Kintzer, Künzer, Kuentzer, Küntzer
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Kintzer, Künzer, Kuentzer, Küntzer |
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| Why then did over 100,000 Germans settle in Pennsylvania alone, plus many others in New York, Maryland, Virginia, Georgia and the Carolinas? The emigration became so large in fact that the German authorities passed laws trying to slow or halt the exodus from their country. To understand the why of this huge German emigration we must look at the world they lived in. Among the root causes of so many fleeing their homeland to an unknown future was the aftermath of the Reformation and the resulting Thirty Years War. The Catholic Church from which the 16th century reformers emerged was a complex one. Over the centuries, the church become deeply involved in the political life of western Europe. The church's increasing power and wealth plus the resulting intrigues and political manipulations produced a church bankrupt as a spiritual force. The corruption of the clergy and the sale of indulgences (forgiveness for future sins) further undermined the church's spiritual authority. There was considerable and serious awareness of a need for change before Luther is said to have posted his Ninety-five Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, on October. 31, 1517. Martin Luther went to the theological root of the problem--the perversion of the church's doctrine of redemption and grace. Luther, a pastor and professor at the University of Wittenberg, attacked the indulgence system, insisting that the pope had no authority over purgatory and that the doctrine of the merits of the saints had no foundation in the gospel. Scripture alone is authoritative and justification is by faith, not by works. Luther did not intend to break with the Catholic Church, only to reform it. In 1521, Luther was tried before the Imperial Diet of Worms and when he refused to recant was eventually excommunicated. Luther provided a root but other reformers quickly arose such as Swingli and Calvin to lead the Protestant Reformation that fractured Christian church. The Thirty Years War In 1618, Ferdinand II, in his role as king of Bohemia, attempted to impose Roman Catholic absolutism on his domains, and the Protestant nobles of both Bohemia and Austria rose up in rebellion. Ferdinand won after a five-year struggle but Sweden's Gustav Adolf II invaded Germany and won many German princes to his anti-Roman Catholic cause. Three denominations vied for dominance: Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism, and Calvinism resulting in a Gordian tangle of alliances as princes and prelates called in foreign powers to aid them. The principal battlefield for all these intermittent conflicts was the towns and principalities of Germany, particularly the Palatine states, which suffered severely. Many soldiers of the contending armies were mercenaries who could not collect their pay. This threw them on the countryside for their supplies. The armies of both sides plundered, burned and raped as they marched, leaving cities, towns, villages, and farms devastated. Before the Thirty Years War the peasants and farmers were prosperous with comfortable houses, capacious barns, horses and cattle. During the war horses and cattle were carried away, houses and barns were burned. Even crops were burned in the fields. The master of the house often tortured to force him to give up any hoard of gold. One Swabian peasant tells us in his diary that he was forced to flee his home thirty times. One German historian, Frytag, cites some astonishing figures of the losses and destruction. In the county of Henneburg, in the course of the war seventy five percent of the inhabitants were destroyed, sixty six percent of the houses, eighty five percent of the horses, and eighty two percent of the cattle. In the years 1636 to 1638 the famine was so great that the people were forced to satisfy their hunger with roots, grass and leaves. cannibalism was not unknown. So great was the desolation that wolves roamed unmolested where once were prosperous farms and vineyards.. The peace of Westphalia finally brought the conflict to an end in 1649. So complete was the devastation that it took two hundred years to restore the same level of agricultural prosperity. In the years of 1674 to 1675 came war between France and Holland. The Palatines lying between the two countries were again devastated. Louis XIV sat out to render the Palatinate useless to his enemies. Once again the fields were laid waste, the cattle carried off and the houses and towns burned, but this was only a prelude. In 1685 Philip William inherited the title of Elector of the Palatinate. At this juncture Louis XIV laid claim to a large portion to the Palatinate. When he could not prevail over the forces arrayed against him he is quoted as saying, "if the soil of the Palatinate is not to furnish supplies to the French it shall be so wasted that it would at least furnish no supplies to the Germans." At one time the commander of the French army gave half a million people three days to move from the occupied territory. The people fled through fields deep in snow, while houses, churches and villages were set to the torch. At other times corn fields were ploughed under, orchards hewn down and vineyards uprooted.. When Phillip William died in 1690 his son and successor was easily led by the Jesuits. At the conclusion of the war between France and Germany the Protestant church in the palatinate was virtually crushed. Forced to turn their churches over to the Catholics or share the church and bow the knee to the Catholic prelates and still suffering from the desolation of several wars these protestants were ready for the promises of the 'new world.' Huhns, The German and Swiss Settlements of Colonial Pennsylvania, New York., 1900 |
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© R. C. Kinser Last
update February 20, 2007 |