Counterreformation in Germany

The article studies the Counter-Reformation process in Germany and the neighboring European territories in a wider context as a complex of geopolitical, social and religious problems growing in Europe in the 15th and the 16th centuries. The study aims at finding connections between the Reformation processes launched by Martin Luther and the subsequent course of German history during the Counter-Reformation. The article focuses on the situation in Germany against a wider background of the developments in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. This paper continues the author’s previous article on the German Reformation and Martin Luther’s role in it. It examines the consequences of the Reformation that brought Germany on the edge of a humanitarian disaster in the Thirty Years’ War. The course of the war, as well as its geopolitical causes and consequences for Germany and for the whole of Europe are also investigated. The author describes and analyzes a broad historical and political context which determined the circumstances and reasons for many European states’ participation in the Thirty Years’ War, as well as the consequences of the Peace of Westphalia.