entire holy roman empire of the german nation which was then made up of almost all of central europe the empire consisted of many medium and small-sized territories some were evangelical the other catholic religious tensions were growing then there were the external forces spain france england denmark and sweden they all had interests and allies in the empire the opponent of the prague rebels was based in vienna the catholic habsburg ferdinand ii they removed him as bohemian king but since 1619 he wore the imperial crown of the holy roman empire he wanted to suppress the uprising and be king of bohemia again he was deeply religious he belonged to a new generation of princes who had reigned since the end of the 16th century who were permeated through and through by their own confession the most important ally of emperor ferdinand was duke maximilian of bavaria the two strictly catholic rulers were friends from university maximilian prepared an army and moved against the rebellious bohemia on this campaign the duke had his court preacher with him jesuit father jeremiah draxel is jeremiah drexel recorded his war memories in a private diary which is now kept in the bavarian state archive it is a raw unvarnished account of the war watched the action from the second row always a little behind the fighting troops on the other side panic reigned the farmers in today's upper austria experienced this campaign as a catastrophe almost all of them were protestant for example in valen upon tratnach today catholic and protestant families live here side by side a protestant sunday service the fact that there are still protestants in valon is due to people like mata kutsinga we don't know much about her except for a treacherous note in the catholic parish register of deaths [Music] marta kutzinger was buried in 1678 at the age of 80 and not in the catholic cemetery but at home in the garden because she was lutheran [Music] the location of their farm in the district of kitsing still exists today there is a mighty new farmhouse there inside lives a catholic family who was this marta kutsinger how did she live the bohemian campaign of duke maximilian must have affected her voice [Music] system foreign in principle soldiers were not allowed to plunder independently but only according to very clearly defined rules for example if a city was conquered the soldiers had the right to plunder but looting was only allowed with the permission of superiors independent plundering of soldiers was always punishable the question is was it always punished the farmers often only had one option escape into the forestry what um [Music] um maximilian's army moved through the rebellious areas of austria with prague as its destination at the time austria was in large parts protestant this concerned farmers but also the lords of the manor the estates for example the kufstein family on grailenstein one of the most beautiful renaissance castles of lower austria the counts kufstein three brothers were active lutherans in the horner bund they fought for protestant freedom of religion and for their independence there were then two groups the first were quite radical and thought like the bohemians that the habsburgs were to be deposed to get another sovereign people and the habsburgs cannot be dismissed because that is an outright breach of the law the party split and lost at greilenstein bavaria and the imperials united the castle was occupied by the catholic armies the jesuit jeremiah drexel inspected the protestant castle chapel [Music] the castle chapel was of course very pretty and large enough the altar was beautiful in it but pictures and sentences from the scripts tasted of lutheranism in greilenstein the catholic commanders prepared for the attack on bohemia the heartland of the rebels the last act of the campaign began pizza was conquered today everyone in it was beaten up especially if the army of the did not spare anyone neither gender nor age the head of a woman who had given birth out of fear was split and the child was smashed against the wolf there was death in the catholic army too less because of fighting but rather because of hunger disease and an early winter um foreign foreign in ice-cold november of 1620 the catholic army reached the area around prague a final battle could take place at any time preacher drexel was getting [Music] ready foreign the white mountain near prague the fate of bohemia was decided here a final battle between good and evil this is how the battle was seen on both sides on the morning of the 8th of november 1620 imperial catholic and bohemian protestant troops slowly marched towards each other [Music] we now actually had a situation where the attack of the imperials had come as a bit of a surprise and this bohemian army panicked very quickly and troops left their division and in the 30 years war it was fatal for the infantry to leave their order of battle because that made it permeable and that's where the imperial cavalry regiments would start and this actually very good position of the bohemians was quickly shattered and was thus quickly overrun the surprising victory of the catholics was later attributed to mother mary after that prague was defenseless there was heavy plundering but one house was spared the house of the merchant hans de vitte barron is the catholic victory on the white mountain deepened the hatred of the denominations europe was at the beginning of a long chain reaction in which faith became an accelerant of fire can we really compare the situation back then with the middle east today some experts warned against making too simple a comparison the fact is that religion is once again determining world politics iraq is an example after the u.s invasion violent conflicts between sunnis and shiites broke out and shook the entire region who will control this region in the future the sunnis are shiites in the middle east right now it's very much talk about the divide between shia and sunny and to some extent it is true but essentially what is at the root cause of this divide is this a theological discussion or is it a political discussion this is what i call you know the political sectarianism which is not theological sectionism the sectarianism of the king salman the sectarianism of the iranian leadership the sectarianism of the hezbollah leader the sectarianism of the you know the the radical uh the radical movements countries like syria have become a playing field for global powers just like the holy roman empire was in the 17th century faith served as an excuse to fuel the conflict from outside then as now this broadening occurs through firstly indirect interventions of surrounding great powers through providing financial support to armed groups and thereby conducting proxy wars before then further escalating into direct military intervention iran from one side turkey from the other side and they are using ideology as a tool to to convince people to be killed practically so at the end of the day it's geopolitics vienna the imperial city where the ring road runs today a massive city wall stood 400 years ago the war passed the walls twice vienna was unsuccessfully besieged the emperor's center of power the hofburg this is where ferdinand ii lived after bohemia europe's new crisis area is the palatinate there are many reasons strategic political the emperor wanted to make the palatinate catholic at all costs his enemies wanted to prevent it the war continued the emperor needed money for that a lot of money the prague businessman hans de vita was therefore entrusted with a top secret