Five Hundred Years since the German Peasant’s War

Juli 29, 2025

Oda Lux/Bruno Tesch

Friedrich Engels in his work „The German Peasants‘ War,“ called it the „greatest attempt at revolution in the history of the German people,“ but it was one which ended in defeat and suffered merciless repression. It led to the further fragmentation of Germany amongst the great princes, the sole class to reape the benefit of this counter-revolutionary victory. For over two centuries, the peasants’ defeat shaped the situation in Germany, and thus a consideration of the Peasants‘ War still remains necessary even after 500 years.

The class situation of the peasantry

In his pamphlet „Der deutsche Bauer“ (The German Peasant), published in 1883^[i], Engels describes the development of the peasants’ conditions in Germany. The initial development of the Mark (associations of villages with communal-cooperative forms of land ownership) had given way to individual private ownership of land through the establishment of the house and its enclosed farmyard – originally also a legal protection – which was managed by individual families on a hereditary basis. This also meant that these structures made it difficult to develop a class interest in common, or even to perceive it as such, and organise on this basis.

In the feudal community, the rule of other classes was imposed on the free peasantry, as the numerically largest producing part of society and responsible for the food supply – about 90% of the population in 16th-century Germany was engaged in agriculture.

The nobility and clergy lived above and upon the peasant masses growing fat at their expense. Whilst former took possession of the land, they had to ensure the physical protection of the rural population within their territories. The peasant farmers were exempt from military service as a „privilege” but had to perform unpaid forced labour for their landlords, e.g. for construction projects and transport. In feudal states the clergy had the function of social and ideological supervision and administration („pastoral care“). But they also possessed considerable land holdings themselves (e.g the monasteries) and, in countries such as Italy, exercised secular lordships too. The farmers were also liable to pay taxes to the church (tithes).Thus monasteries had a claim on village property.

The number of recipients these taxes increased exponentially. In addition, in southern and central Germany a division of landholdings took place and thus number of farming units to increased, whilst the area of cultivation remained the same as before, resulted in correspondingly lower yields. This, plus crop failures, forced many farmers to become completely dependent on their landlords.

Social Changes

The pompous title of the state “ the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation“ (Heiliges Römisches Reich Deutscher Nation) concealed the social contradictions that had taken place on German territory since the Middle Ages and drove a demand for change. In contrast to other countries, such as France or Britain, the Reich possessed no real central authority or its own administrative structure.

Although led by a monarchy, the Reich was divided into associations of estates with only a few common institutions such as the Reichstag (an assembly of the feudal estates) and the Imperial Chamber Court (Reichskammergericht). Since the 15th century, the empire was structurally no longer capable of outward-oriented warfare or expansion of its power.

Internally, the ruling classes were also in a process of change. Parts of the nobility became impoverished, many conflicting claims to power, often enforced by military means, in which clerical dignitaries were sometimes involved, constant haggling over land ownership made the German Reich a territorially, legally and economically confusing and counterproductive entity. Even within the clergy, which, thanks to its prominent intellectual position, had been theorizing social questions since the Middle Ages, resistance to abuses of office, e.g. enrichment of the clerical upper class through the sale of indulgences, in the still unified Western (catholic) church increased. This was reflected in the efforts to reform abuses, which was later also reflected in territories of the different seceding denominations, linked to the rival sovereigns.

At the same time, cities had established themselves as a space for the process of formation of a new class, the bourgeoisie becoming part of the system of feudal estates, but in the end, it could only assert its positions of power on a regional not a empire wide basis. Formerly free imperial cities (Freie Reichs Städte) had often lost their independence and became dependent on secular sovereigns or bishops. Their urban population had also divided along class lines. Their upper class, the urban patrician families, for their part, benefited from the tax system imposed on the peasants, while the plebeian elements, mostly day labourers, were hardly better off materially and legally than those living in the countryside.

