Nuremberg Execution Day

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Contract signing in the Nuremberg town hall by the ambassadors

The Nuremberg Execution Day or Peace Execution Congress served to clarify questions that had remained open at the end of the Thirty Years' War through the Peace of Westphalia in Osnabrück and Münster . It took place in Nuremberg between April 1649 and July 1650 . The results were recorded in the Nuremberg Reich Peace Recess of July 26, 1650. Problems of demobilization and the withdrawal of troops from the occupied territories were dealt with in particular .

history

Envoys from Sweden and France and those of the emperor met on the day of execution . Numerous emissaries from the imperial estates were also present .

With the dissolution of the Execution Congress in July 1650, many problems in shaping the future peace order in Europe remained unsolved. Troops of the Duke of Lorraine , who were not included in the Peace of Westphalia, pressed the areas on the Lower Rhine. Sweden's claims in the north of the empire could only be clarified with the Electorate of Brandenburg in the Szczecin Recess on May 14, 1653 . The Great Elector Friedrich Wilhelm of Brandenburg tried to dispute his share in the Jülisch-Klevischen inheritance from the Count Palatine .

The negotiating delegations met in the Great Hall of the Old Town Hall in Nuremberg.

Great Hall (Old Town Hall Nuremberg) perspective interior view, painting by Paul Juvenell (1622)

As part of the congress, on September 25, 1649, on the occasion of the signing of the Interim Recess, a great peace meal was held. The host was Karl Gustav von Pfalz-Zweibrücken , who had been generalissimo of the Swedish troops in Germany since 1647 and who became King of Sweden in 1654 as Karl X Gustav . This event is shown in the famous painting “The Great Banquet” by Joachim von Sandrart , which is often reproduced as part of engravings .

As a reminder of the Nuremberg Peace and as a memorial for the Thirty Years War, Emperor Ferdinand III. 1650 the erection of a Monumentum Pacis in Nuremberg, which was to be cast symbolically from disarmed and melted down cannons. The baroque monumental work created by Georg Schweigger and Christoph Ritter with a purely civilian figure program - the " Neptune Fountain " - was initially not installed by the city of Nuremberg but sold to St. Petersburg due to an acute lack of funds .

Contents of the Nuremberg review

The results of the deliberations were summarized in two recesses : on the one hand in the so-called interim recess, which was decided in September 1649, and on the other hand as a conclusion in the imperial peace recess of July 1650.

The recesses contained agreements on disarmament and financing issues, especially in favor of the Swedish side, as well as detailed agreements on evictions, returns and relocations in favor of France in the west of the empire. The withdrawal and disbandment of the Swedish troops was determined. The Dutch army could not be included in the contract, it remained present in East Friesland and on the Lower Rhine . Even Spain granted the Palatinate Frankenthal not for now. A withdrawal was not made until 1652.

For more than a hundred years, the recesses determined the political reorganization of Central Europe after the end of the Thirty Years' War. They were treated as implementing provisions of the Peace of Westphalia and as important additions and clarifications as the Reich's Basic Law and were included in full in the farewell of the Reichstag on May 17, 1654, called the Youngest Reichs Farewell .

Triumph of the Peace of Osnabrück and Nuremberg , allegorical representation, goddess of peace Pax in the triumphal chariot, war god Mars in chains, 1649

literature

  • Author collective: Chronicle of the Germans. Bechtermünz, Augsburg 1996, ISBN 3-86047-127-9 .
  • Christoph Gunkel: The imperial city of Nuremberg and the peace negotiations of 1649/50 . In: Wolfgang Wüst (Hrsg.): The Thirty Years War in Swabia and its historic neighboring regions: 1618 - 1648 - 2018 (= Journal of the Historical Association for Swabia. Volume 111 / Association for Augsburger Bistumsgeschichte eV special series issue 10). Augsburg 2018, ISBN 978-3-95786-179-5 , pp. 251-278.
  • Antje Oschmann: The Nuremberg Execution Day 1649–1650. The end of the Thirty Years War in Germany . Aschendorff, Münster 1991, ISBN 3-402-05636-4 , ( series of publications by the Association for Research into Modern History 17), (Zugl .: Bonn, Univ., Diss., 1988).

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