Der Dreiβigjährige Krieg: Ein Lexikon (review)

German journalist Friedemann Bedürftig, author of reference works such as Lexikon Deutschland nach 1945 (Hamburg, 1996) and Lexikon der Heiligen (Köln, 2006), has provided another such book. This one centers on the military and political circumstances of the Thirty Years War (1618–48).

In addition to almost 190 pages of short articles, Bedürftig provides four detailed color maps of what are traditionally seen as the main phases of the war, a short bibliography of basic works on the war that have either originally been published in or later translated into German, and a chronology of major events between 1607 and 1659. The work’s primary emphasis on political and military topics is reflected in the almost forty entries about specific battles and over fifty about various military leaders. Another forty-five or so cover the men (and a handful of women) who ruled over various territories. About forty articles help untangle various treaties, alliances, and edicts, and about thirty briefly discuss various diplomats and administrators.

Readers looking for discussions of Christian religious issues leading to the Thirty Years War and developing in its context will be disappointed by the relatively small number of theologians and other religious figures or themes discussed by Bedürftig. The Protestants Johann Valentin Andreä, Johann Amos Comenius, Matthias Hoë von Hohenegg, and Georg Jenatsch are found alongside famous Roman Catholic figures such as Popes Innocent X and Urban VIII, Wilhelm Lamormain, and François Ogier. General articles on Congregatio de propaganda fide, the Counter-Reformation, and Jesuits reveal a rather traditional and static view of the religious controversies tied to the war.

Because of his emphasis on military and political themes, Bedürftig sketches well the roles of several great cardinals, prince-bishops, and bishopgenerals of the period. These include the cardinals Albrecht of Habsburg, Franz von Dietrichstein, Ferdinand of Austria, Melchior Khlesl, Jules Mazarin, Peter Pázmány and, of course, Richelieu.

The target audience of this lexicon is unclear. There exist many narrative accounts of the war appropriate for general audiences. These are repeatedly mentioned in the articles and bibliography. For specialists, the brief entries and bibliography do not provide enough specific details to be of any great use. Perhaps the the author’s suggestion to browse the book, following trails from one article to another via the cross-references, is the proper advice: reading the book thereby becomes a literary experience.

If these trails are followed, the war itself can be seen as a literary construction. This is particularly clear in the multiple references to Friedrich Schiller and his writings from the 1790s, starting with the influential history of the war that he wrote for the Ladies Historical Calendar. Bedürftig’s excellent overview of the literary traces of the war (pp. 103–05) can stand as the centerpiece of the lexicon and its most important contribution.