It is commonly taught that the Thirty Years’ War lasted from 1618 to 1648, though many historians will claim 1609 to 1660.1 However long it lasted, it appears that the war touched the lives of Stühlingen Jews mainly between 1632 and 1640. We know that in February 1633 Samuel (Schmol) ben Jacob was required to deliver grain to the troops on behalf of the village of Eberfingen [R2793].

In the fall of that year, the Bavarian troops under Johann Count of Aldringen and the Spanish army under Gómez Suárez de Figueroa y Córdoba, Duke of Feria, con­ver­ged on Stühlingen with the intent of passing the winter there.2 The armies lived off the land and plundered both Jews and gentiles. According to the legend, some terrified Jews fled into the steep, wooded slope south of Stühlingen and hid in caves,3 which are still called “Jews’ Holes” (Judenlöcher) today. Some Jews ran even farther. Samuel (Schmol) ben Jacob Gugenheimb sought refuge in Hallau, Switzerland [R4069]. Some Stühlinger Jews must have fled to join the small Jewish community of Rheineck in the Rhine Valley above Lake Constance. The flow of refugees led the five Swiss Catholic cantons to demand the expulsion of all the Jews from Rheineck.4 Notable among the immigrant Jews was “Jakob of Stühlingen” who was caught selling stolen jewellery, possibly acquired from plundering soldiers around 1632/3.5 We now know that  the person in question was a certain Jekuff Gugenheimb [R2534].

Conversely, Stühlingen provided limited shelter to Jews who had fled from other regions ravaged by war. But greed was never far [R2533].

But not only the Jews were persecuted by the army: Count Maximilian von Pappenheim fled with his whole household and most of his senior officials to Schaffhausen in Switzerland, where they spent the rest of the war. The count was in a difficult situation. As a Protestant, he had supported the side of the Protestant League of Heilbronn, and therefore was persona non grata with the imperial side. The imperial officer corps occupied the castle, and thirty thousand soldiers swarmed the town and surrounding villages. Since Jews were exempted from having to billet common soldiers because of the latters’ frequent misbehaviour,6 the mayor and council of Stühlingen demanded 800 fl. from the Jews, one quarter of the total cost, as their contribution. Instead, they offered 100 fl. [R568].

For the years 1633 to 1635 we have relatively few records concerning the Jews. There is some indication that David of Eberfingen had been killed by soldiers during the war [R3788], and his property had been disposed of. Between March and October 1633 Naphtali (Hürtzle) ben Raphael, a grandson of the legendary Isaak of Stühlingen, died at a relatively young age, leaving behind a widow and two underage sons. We are not told whether he had died of natural cause or as a victim of violence. By April 1636, a man named Jacob was described as Naphtali’s successor and received protection. By spring 1638, Jacob had married Naphtali’s widow. Joseph (Josephle) ben Jacob Gugenheimb seems to have moved to Lengnau around 1633 to escape the disorder. Unfortunately, it did not do him much good: he was killed in the disturbances of the first Villmergen War of 1656,7 and his widow returned with her children to Stühlingen [R2060]. Whereas Jews migrated from some other villages and small towns to midsize towns,8 this appears not to have been the case in Stühlingen.

In June 1635 Jacob (Jeggle) ben Judah Weyl, a relatively young man (d. 1675), was given the significant sum of 157 fl. by the town and was charged with delivering the money to General Major Bernhard von Schaffalitzky zu Mukadel as an involuntary war contribution [R390]. Schaffalitzky, scion of a noble Moravian family but born in Brackenheim, Wurttemberg,9 acted as commissioner of war for the Swedish general Horn. Thus, the wind must have shifted, and Stühlingen was now under Swedish occupation. But that fact did not seem to have been sufficient for Maximilian von Pappenheim to return from Schaffhausen to Stühlingen.

In early February 1638 Stühlingen was first invaded and plundered by the imperial troops under lieutenant field-marshal Count Johann von Werth.10 Shortly after the second battle of Rheinfelden (March 3, 1638), the general Prince Bernhard of Saxe Weimar appeared with his victorious French army in Stühlingen, requesting provisions.11 The only records relating to Jews were the protection tax records for 1638; no records exist for 1639. It is possible that the Stühlingen administrative apparatus had largely ceased to function during these critical years.