special assignment is [Music] is [Music] would soon happen galloping inflation most contemporaries even the emperor did not understand what inflation meant the price increases seemed like a sudden punishment from god the emperor had to pull the emergency break with currency reform but the loose monetary policy served its purpose the war machine was rolling and with success the platinum was occupied the catholic cause was on the rise the protestant population in present-day upper austria was paying for it the emperor had given the land to his brother-in-arms maximilian as a pledge for later payments the bavarian occupying forces squeezed out the farmers and they wanted to make them catholic [Music] at that time religious conviction and politics were two sides of the same coin one could not see a religious denominational culture as apolitical this was precisely the tragedy of that time which so to speak was also confronted by two concepts of truth when the violence escalated and catholic priests were killed the bavarian governor made a fatal mistake to make an example he had peasants gathered together and announced the death sentence of 36 leaders half of them were pardoned the peasants were to throw dice over who was to live and who must hang this frankenberger dice game was too much under stefan fadinger one of the greatest peasant uprisings in austrian history was being prepared what isn't this [Applause] [Music] with church hymns on their lips and makeshift weapons the peasants went against the bavarian and imperial mercenaries their demands were modest the bavarians should leave they wanted to live under the emperor again in the hope that everything would be like it was before that taxes would fall and they would get freedom of religion the farmers were fighting for their own property in their own territory and that of course is a motivating factor that should not be underestimated for half a year the farmers kept their enemies on tenterhooks then their leader stefan fadinger fell by autumn the uprising was history [Music] here foreign [Music] home the farmers fought out of conviction and were therefore the exception the thirty years war was shaped by private war businessmen bernhard of weimar ernst von mansfeldt they fought for the one who paid lloyd people who said in principle that they were prepared to act as war businessmen and who had a certain network through which they could organize inflows of money could set up armies today we would say warlords warlords like that exist in almost every war today they fight for changing clients and control entire regions the afghan general dustum is a typical example this country that we call afghanistan today has been under the control of warlords for about 200 years warlords in the classical sense are and this is the cynical perverse thing those who use the weak central government to secure their own power we talk a little helplessly about militias actors groups and parties and so on and that means what connects conflicts of the early 17th century with modern conflicts is that this very classical perspective of international law state a declares war on state b and then the war and then in the end they have peace it doesn't work it didn't work in the 17th century and it doesn't work today he was probably the greatest warlord of the 17th century albrecht wenzel oy sebius of waldstein or volenstein army commander politician visionary businessman a little nobleman from bohemia who made it to the top by war his greatest hour was in the mid-1620s protestant denmark forged an alliance with german fellow believers and invaded the reich the catholic emperor had a problem balenstein promised the emperor an army of unprecedented size on his own account within the shortest time how did he manage that volenstein's financier was none other than the calvinist prague merchant hans de vita six thousand was kitten with i don't armada and one who skims off more product with the sword so to speak is not popular he's an upstart and this if you like syndrome leads him constantly to new enemies first of all wallenstein's success proved him right his troops hurried from victory to victory the danish invasion was set back the protestants were on the brink [Music] einstein was anything but a humanitarian he dealt radically with human lives they meant nothing to him he exploited the people the civilian population he put his soldiers on the line but there were limits for him he didn't want to risk his own working capital that means he preferred defensive warfare he was an economically thinking person also unscrupulous but also an economically thinking politician while wallenstein fought for the emperor his home bohemia was cleansed of protestants become a catholic or emigrate that was the motto here too ten years had passed since the rebels were executed their heads were still hanging on the prague bridge tower a few steps away lived one of the last calvinists of prague undisturbed because he was important for the war [Music] kaufman did the catholics win the war thanks to wallenstein the emperor believed it and struck the decisive blow the catholic church was to be given back its property a wave of expropriation against protestant princes was imminent but some catholics were mindful like the jesuit preacher jeremiah's drexel frisch pressured nine is was at the height of his power and wealth his luxury palace still the largest in prague showed how far he had come but this flight of fancy created enemies on the scene the german princes their lands had been sucked dry by wallenstein's vast army they wanted to get rid of the upstart and were heard by the emperor ferdinand dismissed wallenstein this had fatal consequences for his banker hans de vita yep foreign foreign banks were not yet being rescued by the state in the 17th century hans de vita's letter to emperor ferdinand remained unanswered on the 11th of september 1630 hans devitta was found dead in the fountain of his house in prague yesterday [Applause] foreign kim [Music] if they hadn't stood firm there wouldn't be any protestant congregations here anymore this has also penetrated a little into the mentality of the austrians so that one does not always say what one thinks also the cause of the counter-reformation but on the other hand also a self-confidence that one does not immediately begin to tremble towards the authorities but can say and appear more [Music] self-confident this chorale written by martin luther was an expression of protestant readiness to fight the enemy images were called by name the turks and the pope it was the language of war later turned into an enormous choral movement by johann sebastian bach [Music] in the far north however the great turning point of this war was being prepared the swedes under king gustav adolf were preparing for a protestant offensive their army landed on the beach of usodom where peace seemed to be within reach the swedish landing ignited new murders the worst was yet to come for the people of germany kinder pete you

Channel: I Love Docs

Views: 5,569

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: I love docs, i love documentaries, documentary film, free documentaries, documentaries on youtube, syndicado, documentaries online, full documentary, award winning documentary, watch documentaries, best documentary, faith documentary, bloodiest wars in human history, Faith Life And Death Thirty Years of War, thirty year war, history documentary, full length documentaries

Id: LcwBlL32as4

Length: 44min 36sec (2676 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 19 2021