The mere possibility that today’s populists might stand on the side of justice in the fight for Freyheit terrifies their opponents.

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By Sabine BEPPLER-SPAHL

Some historical events possess such enduring power that they continue to haunt our imagination and fears centuries later. The German Peasants’ War, brutally suppressed in May 1525, is one such event. Involving at least a hundred thousand people—probably many more—it was, as British-Australian historian Lyndal Roper observed, “the greatest popular uprising in western Europe before the French Revolution.” The rebellion spread from what is today southern Germany across Austria, Switzerland, France, and Hungary. The peasants’ famous Twelve Articles—formally titled “The Just and Fundamental Articles of All the Peasantry and Tenants of Spiritual and Temporal Powers by Whom They Think Themselves Oppressed”—demanded nothing less than ”Freyheit“ (Freedom).

Yet, despite its historical significance, the 500th anniversary of the final battle—which left tens of thousands of rebels dead and settled power relations in favor of local princes, defining Germany’s future for centuries—passed largely unnoticed. The muted response is remarkable: none of Germany’s major historical museums in Berlin, Munich, or Stuttgart (the latter two in regions heavily affected by the uprising) mounted significant commemorations, as one FAZ journalist rightly noted. This stands in stark contrast to 2017’s elaborate Reformation anniversary celebrations.

The silence is no oversight but a symptom of the embarrassment the 1525 events still cause Germany’s establishment—particularly now, amid rising populism.

From radical Left to populist symbol

For most of its remembered history, the Peasants’ War remained the preserve of the radical Left, partly due to Friedrich Engels’ influential 1870 study written under the shadow of Germany’s failed 1848 revolution. Stalinist East Germany’s adoption of the uprising as a founding myth—emblazoning rebel leader Thomas Müntzer’s face on its banknote—reinforced this association.

But recent events, particularly the 2024 farmers’ protests, have fundamentally altered this perception. Suddenly, warnings about historical memory being “instrumentalized” by the far-right have proliferated across German media.

The cause of this transformation is an unexpected symbol: rubber boots. During the farmers’ protests, boots appeared everywhere—dangling from street signs and farm fences across rural areas, especially in eastern and southern Germany, where many remain today. These boots were quickly understood as symbols of uprising, deliberately evoking the historic strapped boots (Bundschuh) that became the famous emblem of the 16th-century revolting peasants.

Elite panic

As the anniversary years 2024 and 2025 approached, the memory of this once-distant mass uprising suddenly acquired a frighteningly contemporary edge. Pro-government and establishment commentators, rattled by the farmers’ protests, pushed back with barely concealed hysteria.

“Peasant protests have accompanied German history for several hundred years,” warned one commentator in a piece titled “Instrumentalization by the Extreme Right: From Peasant War to Peasant Protest.” “The far right is attempting to participate in the most recent protests by farmers and to place them in the tradition of the historic Peasants’ War 500 years ago.”

Cultural sector professionals joined the chorus. Mirko Gutjahr, director of the Luther Museums in Eisleben and curator of a peasants’ war exhibition, warned of “ideological instrumentalization” by the far right, emphasizing that the 1524-25 peasants’ demands for radical reforms differed completely from those of today’s “outraged groups.”

Michael Haspel, professor of theology at the University of Erfurt, declared: “We should take great care to ensure that the anniversary of the Peasants’ War is not misused by populists. Freedom aims at the equality of all. Freedom must be preserved by the law. This distinguishes the demands of the peasants from populist endeavors in the present, which are based on excluding and devaluing groups marked as different”—alluding to supposed ’anti-migrant’ attitudes among populists.

Germany’s public broadcaster SWR Kultur presented the Peasants’ War as a “struggle for participation” and “universal human rights”—apparently indifferent to the fact that such fashionable terminology would have been completely alien to 16th-century people.

The instrumentalization game

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the historic memory of the Peasants’ War—which has always reflected its era’s preoccupations—has become a flashpoint in today’s culture wars, with each side accusing the other of instrumentalization. The most peculiar example may be claims that the historical peasants were early “environmentalists.” One Austrian commentator wrote: “This idea that nature is a sacred space that no one is allowed to destroy or appropriate is astonishingly relevant in the present day. In the context of the climate crisis and growing environmental awareness, the old words of the peasants are gaining new vigor.”

The establishment’s nervousness reveals a profound contemporary fear of the masses. No clear, direct line connects the terrible 16th-century events—occurring in a largely still feudal world where rebel leaders were brutally burned or quartered—to our time. Neither today’s rulers nor the protesting farmers bear direct comparison to their historical counterparts.

But the question transcends historical parallels; it concerns moral legitimacy. The mere possibility that today’s populists might stand on the side of justice in the fight for Freyheit terrifies their opponents. If ”the tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the living brain“, it is because historical interpretation remains as open as the outcome of today’s populist struggles.

The German establishment’s attempts to control the narrative reveal more about their own insecurities than about historical truth. It exposes their deepest fear: that the people might once again demand fundamental change —and this time, they might succeed.

Original article: The European Conservative