Germany's demographic catastrophe
1618–1648 · Event
Marauding armies, famine and plague kill perhaps a third of the population of the German lands over three decades — some regions lose two-thirds. Whole districts revert to forest; the trauma marks German memory into the twentieth century. The bill the peacemakers finally come to settle.
On these timelines: Thirty Years' War, Germany, Master
More from Thirty Years' War
- Thirty Years' War (1618)
- Sack of Magdeburg (1631)
- Battle of Lützen (1632) (1632)
- Gustavus Adolphus lands in Germany (1630)
- Battle of Breitenfeld (1631)
- Battle of White Mountain (1620)
- Wallenstein raises his private army (1625)
- Bohemia crowns the Winter King (1619)
Around 1618
- Eighty Years' War / Dutch Revolt (1568)
- English Civil War (1642)
- Great Plague of London (1665)
- Spanish Armada (1588)
- Edo period (1603)
- Qing dynasty (1644)
- Peace of Westphalia (1648)
- Battle of Sekigahara (1600)
- Shakespeare's Hamlet (1601)
- Reign of Louis XIV (the Sun King) (1643)