Fighting over Churches: Augsburg and Multiconfessional Cities in the Thirty Years War

Abstract The religious overtones of the Thirty Years War (1618–1648) resonated in particular in multiconfessional towns and cities like Augsburg. Not only were churches destroyed, desecrated or reassigned in deliberate acts of war, but the military supremacy of one side or the other could mean a permanent end to the ability of a portion of the city’s inhabitants to practise their religion. In 1648 the Peace of Westphalia recognized the existence of multiple confessions and clarified ownership of church properties, allowing minority confessions to rebuild their churches and schools. In some multiconfessional towns such as Heidelberg and Hanau, Lutheran congregations took advantage of the provisions of the peace to build elaborate churches where none had existed before. Lingering fear of confessional annihilation drove postwar fundraising efforts for the building or rebuilding of churches. The memory of the trauma of war was expressed in confessionally specific ways until the significance of religious coexistence in German history was reassessed after the Second World War.