Albert Sonntag’s Legal Blog

Nietzsche said, “I was born in the battlefield of Luetzen.”  I would like to explore a little bit why he said that.

The battlefield of Luetzen is indeed in the place where N. was born.  The town of Roecken is located on the road to Leipzig and in the middle of the big plain that was the site of the battle.  In 1632, the Catholic Empire, based in Vienna, had been fighting the Protestant princes for about eighteen years, in the course of what is known as the Thirty Years War..  A long ugly war, fought mostly in what is now Germany, armies going back and forth, depleting the countryside of its wealth and burning down the cities, a war between the Empire and the upstart protestant princes and independent cities.  Then, picture this, the Swedish army, all clad in iron, with their blond hair close cropped in the manner of Oliver Cromwell’s Ironsides, this fearful army, under the leadership of the Swedish King Gustavus Adolphus, crossed the sea and came into Germany to fight on the side of the Protestants.  It is quite fascinating.  The Catholic imperial armies, led by the great general Wallenstein, who is a subject of one of Schiller’s great plays, ‘Wallensteins Tod,’ was encamped in Leipzig, as the following excerpt from Wikipedia explains:

>>>Two days before the battle, on November 14th (in the Gregorian calendar, 4th in the Julian calendar) the Catholic general Wallenstein decided to split his forces and retreat his main headquarters back towards Leipzig. He expected no further move that year from the Protestant army, led by the Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus, since unseasonably wintry weather was making it difficult to camp in the open countryside. Gustavus Adolphus, however, planned otherwise. On the early morning of November 15 his army marched out of camp towards Wallenstein’s last-known position and attempted to catch him by surprise. But his trap was sprung prematurely on the afternoon of November 15, by a small force left by Wallenstein at the Rippach stream, about 5-6 kilometres south of Lützen town. A skirmish delayed the Swedish advance by two or three hours, so that when night fell the two armies were still separated by about 2-3 kilometres (1-2 miles).

What followed was a lot of carnage in the mud, and on November 16, 1632, Gustavus Adolphus was killed in the battle.  The Protestant cause was successful in battle but was hurt by the loss of the King. Again, from Wikipedia:

>>>It was a grim fight, with terrible casualties on both sides. Finally, with dusk falling, the Swedes captured the linchpin of Wallenstein’s position, the main Imperial artillery battery. The Imperial forces retired back out of its range, leaving the field to the Swedes. At about 6PM Pappenheim’s infantry, about 3,000-4,000 strong, after marching all day towards the gunfire, arrived on the battlefield. Although night had fallen they wished to carry out a counter-attack on the Swedes. Wallenstein, however, believed the situation hopeless and instead ordered his army to withdraw to Leipzig under cover of the fresh infantry.  

>>>Strategically and tactically speaking the battle of Lützen was a Protestant victory. Wallenstein was forced out of Saxony where he had hoped to winter his troops at Saxon expense, and retreated to Bohemia. Having been forced to assault an entrenched position Sweden lost about 6,000 men including badly wounded and deserters. The Imperial army lost perhaps 3,000-6000 men.

  And here, on this blood soaked earth, many years later, Nietzsche was born, and he was proud of it.  Why?  What would make him be proud of having been born upon a battle field that saw the death of Gustavus Adolphus?  Why would he have bothered to note that he was born on a battlefield at all, regardless of who won or lost?  What martial thoughts were conjured up in him when he proudly stated he had been born upon a famous battlefield?  Was it perhaps that he felt his whole life had been a battle and that he, having been born in the blood-soaked earth was destined to be a soldier all his life?

 All of which leads me to my point:  Nietzsche should have been a litigation attorney.  Why else would he have felt that his life had to be a constant war?  Well, it’s silly for me to ask that since I already know why.  And hence I know why he so proudly said that he had been born on the battlefield of Luetzen.