Even foundations such as the Federation of Merchants in North Germany, the Hanseatic League or trading houses such as the Fuggers, which operated from southern Germany and participated in the emerging colonial boom of the early modern period and, as wartime entrepreneurs, even brought imperial potentates into financial dependence for periods, were nevertheless unable to break through the social barriers. The basis for a new capitalist mode of production had not yet been created, while at the same time the feudal social formation was going through its process of disintegration.

The breeding ground for a process of social ferment had strengthened at the beginning of the 16th century and prepared more favourable conditions than 100 years earlier, when in the 1420s and early 1430s then politically advanced Bohemia (now the Czech Republic) uprisings took place around some urban centres such as Tábor, and continued over a period of time before being crushed. These are known to history as the Hussite Wars, named after the theologian and temporary chancellor of the University of Prague, Jan Hus, whose burning at the stake after his condemnation as a heretic in 1415 triggered the movement. These resistances to the existing order are partly related to preceding „heretical“ communities on across Europe such as the Waldensians (southern France), the Picardians (northern France, Bohemia), and the Lollards flowers of Wycliff (England).

It was impoverished clerics at the grassroots level who exerted influence on the masses and received little of the wealth accumulated through indulgences and other trickery. Because they preached in the churches, gave the sacraments and distributed alms to the needy, they also saw the misery of their flocks and were able to develop a criticism of the church an secular authorities out of Christian conviction. Their charitable outlook is therefore similar to the incentive of utopian socialists, who had ideas that were ahead of their time, but at the same time would never have been able to withstand the pressures of capitalist society in the long term.

A politicised movement, which essentially affected the rural population, was formed in the 15th century, albeit on Swiss soil, in the form of the „Bundschuh“, the laced footwear common to the peasants, which they used as a sign of identification . At one of their meetings in 1439, the followers formulated demands such as the abolition of church taxes, the elimination of aristocratic privileges in the use of forests, hunting and fishing grounds, culminating in the motto „We’ve had enough of priests and nobles.“( Wir mögen vor Pfaffen und Adel nit genesen)

Course of events

The Bundschuh movement also reached into the regions speaking the Alemannic dialect region of southwestern Germany and programmatically anticipated a number of things, which were then reflected in the 12-article manifesto of peasant groups in the region in the spring of 1525.

It begins with the free election and possibility to remove the church rector of the parish. This minister is paid by the municipality through of the tithe (a tenth of the income). Additional levies are to be abolished.

Everyone should be granted the right to hunt and fish. Forests are also to be free for logging for construction and fuel needs. Article 10 postulates the return of the common meadows and fields appropriated by the rulers to the municipality.

Paragraphs 8 and 11 demand that „honest people“ should determine and supervise the rent levy on the landowner, as well as the abolition of inheritance tax.

The burden of forced labour is to be reduced. Article 3 deals with the abolition of serfdom, i.e. the right of landlords to decide on the life and death of peasants. A later passage complains about the legal arbitrariness in the calculation of the penalty.

The concluding paragraph once again expresses what runs through all articles, namely that they derive the legitimacy of their concerns exclusively from the content of the Bible. The appeal to this instance expresses the great fear of the consequences on the part of the authorities.

According to today’s reading, the demands are likely to be regarded as reformist rather than revolutionary. But even if its authors appear to be limite4d to a feudalist worldview, this document must have appeared in the eyes of the ruling classes as a seditious monstrosity and an attack on their power base. Franz Mehring aptly remarks that in 1525 the German peasants demanded what the French could achieve from 1789 onwards, that they made progressive radical bourgeois demands, although on the other hand they remained trapped in the immature conditions of their time.

Thanks to the technological revolution unleahsed by invention of moveable type printing, by Johannes Gutenberg in Mainz back in 1450 a total of 25,000 copies of the demands were printed and distributed within two months. Their influence on the subsequent uprisings is likely to have been considerable, although it is unclear how many peasants the writing reached and whether they or how many of them were able to read it at all. It can certainly be assumed that the content of the pamphlet circulated mainly through word of mouth and speeches.

