Massacre at the Sack of Magdeburg, 20 May 1631
Illustration from Cassell's illustrated history of England published circa 1896. Info from wiki: The Sack of Magdeburg was the destruction of the Protestant city of Magdeburg on 20 May 1631 by the Imperial Army and the forces of the Catholic League. Also called Magdeburg Wedding (German: Magdeburger Hochzeit) or Magdeburg's Sacrifice (Magdeburgs Opfergang), the incident is considered the worst massacre of the Thirty Years' War. Magdeburg, then one of the largest cities in Germany and about the size of Cologne or Hamburg, never recovered from the disaster. After the city fell, the Imperial soldiers supposedly went out of control and started to massacre the inhabitants and set fire to the city. The invading soldiers had not received payment for their service and took the chance to loot everything in sight; they demanded valuables from every household that they encountered. Otto von Guericke, an inhabitant of Magdeburg, claimed that when civilians ran out of things to give the soldiers, "the misery really began. For then the soldiers began to beat, frighten, and threaten to shoot, skewer, hang, etc., the people."[7] It took only one day for all of this destruction and death to transpire. Of the 30,000 citizens, only 5,000 survived, most of them having fled into Magdeburg Cathedral. Tilly finally ordered an end to the looting on May 24, and a Catholic mass was celebrated at the Cathedral on the next day. For another fourteen days, charred bodies were carried to the Elbe River to be dumped to prevent disease.
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