Battle of Frankenhausen
Schlachtberg with panorama museum
| date | May 15, 1525 |
|---|---|
| place | Bad Frankenhausen / Kyffhäuser |
| output | Defeat of the insurgents |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
|
Landgraviate of Hesse, |
insurgent peasants |
| Commander | |
| Troop strength | |
| 6,000 | 8,000 |
| losses | |
|
6,000 |
|
The Battle of Frankenhausen on May 15, 1525 was one of the most important battles during the German Peasants' War . In it, the rebels under Thomas Müntzer near Frankenhausen were completely defeated by a princely army. Müntzer himself was captured and beheaded on May 27th in Mühlhausen after he had been brought to the Heldrungen fortress and tortured .
The cause of the defeat of the farmers was not alone in her inferiority regarding armament and combat training against the mercenary armies of the princes , but also in the disagreement between the leaders of the respective peasant troops . This was noticeable in the fact that the peasant leaders by no means had a single objective. Most of them had the interests of the farmers in their region in mind. Very few, like Thomas Müntzer, saw an all-German task in their actions.
The negotiating policy of the princes in the entire Peasants' War of 1524/25 was from the outset aimed at dividing the unity of the peasant armies and then gradually eliminating these "heaps" by force. In fact, the battle of Frankenhausen was lost before it began. Basically it was a slaughter in which several thousand farmers were killed or their farms looted.
The events in Frankenhausen
The days before the battle
From the end of April 1525, Frankenhausen developed into a center of peasant surveys in Thuringia . On April 29th - numerous farmers were already gathering around Frankenhausen - there was a survey in the city in which well over half of the petty bourgeoisie , most of the salt workers and almost half of the Pfänner were involved. Müntzer's promise to move to Frankenhausen with the heap lying near Görmar / Mühlhausen , which at that time should have consisted of 10,000 men from 370 towns and villages, activated the rebels, who the next day the farmers encamped in front of the town connected. The town hall was occupied, the council overthrown, Frankenhausen Castle and the St. Georgii nunnery were stormed and documents , mortgage letters and the town seal were destroyed. The insurgents also made their demands in 14 articles, which were based on the 12 Swabian articles . Further insurgents from the counties of Schwarzburg , Mansfeld , Stolberg and from Albertine and Ernestine areas moved in. On May 3rd there were already more than 4,000 men, so that the Counts of Schwarzburg and Stolberg submitted to the overwhelming power of the rebels.
After the failure of the United Mühlhausen and Thuringian Heap promised by Müntzer on April 29th and the submission of the Schwarzburg and Stolberg counts, moderate forces in the Frankenhausen heap briefly gained momentum. Actions against surrounding monasteries were ended and insurgents from the Allstedt / Sangerhausen / Mansfeld area were given leave on request. Around May 4, the United Mühlhäuser and Thuringian Heap arrived in Frankenhausen with participants in the Eichsfeld campaign led by Heinrich Pfeiffer . After the mercenaries of Count von Mansfeld set fire to the not far distant ring life on May 4th, the insurgents led by Bonaventura Kürschner - a supporter of Müntzer - again made trains against neighboring towns, monasteries and castles. B. against Artern , the monastery Göllingen , the Arnsburg , Wallhausen , bridges and Beichlingen .
On May 10th, Müntzer set out with 300 men, 8 cart rifles and the rainbow flag (white flag with a rainbow and the words "Verbum domini maneat in aeternum" (The word of the Lord stay in eternity)) from Mühlhausen to Frankenhausen, which he reached around noon on May 11th. Support for the Franconian rebels was hardly to be expected from other areas, as the farmers in many places already gave up and withdrew or were smashed by the princely troops due to the local negotiation results they had achieved.
After the dissolution of the Werrahaufens and the news that Müntzer and his followers were on the way to Frankenhausen, Landgrave Philipp von Hessen led the Hessian-Brunswick army from Berka via Eisenach to Frankenhausen. The Albertine Duke Georg of Saxony , who had been in Leipzig since the beginning of May , had moved with his ducal-Saxon army to Heldrungen , where on May 13th the Mainz and Brandenburg contingents and who had been in the count's castle for days Nobles of northeast Thuringia entrenched by Mansfeld strengthened.
The events of May 14, 1525
In the morning hours of May 14th, the Frankenhausen rebels fended off three attacks by the Hessian-Brunswick army west of Frankenhausen. After this success, the insurgents overestimated themselves, considered the enemy to be severely weakened and failed to gain the necessary military advantage against the army, which had been weakened by the long march. After the fighting on May 14, a large part of the Frankenhausen heap left the city and took up position behind a wagon castle built on today's battle hill . Likewise, the guns previously set up on the city wall were brought to the battle mountain. On the evening of May 14th, Landgrave Philipp called on the rebels to lay down their arms and to hand over Müntzer and the captains. Moderate forces in the Frankenhauser heap entered into negotiations with the princes, in which a temporary ceasefire was apparently agreed. In the meantime, the princely army used the time gained to prepare a military strike against the rebels. The princely artillery was brought to a hill on the eastern battle hill, from where the peasants' wagons could be under fire.
