Magdeburg: another claim to fame

Earlier this month, Magdeburg, capital of the German state of Saxony-Anhalt, found itself again at the centre of world attention, as the Far Right AfD emerged as the biggest party in state elections. The city, part of the former East Germany, was the victim of a terrorist attack in 2024, when a 51 year old man from Saudi Arabia, drove his car into crowds at a Christmas market, killing six people. 

But the worst moment in Magdeburg's history came during the Thirty Years War. The population were nearly all Protestants, but in May 1631, after a six month siege, it fell to the army of the Catholic League.   

The League's soldiers wrought havoc. In the words of the great German writer Friedrich Schiller: 'Neither innocent childhood, nor helpless old age; neither youth, sex, rank, nor beauty, could disarm the fury of the conquerors.'  

After burning the city to the ground, the soldiers carried off thousands of women to their camp. One of the generals sent priests to tell their men to do the decent thing, and marry those they had abducted or give them up for a reasonable sum.   

A few of the surviving Magdeburg men were able to scrape together enough to ransom themselves and buy back their women, but those who could not had to march off with the Catholic troops as their servants. Perhaps 20,000 people were killed, and the atrocity caused such horror throughout Europe that victory celebrations were called off.  

As the war dragged on for another 17 years, many a Catholic soldier crying for quarter to his Protestant enemy would be met with the retort "Magdeburg quarter!" and shot down.

The Thirty Years War killed perhaps ten million people across Central Europe. For the full story, see A Disastrous History of the World published by Piatkus Books.

Train crashes and safety improvements

We still do not know what caused this week’s German train crash in Bavaria, in which 10 people died. The trains collided head-on on a stretch of single line track, but safety precautions introduced after another fatal accident in 2011 should have made this impossible.

As a German train approaches a red signal, an alarm is supposed to go off in the driver’s cab, and if he fails to stop, the brakes are supposed to go on automatically. Since the crash, there has been speculation that a signal controller may have turned off the automatic system, or even that someone else may have sabotaged it.

Rail crashes have often provided the spur for safety innovations. So in 1989, five people were killed at Purley in South London when one train ran into the back of another after going through a red light, even though the driver’s cab was fitted with an alarm that sounded when the train was approaching the danger signal.

After that, a system called ATP (Automatic Train Protection) was introduced to apply the brakes automatically if the driver ignored a red light. But that did not prevent a crash between a passenger and a goods train at Southall in West London in 1997 (see picture) in which seven people died. Neither the alarm system nor the ATP were working. For more, see London's Disasters.

The sack of Magdeburg

This day…..379 years ago saw the most notorious atrocity of the dreadfully destructive 30 Years War – the sack of Magdeburg. Most of its people were Protestants, and on May 20, 1631, the city fell to the army of the Catholic League.

It had been under siege for six months, and once they entered, the conquering army - and particularly its Walloon and Croat soldiers - embarked on an orgy of murder, rape, looting and destruction. The great German writer Friedrich Schiller said it was “a scene of horrors for which history has no language – poetry no pencil.”

After they had reduced the city to rubble, the Catholic soldiers carried off thousands of women, and the atrocity caused such revulsion throughout Europe that the leader of the Catholic cause, the Holy Roman Emperor, had to call off the victory celebrations.

Altogether it’s estimated that 30,000 people may have been killed. For more details, see A Disastrous History of the World. (For more on the 30 Years War, see my blog of May 23, 2009.)

War horses + 30 Years War crime

Normally this blog confines itself to human disasters, but this week I went to see the magnificent play The War Horse at the New London Theatre, and was astonished to see in the programme the figures for the number of horses killed during the First World War. One million were sent from Britain to France, and only 62,000 returned.

One of the first revelations of the conflict was that cavalry was now virtually useless, and defenceless, in the face of machine guns, artillery, barbed wire. Apart from their cavalry duties, horses were also responsible for huge amounts of the fetching, hauling and carrying that fed the war machine. Many were killed by direct attack – bullets, shells, shrapnel, poison gas – others maimed by the lethal debris lying around the battlefield.

This day….378 years ago saw the most notorious atrocity of the Thirty Years’ War – the sack of Magdeburg. After a six-month siege, the mainly Protestant city was taken by Catholic soldiers, and then, in the words of the great German writer Friedrich Schiller, there followed “a scene of horrors for which history has no language – poetry no pencil. Neither innocent childhood, nor helpless old age; neither youth, sex, rank, nor beauty, could disarm the fury of the conquerors. “

The city was burned to the ground. Perhaps 30,000 citizens were murdered while thousands of women were dragged off to the victors’ camp. The atrocity caused horror across Europe, so much so that the Catholic Holy Roman Emperor had to call off a victory celebration, and during the war’s remaining 17 years, many a Catholic soldier crying for quarter would be greeted with the retort “Magdeburg quarter!” and killed.