Why This War Was So Awful
Whenever I think I’m not quite depressed enough to do this story justice, I look at something like this.I came across this map on a German Thirty Years War reenactment group website. The site is pretty interesting if you can read German, and if you can’t there are a lot of cool pictures of reenactors in amazing costumes. This map shows population losses by region for the years 1618-48. The ones with dark shading are obviously the worst, but even within categories, there was considerable variation. Wurttemberg for instance lost over 75 percent of it’s population, while after the Siege of Nuremberg there was nothing left alive in a thirty-mile radius around the city.In light of that, it’s probably not too surprising that many Germans still considered this war the most devastating in their history, even after World War II.
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I LOVE Ren faires, so I really appreciated those pictures on the first site. Very authentic. We’ve always wanted to go to one of the reenactments of the battle of Gettysburg. Someday. I don’t know anything at all about the 30 Years War, but I can tell my reading might be about to take a detour since I’ve kind of been stuck in Germany for the past couple years. I’m enjoying learning about this a bit from you. Cool that you found that map.
I originally went to that site for the pictures and just kind of stumbled onto the map. I just love the care and attention to detail that goes into those clothes! I would say Germans are into Thirty Years War reenacting the same way Americans are into the Civil War. Its quite a subculture!
Great map and insights, Christina!
Jean