Sack of Magdeburg

The archbishopric of Magdeburg was established as an ecclesiastical principality in 968.[2] In political respect the Erzstift, the archiepiscopal and capitular temporalities, had gained imperial immediacy as prince-archbishopric in 1180. This meant that the archbishop of Magdeburg ruled the town and the lands around it in all matters, worldly and spiritual.

The citizens of Magdeburg had turned Protestant in 1524[3] and joined the Schmalkaldic League against the religious policies of the Catholic emperor Charles V in 1531.[4] During the Schmalkaldic War of 1546/47, the Lower Saxon city became a refuge for Protestant scholars, which earned it the epithet Herrgotts Kanzlei (German for 'Lord's Chancellery'),[5] but also an Imperial ban that lasted until 1562.[6] The citizens refused to acknowledge Emperor Charles's Augsburg Interim and were besieged by Imperial troops under Maurice, Elector of Saxony in 1550/51.[7]

Administrator Christian William of Brandenburg, engraving by Merian

The Roman Catholic archdiocese had de facto turned void since 1557, when the last papally confirmed prince-archbishop, the Lutheran Sigismund of Brandenburg, came of age and ascended to the see.[2][8]

Openly Lutheran Christian William of Brandenburg, elected to be archbishop in 1598, was denied recognition by the imperial authorities.[9] Since about 1600, he styled himself Administrator of Magdeburg, as did other Protestant German notables assigned to govern principalities that were de jure property of the Catholic church.

Colored engraving showing the city of Magdeburg, circa 1600

During the Thirty Years' War, Administrator Christian William entered into an alliance with Denmark.[9] In 1626, he led an army from Lower Saxony into the Battle of Dessau Bridge. After Wallenstein won this battle, Christian William fled abroad.[10]^: 164 In 1629, he fled to the court of King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden.[9]

As a result of these developments, in January 1628, the Magdeburg cathedral chapter deposed Christian William and elected Augustus of Wettin, 13-year-old son of John George I, Elector of Saxony, as Administrator. Augustus did not assume office immediately due to his father's unwillingness to provoke the emperor.[11]

In March 1629, Emperor Ferdinand II passed the Edict of Restitution. It was specifically aimed at restoring the situation of the 1555 Peace of Augsburg in ecclesiastical territories that had since strayed from "legal" Catholic faith and rule.[12] Bremen and Magdeburg were the biggest examples of territories to be restituted.

The city's councillors had been emboldened by King Gustavus Adolphus's landing in Pomerania on 6 July 1630.[13]^: 128 The Swedish king was a Lutheran Christian, and many of Magdeburg's residents were convinced that he would aid them in their struggle against the Roman Catholic Habsburg emperor, Ferdinand II. However, not all Protestant princes of the Holy Roman Empire had immediately embraced Adolphus;[14]^: 107 some believed his chief motive for entering the war was to take northern German ports, which would allow him to control commerce in the Baltic Sea.[13]^: 129[15]

In November 1630, King Gustavus sent ex-Administrator Christian William back to Magdeburg, along with Dietrich von Falkenberg to direct the city's military affairs. Backed by the Lutheran clergy, Falkenberg had the suburbs fortified and additional troops recruited.[10]^: 167

Engraving from Theatrum Europaeum, showing the fighting for Magdeburg's defense works

When the Magdeburg citizens refused to pay a tribute demanded by the emperor, Imperial forces under the command of a Flemish mercenary, Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly laid siege to the city within a matter of months.[14]^: 107 The city was besieged from 20 March 1631 and Tilly put his subordinate Imperial Field Marshal Gottfried Heinrich Graf zu Pappenheim, a Catholic convert, in command while he campaigned elsewhere. During fierce fighting, Imperial troops numbering 24,000, roughly the same number as Magdeburg's entire population, conquered several sconces of the city's fortification and Tilly demanded capitulation.[16]

