1648: The Long Road to Peace - How the 30 Years War Ended (Part I)

A 2018 WDR & Arte History Documentary narrated by Marine Behnke. Audio in English.

Part II: https://rumble.com/v3kw0qs-1648-the-long-road-to-peace-how-the-30-years-war-ended-part-ii.html

The documentary traces the story of how the Thirty Years' War was finally brought to an end with the peace of Munster and Osnabruck - the first peace in European history to be concluded at the negotiating table and not fought on the battlefield.

Huge battles, famines, the plague and cholera: For 30 years, brutal soldiers and marauding mercenaries turned Central Europe into the first circle of hell as Catholics and Protestants struggled for hegemony. On the one hand, the Thirty Years War is about religion: a century after Luther's Reformation, Catholics and Protestants are fighting each other. On the other hand, claims to power by the Swedes, the Habsburgs, the French and others are at stake. Almost all the European powers had a hand in the bloody conflict, which was finally ended by the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. It took five years for all the parties to get onboard and led largely by Maximilian Graf von Trauttmansdorff who represented the Holy Roman emperor.

The first great pan-European conflagration was all about power and religion. About four million people died between 1618 and 1648 in the German areas alone. Most of the fighting took place in the territories of the "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation." The warring factions agreed on two places for peace negotiations: the first international congress took place in the cities of Münster and Osnabruck in western Germany and lasted five years. Both places become a hotbed of intrigue, secret treaties and shady deals as the envoys negotiated the future of Europe on behalf of their rulers. In fact, the Peace of Westphalia really marked the birth of modern diplomacy.

A blend of reenactments, animations, archival research and expert opinion brings the negotiations 370 years ago to life in an exciting two-part documentary and shows how touch-and-go the outcome was right up to the very last moment.