The turmoils and the ideas of reformation emerged early among inhabitants of Rothenburg and the Tauber valley in the south of Gemany.
The aftermath of the Peasants’ War in 1525 delayed the introduction of Martin Luther’s doctrine till 1544, but the intensity of the Reformation was very strong afterwards.
Influential iconoclasts, such as Andreas Karlstadt, did operate in and from Rothenburg.
The Imperial City Museum (Reichsstadtmuseum) and the Medieval Crime and Justice Museum (Mittelalterliches Kriminalmuseum) accompany this main topic in 2017 and 2018 as part of Germany’s Jubilee of the Reformation Age.
The Ansbach Chancellor Georg Vogler (1486-1550) left behind a huge collection of Reformation pamphlets to the city of Rothenburg after his death in 1550.
This fund dramatically shows the bitterly fought religious and cultural battle that raged during the Reformation.
Both museums will resurge these conflicts, which are reflected strongly in the early print media and German late Gothic and Renaissance art.
Iconoclasm, destroyed buildings, radical preachers of religious and ethnical hate are not only phenomena of recent and present (European) times, but know a long (European) history and overpopulation, food shortages, poverty, unemployment and social inequalities are the perfect conditions, then, now and in the future. (Further information: www.rothenburg.de)