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Thomas Müntzer in Marxist Thought

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Abraham Friesen
Abraham Friesen
Affiliation:
Graduate Fellow, Stanford University
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Extract

Thomas Müntzer, in the well known words of the Apostle Paul, has come to be ‘all things to all men,’ albeit only after his death. But already during his lifetime opinion was strongly divided over this man. Certainly he had his staunch supporters1 as well as his bitter enemies, but there were also those who saw both good and evil in him. Müntzer's most adamant opponent was undoubtedly Martin Luther himself, who had no intention of standing idly by while his ‘Reformation’ went up in the smoke of revolution.2 Those, however, who saw both good and evil in Müntzer were not involved in the immediate struggle but witnessed events from a distance—the Anabaptists of Zurich under the leadership of Conrad Grebel.3

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 34 , Issue 3 , September 1965 , pp. 306 - 327
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1965

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References

1. Zschäbitz, Gerhard, Zur mitteldeutschen Wiedertäferbewegung nach dem Bauernkrieg (Berlin, 1958), particularly pages 26–27Google Scholar for examples of support even after his death.

2. Hinrichs, Carl, Luther und Müntzer (Berlin, 1962)Google Scholar, for a very penetrating study of the struggle between the two men.

3. Letter of Grebel and others to Müntzer. Williams, G. H. & Mergal, A. M., eds., Spiritual and Anabaptist Writers (London, 1958), p. 73.Google Scholar

4. Luther, , Sammtliche Sehriften (St. Louis, Missouri, 1899), Vol. XVI, pp. 2596–7.Google Scholar

5. Notably his letter to the city council of Mühlhausen and the Saxon princes. Cf. Ibid., 2–4, and 4–17.

6. “Er lehrte auch, dass alle Güter gemein sein, wie in Actis Apostolorum geschrieben steht, dass sie die Güter zasammengethan haben.” Ibid., 164.

7. “hub an zu Allstedt und machte em Register, schrieb darein alle, so sieh zn ihm verbunden and verpflichteten, die unehristlichen Fürsten zu strafen, und christlich Regiment einzusetzen.” Ibid., 163.

8. This interpretation was begun by Coehläus; cf. Hertes, Adolf, Das Katholische Lutherbild im Bann der Lutherkommentare des Cochläus, 3 vols. (Münster, 1943)Google Scholar.

9. This line of argument is represented by Keller, Ludwig, Die Reformation und die ältere Reformpartei (Leipzig, 1885)Google Scholar, but even he quoted an article by Heberle which had appeared in the Jahrbuch für deut. Theologie, 1858 p. 258,Google Scholar entitled “Die Anfänge des Anabaptismus in dee Schweiz” which claimed that the Swiss Anabaptists had arisen independently of Müntzer, p. 371.

10. Notably Karl Holl and Heinrich Boehmer; cf. Friedman, Robert, “Thomas Müntzer's Relation to Anabaptism,” Mennonite Quarterly Review, XXXI (04, 1957), 75–88.Google Scholar

11. Holl, Karl, Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Kirchengeschichte, I (Tübingen, 1932), p. 452.Google Scholar

12. Rupp, E.G., “Luther and Thomas Müntzer,” Luther Today, I (Iowa, 1957), p. 142.Google Scholar

13. Wilhelm Zimmermann, German poet and historian, was born in Stuttgart, January 2, 1807, and died in Mergenthelm, Würtemberg, in September 22, 1878. After study at Tübingen he was connected with various journals in Stuttgart; from 1847 to 1850 he was professor of history anid of German language and literature in the Polytechnic Institute there, but lost the post because of his liberal attitude as a member of the German National Assembly (1848), and the Würtemberg parliament. Subsequently he was pastor of Evangelical churches at Leonbronn, Schnnitheim and Owen.

14. “Mit Recht nannte Treitschke den Geist Thomas Müntzer's einea Spiegel, der die Erscheinungen künftiger Zeiten in sick prophetisch dargestellt; mit Recht hob er hervor, dass einzelne Ideen aus der Masse der Ideen, welehe das Gemüth Münzer's erfullt haben, and die seine Zeit verlachte, später von anderen Männer aufgefasst und ausgebildet worden seien, die damit Bewunderung und Rubm geernte haben, wie… die französischen Demagogen und die Naturphilosophen.” Zimmermann, Wilhem, Geschichte des grossen Bauernkrieges, 2 vols. (Stuttgart, 1856), pp. 4–5.Google Scholar

