The Peasant War in Germany

revolution,  he  taught,  must  be  overthrown,  all  work  and  all  property  must  be  shared  in
common,  and  complete  equality  must  be  introduced.  In  his  conception,  a  union  of  the
people  was  to  be  organised  to  realise  this  programme,  not  only  throughout  Germany,  but
throughout entire Christendom. Princes and nobles were to be invited to join, and should
they  refuse,  the  union  was  to  overthrow  or  kill  them,  with  arms  in  hand,  at  the  first
opportunity.
Muenzer immediately set to work to organise the union. His preachings assumed a still
more  militant  character.  He  attacked,  not  only  the  clergy,  but  with  equal  passion  the
princes,  the  nobility  and  the  patricians.  He  pictured  in  burning  colours  the  existing
oppression, and contrasted it with the vision of the millennium of social republican equality
which  he  created  out  of  his  imagination.  He  published  one  revolutionary  pamphlet  after
another,  sending  emissaries  in  all  directions,  while  he  personally  organised  the  union  in
Allstedt and its vicinity.
The first fruit of this propaganda was the destruction St. Mary’s Chapel in Mellerbach
near  Allstedt,  according  to  the  command  of  the  Bible  (Deut.  7,  5):  “Ye  shall  break  down
their  altars,  and  dash  in  pieces  their  pillars,  and  hew  down  their  Asherim,  and  burn  their
graven  images  with  fire.”  The  princes  of  Saxony  came  in  person  to  Allstedt  quell  the
upheaval, and they called Muenzer to the castle. There he delivered a sermon, which they
had never heard from Luther, “that easy living flesh of Wittenberg,” Muenzer called him.
He  insisted  that  the  ungodly  rulers,  especially  the  priests  and  monks  who  treated  the
Gospel as heresy, must be killed; for confirmation he referred to the New Testament. The
ungodly have no right to live, he said, save by the mercy of the chosen ones. If the princes
would  not  exterminate  the  ungodly,  he  asserted,  God  would  take  their  sword  from  them
because the right to wield the sword belongs to the community. The source of the evil of
usury,  thievery  and  robbery,  he  said,  were  the  princes  and  the  masters  who  had  taken  all
creatures  into  their  private  possession  –  the  fishes  in  the  water,  the  birds  in  the  air,  the
plants in the soil. And the usurpers, he said, still preached to the poor the commandment,
“Thou shalt not steal,” while they grabbed everything, and robbed and crushed the peasant
and the artisan. “When, however, one of the latter commits the slightest transgression,” he
said, “he has to hang, and Dr. Liar says to all this: Amen.” The masters themselves created
a situation, he argued, in which the poor man was forced to become their enemy. If they did
not  remove  the  causes  of  the  upheaval,  how  could  things  improve  in  times  to  come?  he
asked.  “Oh,  my  dear  gentlemen,  how  the  Lord  will  smite  with  an  iron  rod  all  these  old
pots!  When  I  say  so,  I  am  considered  rebellious.  So  be  it!”  (Cf.  Zimmermann’s  Peasant
War, II, p. 75.)
Muenzer had the sermon printed. His Allstedt printer was punished by Duke Johann of
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Saxony  with  banishment.  His  own  writings  were  to  be  henceforth  subjected  to  the
censorship  of  the  ducal  government  in  Weimar.  But  he  paid  no  heed  to  this  order.  He
immediately published a very inciting paper in the imperial city of Muehlhausen, wherein
he admonished the people “to widen the hole so that all the world may see and comprehend
who our fools are who have blasphemously turned our Lord into a painted mannikin.” He
concluded with the following words: “All the world must suffer a big jolt. The game will
be such that the ungodly will be thrown off their seats and the downtrodden will rise.” As a
motto,  Thomas  Muenzer,  “the  man  with  the  hammer,”  wrote  the  following  on  the  title
page:  “Beware,  I  have  put  my  words  into  thy  mouth;  I  have  lifted  thee  above  the  people
and  above  the  empires  that  thou  mayest  uproot,  destroy,  scatter  and  overthrow,  and  that
thou mayest build and plant. A wall of iron against the kings, princes, priests, and for the
people  hath  been  erected.  Let  them  fight,  for  victory  is  wondrous,  and  the  strong  and
godless tyrants will perish.”
The  breach  between  Muenzer  and  Luther  with  his  party  had  taken  place  long  before
that. Luther himself was compelled to accept some church reforms which were introduced
by Muenzer without consulting him. Luther watched Muenzer’s activities with the nettled
distrust  of  a  moderate  reformer  towards  an  energetic  far-aiming  radical.  Already  in  the
spring of 1524, in a letter to Melanchthon, that model of a hectic stay-at-home Philistine,
Muenzer  wrote  that  he  and  Luther  did  not  understand  the  movement  at  all.  They  were
seeking, he said, to choke it by adherence to the letter of the Bible, and their doctrine was
worm-eaten.  “Dear  brethren,”  he  wrote,  “stop  your  delaying  and  hesitating.  The  time  has
come, the summer is knocking at our doors. Do not keep friendship with the ungodly who
prevent the Word from exercising its full force. Do not flatter your princes in order that you
may  not  perish  with  them.  Ye  tender,  bookish  scholars,  do  not  be  wroth,  for  I  cannot  do
otherwise.”
Luther  had  more  than  once  invited  Muenzer  to  an  open  debate.  The  latter,  however,
being always ready to accept battle in the presence of the people, did not have the slightest
desire  to  plunge  into  a  theological  squabble  before  the  partisan  public  of  the  Wittenberg
University. He had no desire “to bring the testimony of the spirit before the high school of
learning exclusively.” If Luther was sincere, he wrote, let him use his influence to stop the
chicaneries  against  his,  Muenzer’s,  printers,  and  to  lift  the  censorship  in  order  that  their
controversy might be freely fought out in the press.
When the above-mentioned revolutionary brochure appeared, Luther openly denounced
Muenzer.  In  his  “Letter  to  the  Princes  of  Saxony  Against  the  Rebellious  Spirit,”  he
declared Muenzer to be an instrument of Satan, and demanded of the princes to intervene,
and  drive  the  instigators  of  the  upheaval  out  of  the  country,  since,  he  said,  they  did  not
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