Editing Thirty Years' War (section)

== Social and cultural impact ==

The breakdown of social order caused by the war was often more significant and longer lasting than the immediate damage.{{Sfn|Wedgwood|1938|p=516}} The collapse of local government created landless peasants, who banded together to protect themselves from the soldiers of both sides, and led to widespread rebellions in [[Peasants' War in Upper Austria|Upper Austria]], Bavaria and Brandenburg. Soldiers devastated one area before moving on, leaving large tracts of land empty of people and changing the ecosystem. Food shortages were worsened by an explosion in the rodent population, while Bavaria was overrun by wolves in the winter of 1638, and its crops destroyed by packs of wild pigs the following spring.{{Sfn|Wilson|2009|p=784}}

[[File:Bondi brennandi hus.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.0|A peasant begs for mercy in front of his burning farm; by the 1630s, being caught in the open by soldiers from either side was "tantamount to a death sentence".{{Sfn|Outram|2002|p=250}}]]

Contemporaries spoke of a "frenzy of despair" as people sought to make sense of the relentless and often random bloodshed unleashed by the war. Attributed by religious authorities to divine retribution, attempts to identify a supernatural cause led to a series of [[witch-hunt]]s, starting in Franconia in 1626, then quickly spreading to other parts of Germany.{{Sfn|White|2012|p=220}} They began in the [[Bishopric of Würzburg]], an area with a history of such events going back to 1616 and now re-ignited by [[Philipp Adolf von Ehrenberg|Bishop von Ehrenberg]], a devout Catholic eager to assert the church's authority in his territories. By the time he died in 1631, [[Würzburg witch trial|over 900 people]] from all levels of society had been [[burned at the stake|executed]].{{Sfn|Jensen|2007|p=93}}

The [[Bamberg witch trials]], held in the nearby [[Bishopric of Bamberg]] from 1626 to 1631, claimed over one thousand lives; in 1629, 274 died in the [[Eichstätt witch trials]], plus another 50 in the adjacent Duchy of [[Palatinate-Neuburg]].{{Sfn|Trevor-Roper|2001|pp=83–117}} Elsewhere, persecution followed Imperial military success, expanding into [[Margraviate of Baden|Baden]] and the Palatinate following their reconquest by Tilly, then into the [[Rhineland]].{{Sfn|Briggs|1996|p=163}} However, the extent to which they were symptomatic of the impact of the conflict on society is debatable, since many took place in areas relatively untouched by the war. Concerned their brutality would discredit the Counter-Reformation, Ferdinand ensured active persecution largely ended by 1630.{{Sfn|Briggs|1996|pp=171–172}}

Although the war caused immense destruction, it has also been credited with sparking a revival in German literature, including the creation of societies dedicated to "purging foreign elements" from the German language.{{Sfn|Friehs}} One example is ''[[Simplicius Simplicissimus]]'', often suggested as one of the earliest examples of the [[picaresque novel]]; written by [[Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen]] in 1668, it includes a realistic portrayal of a soldier's life based on his own experiences, many of which are verified by other sources.{{Sfn|Talbott|2021|pp=3–4}} Other less famous examples include the diaries of [[Peter Hagendorf]], a participant in the [[Sack of Magdeburg]] whose descriptions of the everyday brutalities of the war remain compelling.{{Sfn|Helfferich|2009|pp=283–284}}

For German, and to a lesser extent Czech writers, the war was remembered as a defining moment of national trauma, the 18th century poet and playwright [[Friedrich Schiller]] being one of many to use it in their work. Variously known as the 'Great German War,' 'Great War' or 'Great Schism', for 19th and early 20th century German nationalists it showed the dangers of a divided Germany and was used to justify the creation of the [[German Empire]] in 1871, as well as the [[Greater Germanic Reich]] envisaged by the [[Nazi Germany|Nazis]].{{Sfn|Cramer|2007|pp=18–19}} [[Bertolt Brecht]] used it as the backdrop for his 1939 anti-war play ''[[Mother Courage and Her Children]]'', while its enduring cultural resonance is illustrated by the novel ''[[Tyll (novel)|Tyll]]''; written by Austro-German author [[Daniel Kehlmann]] and also set during the war, it was nominated for the 2020 [[Booker Prize]].{{Sfn|Talbott|2021|p=6}}