15. Ibid., I, 168–199.

16. Marx, Karl, Das Kapital and the Communist Manifesto (Great Books, Chicago, 1952), p. 416.Google Scholar

17. “The whole history of mankind since the dissolution of primitive tribal society, holding land in common ownership, has been a history of class struggles, contests between exploiting and exploited, ruling and oppressed classes; the history of these class struggles forms a series of evolutions in which now-a-days, a stage has been reached where the exploited and oppressed class, the proletariat, cannot attain its emancipation from the sway of the exploiting ruling class, the bourgeoisie, without, at the same time, and once and for all, emancipating society at large from a 11 exploitation, oppression, class-distinction and class struggle.” Engels in his preface to the “Communist Manifesto,” Ibid.

18. Lichtheim, George, Marxism, an Historical and Critical Study (New York, 1961), p. 16.Google Scholar

19. Ibid.

20. Ibid., p. 17.

21. In a letter to a certain J. Bloch of September 21, 1890, Engels had this to say: “According to the materialist conception of history the determining element in history is ultimately the production and reproduction in real life. More than this neither Marx nor I have ever asserted. If therefore somebody twists tbis into the statement that the economic element is the only determining one, he transforms it into a meaningless, abstract and absurd phrase. The economic situation is the basis, but the various elements of the superstructure—political forms of class struggle and its consequences, constitutions established by the victorious class after a successful battle, etc.—forms of law—and then even the reflexes of all these actual struggles in the brains of the combatants: political, legal, philosophical theories, religious ideas and their further development into systems of dogma—also exercise their influence upon the course of the historical struggles and in many cases preponderate in determining their form.” Marx-Engels, , Correspondence (New York, 1934), p. 475.Google Scholar

22. In a letter to Engels dated Nov. 4, 1864, Marx referred to Leopold von Ranke as “the bouncing little root-grubber Ranke… [who attributed] all great events to petty and mean causes…” Ibid., p. 159.

23. Engels, Friedrich, The Peasant War in Germany (New York, 1906), p. 11.Google Scholar

24. August Bebel, born in poverty in 1840, from early youth showed a tremendous appetite for knowledge despite a weak constitution. On his journeyings as a Handwerksgeselle he came to Leipzig in 1860, then the centre of the growing socialist movement in Germany, and by 1865, he became the chairman of the group. His political career began in opposition of Lassalle and by 1867 of the Saxon Volkspartei together with Wilhelm Liebknecht. Under the influence of Liebknecht Bebel decided to join the Marxist movement in Eisenach in 1869. He always remained an intense opponent of Marxist revisionism.

25. Bebel, August, Der Deutsche Bauernkrieg (Braunschweig, 1876), pp. iii–iv.Google Scholar

26. Engels, op. cit., p. 6.

27. Ibid., p. 65. “Müntzer, whose ideas became more definitely shaped and more courageous, now definitely relinquished the middle-class reformation, and at the same time appeared as a direct political agitator… Under the cloak of Christian forms, he preached a kind of pantheism, which curiously resembles the modern speculative mode of contemplation, and at time even taught open atheism.”

28. Ibid., p. 51.

29. Mayer, Gustav, Friedrich Engels (New York, 1936), p. 122.Google Scholar

30. Engels, op. cit., p. 53.

31. Ibid., p. 54.

32. Ibid., p. 56.

33. Forell, George, “Thomas Müntzer, Symbol and Reality.” Dialog Reprint, II (Winter Issue, 1960)Google Scholar.

34. Engels, op. cit., p. 65.

35. Ibid.

36. Ibid.

37. Ibid.

38. Ibid., p. 67.

39. Ibid., p. 71.

40. Ibid., p. 72.

41. Ibid.

42. Ferdinand Lassalle, deeply infused with the Romantic spirit, led a passionate, flamboyant life, full of amorous intrigues but was yet truly dedicated to the betterment of the working classes. He was not a systematic social theorist and often adjusted his ideas to meet special or local conditions. He was the founder of the German Social Democratic movement and envisaged an evolutionary transition from capitalism to socialism. When he was about to share his social ideas with Bismarck, he was shot and mortally wounded in a duel over the hand of Helene von Dönniges, whose parents had refused to allow their marriage.

43. Quoted in Lukacz, George, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels als Literaturkritiker (Berlin, 1952), p. 19.Google Scholar

44. Ibid., p. 23.

45. The ‘telescoping of the revolution’ has caused quite a problem in Marxist thought especially since many revolutionaries could not wait until the historical dialectic had fulfilled the rigid demands of Marxist logic. The classic example of a revolution which was ‘telescoped’ was the Russian Revolution of 1917. Cf. Lichtheim, op. cit., p. 333ff.