Even before that, peasant groups did not leave it at declarations, rather local unrest had flared up again and again, especially south of the river Main, but they quickly died out again. In 1525, the pent-up social discontent met with efforts to reform church’s and ignited a revolutionary conflagration.

Above all, the village upper class wanted change. Village chiefs, craftsmen and farmers from the small towns supported the uprising and, in many places, urged the poor farmers to join the insurgent mobs.

In the form of the educated preacher Thomas Müntzer, the insurgent movement founda leading personality. Müntzer became radicalized through an initially theological dispute with Martin Luther, the key leader and initiator in 1517 of what developed into the German Reformation. This remained at the stage of pure reforms in the church sector and Luther himself wholeheartedly took the side of the princes in their suppression of the Peasants‘ War. Indeed, it was to the regional princes, such as Frederick the Elector of Saxony, that Luther looked to enforce his reforms.

Müntzer in sharp contrast developed ideas of an overthrow of the social order of the feudal estates and its founding of new society, on which he hoped to build a community of property, and in doing so he also went far beyond the 12 Articles of Memmingen towards early communist goals that were far ahead of their time, albeit ultimately utopian. Unlike other theorists, however, he also recognized that the old order could only be brought down by mobilizing the particularly oppressed.

In Müntzer’s person, the intellectual tools for programmatic guidance were paired with the necessary organizational talent for the preparation and conduct of militant conflicts. He set up his own printing plant and used the links of existing news networks, which connected the rebellious central German districts with the southwestern German districts, and made contact with the peasant leaders there. At the height of the fighting, he tried to coordinate the various units and had cannons cast.

In his immediate sphere of activity, Mühlhausen in Thuringia , Müntzer tried energetically to implement some of his ideas: among other things, the elimination of privileges, the dissolution of monasteries, the housing of the homeless.

In Thuringia, he worked on organizing the arranged uprising. Since this could not be done in public, and on the other hand the authorities did not have a well-developed intelligence service , the ruling classes were taken by surprise by the outbreak of hostilities at the turn of the year 1524/1525 and the following spring, and the rebels even enjoyed advantages at the beginning. But this did not last long. As Karl Kautsky explains in his work „Precursors of Modern Socialism“,^[ii]

„At the time of the Reformation (…) conspiracy was made even easier by the colossal mistrust of the rulers among themselves. (…) The disunity of Germany made it difficult for the authorities of different localities to cooperate in a planned manner. (…) They had to feel their throats threatened before they united into a ‚reactionary mass‘.“

In the military confrontation on 25 May 1525, which was apostrophised as a „decisive battle“, the insurgents suffered a devastating defeat against the combined troops of landgraves and dukes. The same happened to the other attempts at insurrection. According to the understanding of the reactionary forces, this slaughter was „pleasing to God“.

Why did the revolution fail?

Last but not least, the question of the military balance of power decided the outcome of the conflict. In total, the insurgents involved in the clashes with the enemy troops numbered a at best 30,000 troops. In addition, they were usually hopelessly inferior in weaponry and military training compared to their opponents. The troops of 8,000 peasants at the decisive battle at Frankenhausen were confronted by well-armed and proven warriors who had numerous guns at their disposal. The eventual lack of coordination and strategy in the continuation of the fighting gave the united reaction the opportunity to isolate the revolutionary centres and crush them one by one.

Deeper causes for failure can be found in social conditions.

In general, Müntzer’s efforts to bring about a co-operation of the revolutionary movements of the various regions had little success. For example, a total of 300 people from the city of Mühlhausen followed his call to rush to the aid of the peasants. Although he certainly found many supporters among the miners, especially from the nearby Mansfeld mines; but in the decisive hour they had not appeared on the Frankenhausen battlefield. There is evidence of joint action by peasant and miners‘ forces only in the Erzgebirge after the Frankenhausen disaster.