The events of May 15, 1525
On May 15, the Hessian-Braunschweig army united with the Albertine army. The insurgents had previously tried in vain to prevent the troops from uniting by means of gunfire. Thus the approximately 8,000 insurgents who were armed with at least 15 pieces of artillery, tools used as weapons ( scythe , sickle , flail , fork ) and the weapons of the miners authorized to carry weapons ( spears , halberds , short sabers) stood up to at least 6,000 mercenaries and mounted men Sides of the princes opposite. The princely troops were set up in such a way that the rebels could not evade their wagons.
Another three-hour truce was agreed.
In the meantime there had been disputes in the camp of the Frankenhausen heap over the demand for the extradition of Müntzer and his followers. As with all important decisions, people came together here "in the ring" for advice. The princes' extradition request was rejected. Müntzer preached to the insurgents one last time, explaining his goals to them in the most effective rhetoric and convincing them of the correctness of their actions.
While the rebels remained under the impression of Müntzer's sermon , the princely army broke the agreed armistice and attacked unexpectedly and violently with artillery , cavalry and infantry . The farmers were completely surprised by the attack and panicked. They did not find time to take up arms or to organize resistance. The majority of the rebels fled into the city in panic and were massacred on the way there by the princely troops. Some groups tried to resist the superiority and were also fought ruthlessly, including one group in today's blood channel. The only way for the peasants to escape was the way into the city, where they were slain by the mercenaries. Only a few insurgents managed to escape, including Hans Hut .
In the course of the immediate battle there were at least 6000 deaths on the part of the peasants. 600 insurgents were taken prisoner, 300 of whom were executed on May 16 in front of the Frankenhausen town hall or on the Anger. On the same day, the dead were driven out of town and buried.
Thomas Müntzer was tracked down in the city and handed over to Count Ernst von Mansfeld by Philipp von Hessen. Afterwards, Müntzer was interrogated and tortured in the moated castle Heldrungen and executed on May 27, 1525 in the field camp of the princes near Mühlhausen.
The localities involved in the Franconian peasant uprising were subsequently subjected to very high fines and claims for damages from the clerical and secular nobility , which - in retrospect - were mostly excessively excessive and far exceeded the actual damage caused by the uprising. These claims for damages therefore deserve the description of a material execution of punishment against the rebels by the nobility.
The battlefield today
Today the peasant war panorama near Bad Frankenhausen with the monumental painting by Werner Tübke under the official title The early bourgeois revolution in Germany commemorates the battle . What is shown is not the actual course of events on the Frankenhausen battle mountain, but rather a panorama of the time itself or an interpretation of history translated into a picture, which called for radical social transformation.
literature
Historical contributions to the Kyffhäuser landscape; Publications of the District Home Museum Bad Frankenhausen:
- Issue 5 (1975): Horst Müller: About the peasant battles on May 14th and 15th, 1525 near Frankenhausen.
- Issue 12 (1989): Werner Mägdefrau, Frank Gratz: The Thuringian Uprising in the Peasants' War in 1525 up to the Battle of Frankenhausen.
- Issue 12 (1989): Horst Müller: The Frankenhausen article from April / May 1525.
- Ludwig Fischer: The battle under the rainbow - Frankenhausen a lesson from the peasants' war: documents, reports and views. Berlin 1975 (Wagenbach's Pocket Library 13)
- Gustav Droysen : The Battle of Frankenhausen (1525) . In: Journal for Prussian History and Regional Studies . Volume 2, Berlin 1873, pp. 590-617.
Web links
- The Battle of Frankenhausen (The description of the events in Frankenhausen is an abbreviated version of this link approved by the author)
- Panorama Museum in Bad Frankenhausen
Remarks
- ^ Volker Schmidtchen : Cart rifle and wagon castle. Hussite innovations in technology and tactics in warfare in the late Middle Ages. In: Volker Schmidtchen, Eckhard Jäger (Ed.): Economy, technology and history. Contributions to research into cultural relations in Germany and Eastern Europe. Festschrift for Albrecht Timm on his 65th birthday. Camen, Berlin 1980 (published 1981), ISBN 3-921515-07-6 , pp. 83-108.
Coordinates: 51 ° 21 ′ 21 ″ N , 11 ° 6 ′ 4 ″ E