46. Lassaile made a lengthy reply on May 27, 1859, in which he pointed out that the objections of Man and Engels could be reduced to this: “Eure Einwürfe reduzieren sich in letzter Analyse darauf, dass ich überhaupt einen ‘Franz v. Siekingen” und nicht einen Thomas Münzer” oder eine andere Bauernkriegestragödie geschrieben habe.” Then he went on to demonstrate that the Peasants' War of 1525 was just ns reactionary, if not more so, than the revolt led by Sickingen Cf. Mehring, Franz, Aus dem literarischen Nachlass von Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels wad Ferdinand Lassalle, Vol. IV (Stuttgart, 1902), pp. 153–183.Google Scholar

47. “In einem konscqneuten energischen Auftreten gegen seine Feinde hat sich das Volk, die grosse frnnzösische Revolution ausgenommen, noch kaum in einer Revolution aufgerafft; auch ist, was von der Grausamkeit und Rachesucht des Volkscharakters gesagt wird, Lüge nnd Verlenmdung.” Bebel, op. cit., p. 138.

48. Ibid., p. 190.

49. Ibid., p. 191.

50. Rupp, op. cit., p. 145.

51. Kantsky was one of the founders of the Independent Social Democratic Party of 1917 in Germany. From the death of Engels until the end of World War One he was one of the leading figures, if not the leading figure, in the German socialist movement. A pacifist during the war, he took a strong stand against the Russian brand of communism after 1917. He died in the Netherlands, 1938, in extreme poverty and exile from Hitler's Germany.

52. Kantsky, Karl, Communism in Central Europe at the Time of the Reformation (London, 1897), p. 109.Google Scholar

53. Ibid.

54. Ibid.

55. Ibid., p. 110.

56. Ibid., p. 143.

57. Ibid., p. 153.

58. Ibid.

59. Ibid.

60. Ibid., p. 154.

61. Quoted in Engels, op. cit., pp. 9–10.

62. A partial answer to the change which took place in Engels from the time he wrote his book in 1850 to his letter to Kantsky of 1895 may be found in a letter which he wrote to a certain J. Bloch on Oct. 27, 1890, in which he stated: “Marx and I are ourselves partly to blame for the fact that younger writers sometimes lay more stress on the economic side than is due to it. We bad to emphasize this main principle in opposition to our adversaries, who denied it, and we had not always the time, the place or the opportunity to allow the other elements involved in the interaction to come into their rights… Unfortunately, however, it happens only too often that people think they have fully understood a theory and can apply it without more ado from the moment they have mastered its main principles, and those even not always correctly. And I cannot exempt many of the more recent ‘Marxists’ from this reproach, for the most wonderful rubbish has been produced from this quarter too.” MarxEngels, , Correspondence, p. 477.Google Scholar The same is repeated in a letter to Mehring, Franz of 07 14, 1893,Google ScholarIbid., p. 510.

63. See above, p. 311.

64. Mebring, Franz, Zur Deutschen Geschichte (Berlin, 1931)Google Scholar. Mehring was of the same school of thought as Kantsky and has written widely on Marxist thought in Germany. Besides the book cited above he wrote Geschichte der deutschen Sorialdemokratie, 4 vols. (Stuttgart, 1906)Google Scholar; Aus dem literarischen Nachlass von Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels und Ferdinand Lassalle, 4 vols. (Stuttgart, 1902).Google Scholar

65. Letter to Marx and Engels, May 27, 1859. Cf. Mehring, , Aus dem literarischen Nachlass, pp. 174–5.Google Scholar

66. Mehring, , Zur deutschen Geschichte, p. 62.Google Scholar

67. Ibid., p. 65.

68. Bloch, Ernst, Thomas Müazer als Theologe der Revolution (München, 1921)Google Scholar. A second editiot has just been published by the Anfbau Verlag, Berlin, in 1960. Ernst Bloeb, who was professor at the University of Leipzig until 1956, may well have been influenced by the Bavarian Oomninnist movement under Kurt Eisner and Ernst Toller who set up the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic in 1921. In 1956 he was expelled from East Germany by Walter UIbricht for leading the youth astray and has since become influential in the Western Marxist movement. He has been strongly influenced by the Marxists of the Heart and is one himself. He stresses the necessity of a Utopia to spur man on. This Utopia for him is the classless society.

