Radical Protestant Propaganda of the Thirty Years' War

Who Were the Radicals?
My investigation focuses on propaganda produced by the radicals of the Protestant camp.
But who were the radical Protestants? Put simply, the radicals were a minority of the
Protestant camp who produced the majority of its propaganda. They are called radicals
because of the attitudes they held, which contrasted with those of the other two factions of
the Protestant camp known as the moderates and the conservatives. All three groups were
adherents of the Protestant faith, and typically belonged to the Lutheran or Calvinist
confessions. What made the groups different from each other was their attitude towards
the Catholic authorities of the Empire and whether or not they considered armed defence of
their faith to be justifiable. The conservatives of the camp, also known as the quietists, did
not believe that resistance to the Emperor was a legitimate action and firmly rejected
foreign intervention in the affairs of the Empire. These attitudes stemmed from their belief
in the divine right of authorities to rule, and their conviction that God would never allow his
flock to perish which therefore meant that resistance was unnecessary. The conservatives
did not espouse any particular political programme, and their attitude toward the Emperor
himself ranged from an active to moderate support of his policies, even if some among
them despaired of the Austrian Habsburg ruler’s lack of understanding for them. 1
The moderate Protestants also desired to remain loyal to Catholic authorities, but differed
from the conservatives in that they were prepared to defend their religious and other rights
if necessary, particularly if they perceived imperial policies to have been instigated by
corrupt elements in the entourage of the Emperor such as his Jesuit advisers. In the wake of
1 For further information on this section see Diethelm Böttcher’s article ‘Propaganda und öffentliche
Meinung im protestantischen Deutschland 1628-1636’, in Der Dreißigjährige Krieg. Perspektiven und
Strukturen, ed. by H. U. Rudolf, Wege der Forschung, 451 (1977), pp. 325-67 (pp. 333-5). Henceforth
Böttcher.
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