Battle of Woehrden
In the battle of Wöhrden on September 7, 1319 the Dithmarscher destroyed a Holstein and Mecklenburg invasion army, which under Gerhard III. from Holstein had invaded the country.
Among other things, Albrecht von Holstein's goal in the run-up was to expand Holstein into a duchy. To do this, he would have had to conquer Dithmarschen first. Since the victorious battle of Bornhöved (1227) this was subordinate to the Archdiocese of Bremen , but remained largely independent.
After the Treaty of Templin on November 24th and 25th, 1317, the armed forces involved were unemployed. Count Gerhard III uses this . von Holstein , in order to win over a number of his friends with the prospect of rich booty and new adventures for his plan of a campaign of revenge against the Dithmarschen for the murder of Count Adolf VII of Holstein in 1315. On June 1, 1319 a court day was held in Wismar, on which Count Gerhard III. von Holstein, Heinrich II. von Mecklenburg and a number of other gentlemen, among them Count Bernhard von Gützkow , arranged the campaign of revenge against the Dithmarschen.
When Albrecht von Holstein marched into Dithmarschen with an uncertain number of troops (the entire army may have been between 6,000 and 10,000 men), he only encountered military resistance initially and then only occasionally. He came with his troops to Wöhrden in the north-west of Dithmarschen. Gerhard saw Dithmarschen as conquered and released the place to his troops for plunder. In the following, a large part of the people of Wöhrden were driven into the church, the remaining residents had to endure looting, rape and murder by the invaders. Only now did the Dithmarschers imprisoned in the church break out of the church and overrun the invaders at close range. When panic was about to break out among the Holsteiners, Gerhard drove them to put the farmers down for good. Almost at the same time, however, the Dithmarsch farmers reached Wöhrden from the surrounding towns at short intervals. The overwhelming armed force was lured into the swamps by the Dithmarschers after initial success and there was massacred in an ambush. 2000 to 3000 knights and servants, among them all 14 gentlemen, except Count Gerhard III. von Holstein and Prince Heinrich II of Mecklenburg - both stayed in the camp - were killed in the bloody slaughter near Oldenwöhrde. The fallen Count von Gützkow is mentioned several times in documents and chronicles: "... de greve van Gutzekowe ..." etc. After a short battle, the Holsteiners panicked and tried to flee. However, they were now encircled and now got to feel the vengeance for their atrocities. It was 85 years before anyone tried to conquer Dithmarschen again.
Web links
literature
- Johannes Hoffmann: Studies on the history of the counts of Gützkow. 1946 (dissertation)
- Johann Adolfi Köster : Chronicle of the country Dithmarschen. Edited from the original by Prof. Friedrich Christoph Dahlmann, Volume 1, Kiel 1827