69. Ibid., (1960 edition), p. 21.

70. The idea of a vision to inspire the masses can be seen in all the Marxist writers to a greater or a lesser degree, from Marx onwards. Marx held up to his followers the vision of the classless society as the inevitable result of the progress of history. The classical formulation was made, however, by Sorel in his Reflections on Violence where he plays up the idea of the ‘myth.’ But it is interesting to note that even such mystical socialist thinkers as a Moeller van den Bruek could speak in terms of a Joachim of Fiora of Das Dritte Reich, (English translation, London, 1934; the German edition came out in 1923), towards which the Germans should strive. “To find even a suggestion of original German ideas we have to turn to Communism and hunt among the welter of syndicalist, anarchistic, medieval trains of thought inherited from the Peasants' War, or from Thomas Münzer, while German democracy remained enslaved by demagogues.” p. 30. The ideas of Moeller van den Bruck were a reaction to the nineteenth century bourgeois social and ethical mores and this may also have influenced Ernst Block in his thinking. But Moeller van den Bruek may also have been influenced by the Sorelian idea of the ‘myth’ for he did spend some time in France from 1902 onwards; although Sorel's book first appeared in 1908, it had appeared earlier in certain socialist magazines. Cf. von Klemperer, Kiemens, Germany's New Conservatism. (Princeton University Press, 1957), pp. 153–169CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and also Stern, Fritz, The Politics of Cultural Despair (Berkeley, 1961), pp. 183–267.Google Scholar

71. Block, op. cit., p. 44.

72. Ibid., p. 46.

73. Ibid., p. 51.

74. Sorel, George, Reflections on Violence (New York, 1961), pp. 124–5.Google Scholar

75. Ibid., p. 125.

76. Smirin, M. M., Die Volksreformation des Thomas Münzer und des grosse Baeernkrieg (Berlin, 1952)Google Scholar. He is also the author of another work on the period just prior to the Reformation in Germany. For the first book he was awarded the Stalin prize, second class. Since even history must serve the party. line in Russia, even more so than in other Marxist groups, the deviation from orthodoxy is practically forbidden despite documentary evidence to the contrary.

77. Ibid., p. 59. Other instances can be found on pages 87, 99, 278, 302, 445, 565, and other instances too numerous to mention here.

78. Ibid., p. 276.

79. Ibid., p. 59.

80. Ibid., p. 83.

81. Ibid., p. 87.

82. Ibid.

83. Ibid., p. 279.

84. von Rauch, Georg, “Der Deutsche Banernkrieg von 1525 in Sowjetiseher Sicht.” Osteuropa, VIII, 05 1958, pp. 301–304.Google Scholar The following two paragraphs rest wholly on this article.

85. Ibid., p. 304.

86. Cf. above, pp. 10–11.

87. Engels, to Bloch, , 09 21, 1890, Correspondence, p. 475Google Scholar: Engels to Mehring, August 14, 1894, Ibid., p. 510; and Engels to Kautsky, May 21, 1895 Engels, op. cit., pp. 9–10.

88. Gerhard Zschäbitz, op. cit.

89. Ibid., p. 19. “Genug! Das Problem ist sehr vielsehiehtig.”

90. Ibid. “Im ganxen gesehen muss die Fureht vor dem göttlichen Gericht als ausserordentlich wichtiger ‘geschiehtsniässiger Faktor in Rechnung besteilt werden…”

91. Ibid., pp. 19–20.

92. Ibid. See especially pages 38–39 and 44–46.

93. Ibid., pp. 36–37. Thus Zsehäbitz uses the late Engels to correct the early Engels.

94. Ibid., p. 39.

95. Ibid., p. 47.

96. Cf. Cohn, Norman, In Pursuit of the Millenium (New Jersey, 1957), pp. 217–236.Google Scholar

97. Reprinted in Brandt, Otto, Thomas Müntzer; Sein Leben und Seine Schriften (Jena, 1933), p. 38.Google Scholar

98. Cohn, op. cit., p. 252, feels the Taborite influence was decisive for both Storch and Müntzer who were both in Bohemia at one time or another.

99. Ford, op. cit., p. 11.

100. Muller, Lydia, Der Kommunismus des Mährischen Wiedertäufer (Leipzig, 1927), pp. 74–76.Google Scholar

101. Carl Hinrichs, op. cit.

102. Ibid., p. 20. “In diesem Bund der in gleichem Glauben verbundenein Auserwählten kann nur vollige Gleichheit und Gütergemeinsehaft herrachen, eine Brüderlichkeit die Reiche und Bedürftige nicht nebeneinander duldet.”

