Thirty Years War

This episode of Ten Minute History (like a documentary, only shorter) covers the outbreak of the Bohemian Revolt which was what would eventually spiral out of control into the Thirty Years’ War.

The revolt was crushed fairly quickly but sparked intervention by Denmark, who didn’t do too well, and later Sweden who did very well. Both of these were aided by France who decided to get directly involved in 1635.

By 1648 the Holy Roman Empire lay in ruins, with Austria and Spain struggling to pay for the war and rebuild the Habsburg Empire. This war saw the rise of Sweden and France but most importantly saw the foundations of modern diplomacy built.

How the Thirty Years war affected Germany

The Thirty Years War (1618-1648) was a brutal conflict that saw most major European powers use Germany as a battleground to sort out their assorted dynastic, religious, economic and territorial issues. The toll this took on the country was massive, and reverberated for long after; let’s take a look at some of the damage it did.

The Thirty Years War has earned a reputation for being a particularly nasty conflict: unlike most wars of the day, and arguably no wars until the 20th century, it saw massive civilian casualties, with parts of Germany losing more than half of their population. It’s estimated that of a German population of about 20 million in 1600, by 1650 only about 13 million were alive.

Thirty Years War

The Thirty Years’ War was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history, lasting from 1618 to 1648. Fought primarily in Central Europe, an estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died as a result of battle, famine, and disease, while some areas of what is now modern Germany experienced population declines of over 50%.

Germans foughts against Germans.

One sentence. Twelve German dialects.

German is a difficult language to learn as it is, but there are more than 12 German dialects spoken within the country. Some don‘t sound like German at all. If you‘re studying German, think twice!

YouTube comments:

“Fun fact: Plattdeutsch is so far from Hochdeutsch that it is considered as a language of its own. Also, there are many variants of Plattdeutsch itself – some of which I cannot understand, although I grew up with Plattdeutsch. Often, it takes less than 50 kilometers to find a place where you hardly understand the dialect.”

“As an American who learned hochdeutsch fluently. It took me forever to understand what people were saying in Bayern.”

“As someone who can speak the dying Lorraine dialect, I appreciate the inclusion of Letzeburgisch. It is not exactly the same, but closer then any other dialect.”

“Fun fact. In Baden we alone have dozens of dialects, sometimes significantly varying from village to village.”

Bavaria: tradition in danger

Günther Hochhäuser is a passionate marksman who fights to maintain the traditions of his homeland, Upper Bavaria. The Christian Social Union, who has been in power here for decades, could get a drubbing in upcoming elections — to Hochhäuser’s dismay.

Marksmen’s clubs stand for everything Bavaria is famous for: folk costumes, cultural lore and tradition. Their chairmen include illustrious public figures, such as former Pope Benedict and Prince Max, Duke in Bavaria.

Marksman Günther Hochhäuser says “We are a pillar of strength.” But that pillar looks to be on increasingly shaky ground. Bavaria and even the seemingly timeless Inn-Chiemgau shooting club are being overtaken by the tides of change. Until recently, voting for the conservative CSU party was a given.

But recent polls say that the CSU will suffer big losses in the upcoming state elections. Many Bavarians are angry that German interior minister Horst Seehofer, a member of the CSU, recently came close to bringing down the country’s governing coalition. Axel Rowohlt reports.

Bavarians

Bavarians (Bavarian: Boarn, Standard German: Baiern) are an ethnographic group of Germans of the Bavaria region, a state within Germany. The group’s dialect or speech is known as the Bavarian language, native to Altbayern (“Old Bavaria”), roughly the territory of the Electorate of Bavaria in the 17th century.

Like the neighboring Austrians, Bavarians are traditionally Catholic. In much of Altbayern, membership in the Catholic Church remains above 70%, and the center-right Christian Social Union in Bavaria (successor of the Bavarian People’s Party of 1919–1933) has traditionally been the strongest party in the Landtag, and also the party of all Ministers-President of Bavaria since 1946, with the single exception of Wilhelm Hoegner, 1954–1957.

Germany and the Love of Privacy

This unwillingness to discuss private time with colleagues reveals both the German distaste for small talk, but also the German desire for privacy.

Germans have a clear and robust sense of what should be in the public domain and what should not, and although there are exceptions for good friends, finding out what your colleagues get up to outside of work requires military grade interrogation techniques.

With waterboarding out of the question, I am left with little recourse other than to linguistically trap colleagues into giving away small details of their lives. The excruciating process of trial and error can last for years, until one day a colleague feels comfortable enough to actually tell you directly what they get up to when not at work.

Germans would pay more for their privacy than Americans

A study investigating how people in various countries value their private information has found that Facebook users from Germany would charge the social media platform the most for sharing their personal data.

The study, by US-based think-tank the Technology Policy Institute (TPI), is the first to attempt to quantify the value of online privacy and data. And for the study, it assessed how much privacy is worth in six countries by looking at the habits of people in the US, Germany, Mexico, Brazil, Columbia and Argentina.

It addresses the growing concern about how companies, from platforms such as Facebook to retailers, have been collecting and monetising personal data. Due to this, US regulators have imposed hefty fines on Facebook Inc and Alphabet-owned Google’s YouTube unit for privacy violations.