In popular German historical literature, the Thirty Years’ War is commonly reduced to the settling of a confessional conflict following the Reformation. In fact, it was the perfect storm; geopolitical, dynastic, confessional, and social tensions erupted together, further agitated by a host of obstinate and sociopathic personalities. It really was not one continuous war, but a series of about seven almost independent conflicts, all arising from a similar combination of dire motives.12

Accounts of the war and its physical, social, demographic, and economic consequences range from that of a cataclysm to that of a trifle.13 While some of these different perspectives may be explained by the historic context in which they were written, the actual complexity of events also made it difficult to provide an accurate picture. Over the lengthy duration of the war, different regions were involved to various degrees and over different time periods. Contemporary records tended to be focused locally and shaped as much by ideology as by facts.14 Careful analysis of the evidence suggests that the German Empire overall lost about 20% of its population between 1618 and 1648. It appears that the impact of famine and pestilence affected mortality more than violence itself.15

Several factors contributed to the economic troubles arising out of the war: the gradual breakdown of civic order, widespread speculation, and currency manipulations led to severe inflation in the early years of the war; the diversion of horses towards the war effort – particularly draught horses – severely impeded agricultural productivity; and mounting war debts led to a general credit crunch.16

Overall, the situation was no worse for the Jews than for the Christians.17 Although their sympathies, paradoxically, went more to the side of the Catholics,18 Jews tended to be treated quite decently by the Swedes and French as well. While the situation of the Swabian Jews was neither as complex nor dangerous as of that of the Jews from Vienna, Bohemia, or Frankfurt,19 the Swabians too had to lead a perilous balancing act between the warring parties. At the same time, the antagonists needed and used the Jews as go-betweens, provisioners of horses and grain, and as sources of credit.20 But both sides also considered the Jews as an almost inexhaustible source of tax revenue. The Jews of Prague, for example, paid four times the real-estate tax on houses than gentiles paid for equivalent homes.21

Nevertheless, the Thirty Years’ War was not the unqualified catastrophe for the Jews of Europe, as one might surmise. Jonathan I. Israel summarized it thus: “The truth is that the terrible upheavals of the Thirty Years’ War mostly worked in favor of German and all Central European Jewry, appreciably enhanced the Jewish role in German life, and prepared the ground for the ‘Age of the Court Jew’ – the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century – the high-water mark of Jewish influence on Central European commerce and finance.”22

For Count Maximilian von Pappenheim the Thirty Years’ War proved disastrous. He was married three times. His first two wives died after one and two years respectively. His third wife, Maria Ursula, daughter of Count Ludwig zu Leiningen, lived with him for thirty-two years until her death in 1638. They had three children: Ernst Friedrich, who died in infancy, Heinrich Ludwig, and a daughter, Maria Maximiliana.23 Heinrich Ludwig was a colonel in the Swedish army but died in 1633 of a head wound, at age twenty-three, during the siege of Castle Hohenstoffeln.24 Maria Maximiliana married Friedrich Rudolf, Count of Fürstenberg, in 1631 but died four years later in 1635. Thus, after the deaths in 1638 of both Count Maximilian von Pappenheim and his wife Maria Ursula, Stühlingen County passed into the hands of the house of Fürstenberg.

Footnotes -> List of References

  1Steinberg, "The “Thirty Years War”.

  2Du Jarrys de la Roche, Der Dreissigjährige Krieg, 296.

  3Brandeck, Geschichte der Stadt, 123.

  4StAZ, Eviction  Request for Rheineck.

  5Jakob von Stühlingen, Sale of Stolen Jewellry..

  6Weinberg, "Geschichte der Juden", 17 - 27; Israel, “Central European Jewry,” 3 - 30

  7Dürrenmatt, "Schweizer Geschichte", 279; Ulrichs, Sammlung jüdischer Geschichten, 268.

  8Israel, “Central European Jewry,” 19.

  9Assfahl, “Bernhard Schaffalitzki von Muckendell,” 66.

10Semler, “Die Tagebücher,” 341.

11Warlich, “Pappenheim, Maximilian von.”

12Wilson, "The Thirty Years War", 225.

13Vincent, "The Lamentations of Germany"; Steinberg, "The Thirty Years War”.

14Wilson, "The Thirty Years War", 5.

15Ibid., 786–95.

16Ibid., 795–805.

17Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, 224–94; Israel, “Central European Jewry,”

18Israel, “Central European Jewry,” 9.

19Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, 238; Israel, “Central European Jewry,” 10, 12.

20Israel, “Central European Jewry,” 17;  Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, 245.

22Israel, “Central European Jewry,” 30.

23Schwennicke, "Europäische Stammtafeln," #552.

24Semler, “Die Tagebücher,” 48.

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