The peasants mostly kept to themselves in the struggles and could not count on allies from other classes and strata. The peasants themselves were not a homogeneous class either. The parts in the west, north and east that were not affected by the division of the lands and its consequences did not rise. The effectiveness of propaganda for active change was enough for uprisings to break out at about the same time, but as events progressed, peasant and small-town local particularism resurfaced.

There was neither a uniform objective – Müntzer’s ideas were not universally shared by his fellow campaigners – nor could the different concepts for change be reconciled. The bourgeoisie wanted a more unified economic area and more independence from the ruling classes, but was willing to come to terms with them and make a historic compromise, even at the expense of the peasantry, which was even lower in the hierarchy. They wanted to shake off the yoke of the oppressors and, in the best case, see egalitarian social participation or at least old free spaces restored for themselves. So the revolution remained an attempt.

Conclusions

Günter Vogler, one of the most important historians of the Peasants‘ War, in his article „The Concept of the ‚German Early Bourgeois Revolution‘. Genesis – Aspects – Critical Balance“ presented his reflections on the characterization and classification of the Peasants‘ Wars as an „early bourgeois revolution“. In it, he argues that the two components – the Reformation and the Peasants‘ War – must complement each other in this evaluation.

Vogler argues that the urban bourgeoisie at the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries is not a monolithic entity. Its differentiation is reflected in the continued existence of simple commodity production, which, however, is increasingly integrated into an early capitalist process of production and exchange, which also increased the share of wage labor and expanded the spectrum of social classes in the lower segment of society.

An awareness of the crisis of social changes is generally present at the time, but it takes on different manifestations and is shaped by respective social interests.

The Reformation is highlighted as a kind of catalyst: the Lutheran ideas offered the peasants a starting point by emphasizing the idea of community and also opened up the perspective of strengthening the village community in particular. The appeal to Christian freedom and divine law also contributed to the promotion of self-assertion against official encroachments. The Reformation movement, which had initially found favour in cities and among some noble houses, gained a strengthened social base during the Peasants‘ Wars through the adoption of these basic ideas.

Vogler believes that from both components, the Reformation and the Peasants‘ War, emanate system-disrupting impulses, and that it is therefore justified to apply the concept of revolution here. He justifies this with the demand for „respect for the norms of the Gospel, elimination of the privileged status of the clergy, secularization of church property, bourgeoisification of the church system (what is probably meant is access of the bourgeoisie to church offices; ed.), raising the social and political role of the municipalities, (…) Striving of the subjects for estates (legal protection) and political participation, abolition of serfdom“.

The social process with its manifold conflicts was characterized by a tendency to open the way to a bourgeois society. The urban environment offered the best conditions for turning the Reformation ideas into practice. Vogler argues that redesigns – often of a far-reaching nature – were first initiated mainly in urban municipalities that addressed questions of ownership, legal and status. Specific concerns of rural society that dealt with the same thing would have been quite compatible with bourgeois interests.

He concludes that the revolution was triggered under immature conditions, and thus solutions to problems were also limited. In 1525, neither the pure contradiction between capital and wage labour, nor the historical circumstances that produced it, industrialisation, were conceivable.

This conclusion is not fundamentally different from that of Friedrich Engels or Franz Mehring. Against Ferdinand Lassalle, who characterised the Peasant War as fundamentally reactionary rather than revolutionary he observed : „He wanted to recognize a real revolution only where an old principle was replaced by a new one, and by understanding landed property as the principle of the Middle Ages, industry as the principle of the new age, he wrongly denied the revolutionary character of the Peasants‘ War, because he had adhered to the principle of landed property and knew nothing of the principle of industry.“ ^[iii]

At the same time, however, Mehring and Engels highlighted an important conclusion that remains rather unclear in Vogler and his concept of the „prelude revolution“ in the early bourgeois phase, namely the role of the bourgeoisie in the „early bourgeois revolution“. In the „German Peasants‘ War“, Engels draws a parallel between the role of this class in the Peasants‘ Wars and in the revolution of 1848 – only a minority fought, the majority acted hesitantly and sought peace with the authorities. In doing so, the historical basis is laid for the particularly servile, authoritarian role of the German bourgeoisie, which is solidified over centuries with the defeat of the peasants.

