Sack of Magdeburg

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Thirty Years' War

Plzeň – Záblati – Dolní Věstonice – White Mountain – Bergen-op-Zoom – Wiesloch – Wimpfen – Höchst – Fleurus – Stadtlohn – Breda – Dessau Bridge – Lutter am Barenberge – Groenlo – Stralsund – Wolgast – Frankfurt – Magdeburg – Werben – 1st Breitenfeld – Rain – Fürth – Alte Veste – Lützen – Oldendorf – Nördlingen – Wittstock – Rheinfelden – Breisach – Chemnitz – The Downs – La Marfée – Honnecourt – 2nd Breitenfeld – Rocroi – Tuttlingen – Freiburg – Jüterbog – Jankov – Hulst – Mergentheim – 2nd Nördlingen – Zusmarshausen – Lens – Prague

The Sack of Magdeburg (German: Magdeburgs Opfergang or German: Magdeburger Hochzeit) refers to the siege and subsequent plundering of the largely Protestant city of Magdeburg by Imperial, and thus "Catholic," troops during the Thirty Years' War. The siege lasted from November 1630 until 20 May 1631.

On the latter date Gottfried Heinrich Graf zu Pappenheim, together with Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly, attacked Magdeburg for its rich stores of goods and the city fell. Subsequently the Imperial soldiers rapidly went out of control and started to massacre the inhabitants and set fire to the city in twelve different locations. Of the 30,000 citizens, only 5,000 survived. For fourteen days, charred bodies were carried to the Elbe River to be dumped to prevent plague.

The devastation was so heavy that the expression of "magdeburgization" remained as a 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 Protestant forces when executing Catholics who begged for quarter.

[edit] References

Firoozi, Edith, and Ira N. Klein. Universal History of the World: The Age of Great Kings. Vol. 9. New York: Golden Press, 1966. pp. 738-739.
von Schiller, Johann Christoph Friedrich. The History of the Thirty Years' War. 1791. pp. 177-190.