Thirty Years’ War The greatest single disaster in German history
was the Thirty Years’ War of 1618 to 1648. The war impeded the
flowering of the German nation for centuries after the last
sound of gunfire had faded away. The war began as a conflict
between Protestants and Catholics. The Protestant side consisted
of central and northern Germany, Holland, Denmark, and Sweden.
Catholic Europe was represented by the German Holy Roman Emperor
with a base in southern Germany and with allies in Austria,
Italy, and Spain. The initial religious zeal turned into an
excuse for political opportunism. Whatever the motivation of the
parties, the arena in which the struggle was played out was
German soil. From a religious point of view, the war was a draw.
From political, cultural, and social points of view, the big
loser was the German citizen. At the start of the war, the
population of Germany was perhaps 18 million people and at the
end of the war the population was one-third to one-half of this.
The implications were tr