[The following is in regards to the end of the Thirty Years’ War. From the author: “This notation in a family Bible from the village of Gerstetten in the Swabian Alps (in southern Germany), dated January 17, 1647, was discovered by the folklorist and historian Angelika Bischoff-Luithlen. The anonymous author, who lived in a region of Central Europe that was especially devastated by the war, expresses the experience and attitudes that resulted from the war’s long duration and impact.”]
They say the terrible war is over now. But it still doesn’t feel like peace anywhere. Everywhere there is jealousy, hate, and worse things – the war has taught us such. The old people have grown old with godlessness – how could they still change before their end? There are only a few cottages left in the village. We people live like animals, eating bark and grass. No person can imagine that something like this has happened before us. Many people say it is now certain that there is no God. In the last couple of days foreign people moved in, they say from the mountains. They speak a strange language. Seem to me to be capable workers, anyway. Want to stay here, since they were driven out because of heresy. Benckheler, Heinzmann, I, and one of the strangers got together today to see whether we couldn’t make a couple of the crumbling cottages habitable again.
The others all say it’s not really peace, the soldiers will surely come again, and there’s no point in doing anything. But we believe that God has not abandoned us. We all must stand together now and get to work, inside and out.
Author’s note, in regards to the ‘foreign people:’
The author is referring to the Protestants, who at the end of the war were forced to emigrate from the territories of the archbishop of Salzburg, now part of Austria. They found vacant farmsteads on which to settle in the villages of the Swabian Alps and other areas of Central Europe that had been devastated by war. They spoke German, although their dialect was “strange” to the local residents.
Source:
Medick, Hans, and Benjamin Marschke. “Peace Proclaimed and Peace Received: The Peace of Prague and the Peace of Westphalia.” Experiencing the Thirty Years War: A Brief History with Documents. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2013. 183. Print.
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