The Peace Hall in Münster

The Thirty Years’ War began in 1618 with the “Defenestration of Prague.” Its causes lay mainly in disputes between Catholic and Protestant ruling houses. France, Denmark and Sweden also became involved. War leaders laid waste to the country in senseless bloodshed, serving one lord and then another, and usually seeking personal gain. As so often in wartime, ordinary people suffered most.

Of the approximately 18 million people living in Germany at the start of the war, about one-third died. They died not only as a result of direct military action, but also from hunger and epidemics. The war was fought mainly on German soil. Some areas, such as the city of Hamburg, were barely affected by the war. In the Palatinate, Mecklenburg, Pomerania, and parts of Württemberg and Thuringia, however, up to 70 percent of the population was wiped out.

The Dutch struggle to free themselves from Spanish rule was also part of the conflict. It had begun in 1568 and is known as the “Eighty Years’ War.” Wealthy Dutch merchants eventually arranged for representatives of the Netherlands and the Kingdom of Spain to negotiate. The negotiations took place in the Westphalian city of Münster. On May 15, 1648, a treaty was solemnly sworn at Münster’s town hall, ending the Eighty Years’ War and making the United Provinces a free, independent state. In August and October 1648, further treaties were signed in Osnabrück and Münster, bringing the Thirty Years’ War to an end.

The hall in Münster City Hall is called the “Peace Hall.” The walls are panelled in wood, and a chandelier hangs from the ceiling, with space for 40 candles. On two of the interior walls are 37 portraits of the most important envoys and rulers who negotiated the end of the Thirty Years’ War in Münster between 1644 and 1648.

A Latin inscription is engraved on a fireplace plate: “Peace is the highest good, October 24, 1648.” On display in glass cases are a woman’s shoe from that time and the skeleton of a severed hand, as well as a Golden Cockerel. Even today, distinguished visitors to the city are offered a drink from this gilded silver vessel.