Civil War in the Holy Roman Empire

Dan Snow's History Hit

History Hit

History

4.7 • 12.9K Ratings

🗓️ 22 June 2025

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this episode, we hear about one of Europe’s most devastating conflicts - the Thirty Years’ War. From 1618 to 1648, the continent was torn apart by religious strife, shifting alliances, and ruthless ambition. What began as a Bohemian rebellion exploded into a brutal struggle that reshaped borders, broke empires, and left millions dead.

We're joined by Peter Wilson, a professor of history at the University of Oxford and author of ‘The Thirty Years War: Europe’s Tragedy’. He takes us from the war’s early years to its bitter end, and explains how the conflict changed Europe forever.

Produced by James Hickmann and edited by Dougal Patmore.

Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.

We'd love to hear your feedback - you can take part in our podcast survey here: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on.

You can also email the podcast directly at [email protected].

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hi buddy, welcome to Danesnose history hit. In Germany, they still shudder at the destruction,
0:10.2	the famine, the monstrous criminality and dislocation of the 30 years war. From 1618 to 1648, great swathes of Europe were given over to violence.
0:28.3	They became a cockpit of war.
0:31.1	Armies scoured the landscape.
0:33.6	They lived off the land and it's people like locusts.
0:39.4	There are so many atrocities to choose from, but if you had to pick one out, you might want to talk about the 20th of May, 1631, when the city of Magdeburg was sacked.
0:51.4	A conquering army swarmed into the town and started looting.
0:54.4	They set a few fires and soon the wind fanned the flames.
0:58.5	And the fire ended up consuming nearly all the city's 1900 buildings.
1:05.2	Of 25,000 inhabitants, it's thought that only 5,000 would survive, and nearly all of them had been
1:13.9	exposed to unimaginable trauma. We have an account by a politician in the town of councilman,
1:21.4	and he said, when civilians ran out of things to give the soldiers, the misery really began.
1:26.9	For then the soldiers began to beat
1:28.6	and frighten and threaten to shoot, skewer, hang, etc. The people. It had been one of the
1:37.2	largest cities in Germany, and it took over a hundred years to recover something of its
1:43.9	prosperity and size.
1:46.0	The devastation was so great that a new word entered the German language.
1:50.1	Magdeburg-Zerian, the Magdeburgization, which signifies utter and complete destruction, rape and pillage.
2:02.5	The 30-year-s war was fought largely within the bounds of the Holy Roman Empire.
2:10.4	This was a galaxy of states and statelets and cities and stretching from what is now France and Belgium deep into Eastern Europe, from the
2:19.6	Baltic to northern Italy. When Hitler is talking about the Third Reich, well, this was the First Reich.
2:26.5	It was a very loose confederation of political units that were in practice pretty much independent,
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 5 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from History Hit, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of History Hit and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.