There are written reports of the attackers setting fire to single houses to dislodge persistent defenders. That the fire then spread all over the city appears to have been unintended. By ten o'clock most of the city was on fire. General Tilly sent some soldiers to save the cathedral, where 1,000 survivors had fled. Most of the victims in the sack suffocated or burned to death. The wind fanned the flames, further spreading the fire, in the end destroying 1,700 of the city's 1,900 buildings.[1]

Sack of Magdeburg – The Magdeburg maidens, 1866 painting by Eduard Steinbrück

Whilst Magdeburg was razed by the fire, many Imperial soldiers supposedly went out of control. The invading soldiers had not received payment for their service and demanded valuables from every household they encountered. There were reports of rapes[1] and torture.[14]^: 109

When civilians ran out of things to give the soldiers, the misery really began.
For then the soldiers began to beat, frighten and threaten to shoot, skewer, hang, etc., the people.

— Otto von Guericke, Magdeburg councilman[14]^: 109

Of the 25,000 inhabitants, only 5,000 survived, at least 1,000 of these having fled into Magdeburg Cathedral and 600 into the Premonstratensian monastery.[1] Tilly finally ordered an end to the looting on 24 May, and a Catholic mass was celebrated at the cathedral on the next day. For another fourteen days, charred bodies were dumped in the Elbe River to prevent disease.

I believe that over twenty thousand souls were lost. It is certain that no more terrible work and divine punishment has been seen since the destruction of Jerusalem.[lower-alpha 1] All of our soldiers became rich. God with us.

— Graf Pappenheim, in a letter[17]^: 23–48

After Magdeburg's capitulation to the Imperial forces, there were disputes between residents who had favoured resistance to the emperor and those who had opposed it. King Gustavus Adolphus joined the argument, claiming the citizens of Magdeburg had not been willing to pay the necessary funds for their defence.[14]^: 112

Duke Maximilian of Bavaria, president of the Catholic League, concluded a congratulatory letter to Tilly on 1 June with the wish that "the enemies, powers and forces opposing Catholicism, the only religion offering salvation, would finally be ruined".[lower-alpha 2][18]^: 49

Pope Urban VIII wrote a congratulatory letter to Tilly on 18 June, saying: "You have washed your victorious hands in the blood of sinners."[lower-alpha 3][19]^: 48

The Imperial treatment of defeated Magdeburg helped persuade many Protestant rulers in the Holy Roman Empire to stand against the Roman Catholic emperor.[14]^: 113

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Goethe: The Destruction of Magdeburg

The devastations were so great that Magdeburgisieren (or "magdeburgization") became a common term signifying total destruction, rape and pillaging for decades. The terms "Magdeburg justice", "Magdeburg mercy" and "Magdeburg quarter" also arose as a result of the sack, used originally by Protestants when executing Roman Catholics who begged for quarter.[20]^{: 561–562}

The massacre was forcefully described by Friedrich Schiller in his 1792 work History of the Thirty Years' War[21] and perpetuated in a poem by Goethe.[22] A scene of Brecht's play Mother Courage and Her Children, written in 1939, also refers to the event.[23]

Administrator Christian William of Brandenburg was badly injured and taken prisoner. He later converted to Catholicism and was released. He received an annual sum of 12,000 thaler from the revenues of the archbishopric of Magdeburg under the Peace of Prague.

After the sack, the archbishopric of Magdeburg went to Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria, youngest son of emperor Ferdinand II, as the new Catholic Administrator. The Peace of Prague (1635) confirmed his rule over the city, but three years later, Swedish troops expelled the Habsburg army and restored Augustus of Wettin (first elected in 1628) as Administrator as of October 1638. Augustus finally took full control of Magdeburg in December 1642 after a neutrality treaty was concluded with the Swedish general Lennart Torstenson. He was then able to begin the reconstruction of the city.

The Archbishopric of Magdeburg was secularized and ultimately fell to Brandenburg-Prussia upon Augustus' death in 1680.