As early as the Peasants‘ War, it was not only the urban patricians who opted for counter-revolution, but also the mass of the bourgeoisie, which was still dominated by the estates system and was only in the process of emerging as a modern (i.e capitalist) class . If one wants to use the term „early bourgeois revolution“, it would be one without a citizenry. It distanced itself from the plebeian masses and sided with the noble butchers. In particular, many of the „humanists“ who are still so celebrated today, such as Philip Melanchthon and others, slandered and agitated against the peasants in the worst possible way. The „great reformer“ Martin Luther called for their brutal suppression by the princely houses in his work „Against the murderous and predatory bands of the peasants“, which they did in their holy zeal.

The Aftermath of Defeat

For the peasantry, the suppression of the uprisings in Germany meant a historic defeat. Their lot as the most oppressed class remained unchanged for centuries. Even the official abolition of serfdom at the beginning of the 19th century ultimately only plunged them into new dependencies.

What changed in Germany? The principalities, the high nobility, won but split into a Catholic and a Protestant wing. The common people certainly did not benefit from this , because the compromise agreed on by both sides was a religious coexistence that was to have political effects just a century later (Thirty Years‘ War). They now had the choice of allowing themselves to be exploited by Protestants or Catholics. This also further weakened the old Reich and favoured the emergence of an absolute monarchy, thus delaying national unity, based on the bourgeoisie, to the benefit of the sovereigns in particular.

The number of losers of the war extended not only to the peasants, but also to the clergy, who had lost their wealth and power, especially in the Protestant areas. From the point of view of the petty nobility, the result of the war was also tantamount to defeat, because they were also deprived of power, not of course by by the peasantry, but by the princely families who had prevailed. This was especially true in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation as, it became clear that a return to the monopolization of power in the hands of the victors meant, that earlier classes or subclasses had suffered defeat too. Even the urban upper class had not – by a long shot – gained anything by their betrayal of the peasants

On the contrary. The bourgeoisie emancipated itself in Germany in an extremely sluggish and largely economic way. It was only through the Napoleonic conquests and the introduction of modern production methods that it received a boost. Especially politically, the doors remained barred to it. Their attempt at revolution in 1848 failed miserably. The desired unified economic area was not established by its own power, but from above in 1871by Bismarck and an authoritarian monarchy. The German bourgeoisie has already played a miserable role in all phases of the development of its society. Progress had to be forced on her – even in her own interest – by others.

Even if the peasant uprisings and especially their most politically advanced leaders such as Thomas Müntzer came too early, so to speak, their role also makes it clear that at all turning points in German history, the power of the revolution came exclusively from the lowest, exploited classes.

Appendix: Unresolved Issues

In Germany, we can no longer build on findings from the Peasants‘ War, because the social structure and status of the remaining peasants in agrarian capitalism can no longer be compared with that of the 15th and 16th centuries.

But the agricultural question has still not been solved internationally. Hundreds of millions continue to work in agriculture in the imperialized countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America and have to vegetate under the most inhumane conditions of exploitation. They are also the first port of call as allies for the working class in the global struggle to overthrow capitalism.

That is why an agrarian program belongs in the indispensable arsenal of a revolutionary internationalist organization. The key demands are:

The land to those who cultivate it!
Expropriation of large landholdings, land distribution to the small farmers or nationalization of large farms and plantations under the control! of agricultural workers
Incentives for cooperative associations through the joint use of machines, fertilisers and animal feed!
Free access to resources, especially water and energy supplies!
Protection against environmental and climate damage!
Protection from imperialist exploitation and financial dependence!
Overcome the division between urban and rural life!