103. Ibid.

104. Ibid., p. 21.

105. Ibid., p. 19.

106. Hans Zeiss to Elector Frederick the Wise, May 7, 1525: “Sie haben zu sich in ihrem Bund braeht den Graffen von Sehwartzpurg, Graff Emsten von Honsteyn. Man sagt, der von Stolberg hab auch zu ifl sehweren mussen, alle Besehwernus abzutun und bei men und dem Evangeli zu stehen. Mussen alle zn Fuss zu in abdreten und sich irer Wirde und Titel eusscm und allein Bruder heissen lassen.” Franz, Günther, Quellen zur Geschichte des Bauernkrieges, Bd. II (München, 1963), p. 516.Google Scholar See also Zeiss to Christoph Meinhart of May 5, 1525, Ibid., p. 512.

107. Müntzer to the Duke of Mansfeld, May 12, 1525: “Ich Thomas Müntzer, etwan Pfarher zu Alstet, vormane dich zum ubirflussigen Anregen, das du umb des lebendigen Gootes Nabmen willen deines tirannisehen Wutens wollest mussick sein mid nicht lenger den Grim Gottis uber thch erbittern. Du hast die Christen angefangen zu martern, du hast den heiligen Christenglauben em Buberei gesehulten, du hast die Christen undirstanden zu vertilgen…. Wirdestu aussen bleiben und dieh augelegter Sache nieht entledigen, so wil iehs ansschreien vor aller Welt, das all Bruder ir Blut getrost sollen wagen wie etwan widder den Turken.” Quellen, pp. 519–20.

108. Müntzer to the people of Alstedt, May 26 or 27, 1525: “Man kan ench nit von Gotte sagen, dieweil sic uber euch regieren.” Ibid., p. 503. See also Hinrichs, op. cit., p. 52.

109. Zuck, Lowell H., “Fecund Problems of Esehatological Hope, Election Proof, and Social Revolt in Thomas Müntzer,” in Littel, F. H., (ed.), Reformation Studies (Richmond, 1962), p. 244.Google Scholar

110. See footnote #105. Many other instances of the same could be cited.

111. Hinrichs, op. cit., p. 147.

112. Zeiss to Christoph Meinhart, May 5, 1525: “…dna Got die Gewaltigen vom Stull stossen will mid die Nidrigen erheben, mid hat die grosse Zwangsal der Verdruekten angesehen, daraus wal er sic itzt eriedigen.” Quellen, p. 512. See also the statement made by Harm Hut, Ibid., p. 523.

113. Ibid. “Got der allmechtig wolte jetzo doe Welt reinigen … Denselben Regenbogen der Myntzer den Pauern gezaigt mid sie getrost mid gesagt, das es Got mit men haben wolt. Si solten nur herzlieh streitea und keck sein…”

114. Müntzer's farewell letter to the people of Aistedt, May 17, 1525: “Lieben Brunder, es ist ench hoch von Noten, das ir soiche Schiappen auch nicht empfanget wie die von Frangken. hansen, denn solichs ist ane Zweifel entsprossen, das ein ider sein eigen Nutz mehr gesueht dan die Rechtfertigung der Christenheit.” Ibid., p. 535.

115. Zuck, op. cit., note #, p. 283.

116. Hinrichs, op. cit., p. 48.

117. Hans Zeiss wrote to Duke John of Saxony about it on July 28, 1524, Quellen, op. cit., p. 486; the chronicler of Mühlhausen mentions it in his Chronicle, Ibid., p. 501; Müntzer also confessed that he had formed a ‘Bund’; cf. the “Bekenntins Thomas Müntzers,” Ibid., p. 532.

118. Time and again Zeiss speaks in his despatches to the Saxon princes of the crowds drawn by Müntzer and Pfeiffer.

119. Hinrichs, op. cit., p. 18–20.

120. Im his confession he stated: “Im Clegkaw mid Hegaw bei Basel habe er etliehe Artigkei, wie man herschen soil aus dem Evangeio angegeben, daraus furder andere Artigkel gemaclit; hetten Inc gerne zu sich genomen, babe in aber des gedankt. Die Entporunge habe er des Orts nit gemaclit, sondern seinbereit ufgestan. den gewest…” Quellen, p. 531.

121. The Mühlhausen chronicler relates that when he was about to move against the princes at Frankenhansen many of the citizens of Mühlhausen would not follow him and others had already left him. Ibid., p. 501.