The Thirty Years War

Eyewitnesses to Horror

The Thirty Years War has been regarded by historians as the world's first "total war" in terms of complete and absolute destruction. What is "total war"? To use a quote from Simplicissimus:

• They flattened out copper and pewter dishes and baled the ruined goods. They burned up bedsteads, tables, chairs, and benches, though there were yards of dry firewood outside the kitchen. 

"Total war" is the complete destruction of a human's existence: his body, his possessions, his culture, and his livelihood. In the end one-third of urban populations had been killed, and up to 40 percent of the peasant populations.  Historian Peter Wilson reveals that: 

• “Public opinion surveys carried out in the 1960s revealed that Germans placed the Thirty Years War as their country's greatest disaster ahead of both world wars, the Holocaust and the Black Death.” 

He continues:

• “...even in the twenty-first century, German authors could assert that 'never before and also never since, not even during the horrors of the bombing during the Second World War, was the land so devastated and the people so tortured' as between 1618 and 1648.” 

What was it like? What were the horrors of war? We will be using two (2) primary sources:

1. The chronological recordings of Hans Heberle, entitled Das Zeitregister von Hans Heberle
   
2. The etchings by Jacques Callot, entitled Les Grandes Misères de la Guerre

But to truly understand the war, one must both listen, and look. In partners, you will click on one of the two (2) buttons below. With your partner, you will alternately read a passage and examine an etching that are linked together. The point of this activity is to listen, and look. Click below to get started.

Partner #1

Partner #2