GDR/East German banknote featuring Thomas Müntzer
All but unknown in the Western narrative, the radical German theologian, preacher, and revolutionary Thomas Müntzer (c. 1489–1525) became one of the most incendiary figures of the early Reformation. While Martin Luther is universally remembered as the father of Protestantism, he sought to reform the Church within the bounds of feudal authority. Müntzer envisioned a complete social revolution, making him a precursor to later communist thought. His leadership in the German Peasants’ War (1524–1525) and his theological departure from Luther reflect the volatile mix of theological and social ferment that defined early 16th-century Europe.
The idea omnia sunt communia (“all things are to be in common”) first appeared in a radical context during the German Peasants’ War (1524–1525), particularly associated with Thomas Müntzer and other revolutionaries who sought social and economic equality and was widely linked with the revolutionary demands of the peasants. The Latin phrase encapsulates a foundational principle of radical egalitarian thought that predates Marxism, expressing a demand for collective ownership and the abolition of private property. Drawing from much older Christian communist traditions — such as the communal practices described in the Acts of the Apostles (2:44–45 and 4:32–35) — omnia sunt communia reflects a vision of shared property and collective life.
This principle re-emerged during the English Revolution (1649–1650), when the Diggers, or True Levellers, led by Gerrard Winstanley (above), declared that “the earth was made a common treasury for all.” Marx and Engels built on these historical movements, showing that class struggle and communist ideals were not novel inventions but deeply rooted in earlier popular uprisings against exploitation. Thus, omnia sunt communia may be seen as a bridge between early radical traditions and the development of modern communist theory.
The ‘murderous, thieving hordes’ rise up
The Holy Roman Empire in the early 1500s was a patchwork of semi-autonomous territories. The majority of the population were peasants, burdened by heavy taxes, feudal obligations, and the arbitrary authority of local rulers. Meanwhile, the Church wielded immense power, both theologically and economically. Across Europe, the translation of the Bible into the vernacular, sparked upheavals, as peasants began to understand that all humans were equal. Earlier examples are the uprising led by John Ball and Wat Tyler in England (1381), or the Hussite Wars in Bohemia (1419-1436).
Thus, Renaissance and humanist currents had already begun to challenge medieval worldviews. Against this backdrop, Martin Luther’s 95 Theses (1517) electrified Europe, denouncing Church corruption and calling for a return to Scripture. This sparked a wave of reform — religious, intellectual, and soon political.
When Martin Luther (above) first opposed the doctrines and structure of the Catholic Church in 1517, his challenge was broad and undefined, uniting various strands of dissent. Initially, Luther’s calls for reform sparked a powerful wave of revolutionary will among peasants, plebeians, and patricians alike. His attacks on the clergy and emphasis on Christian liberty were seen by many as a signal to rise up. However, as the movement grew and threatened to engulf all of Germany, Luther — protected by powerful princes and surrounded by allies from the nobility and the urban middle class — chose to side with the conservative, property-owning elements. Distancing himself from the radical insurgents, especially Müntzer’s revolutionary faction, he began preaching moderation and obedience to secular authority. By the time the uprising escalated and the Peasants’ War broke out, Luther turned against the peasants and called for their violent suppression:
They should be knocked to pieces, strangled and stabbed, secretly and openly, by everybody who can do it, just as one must kill a mad dog!
His shift from radical agitator to staunch defender of feudal order reflected a broader betrayal of both the popular and even the bourgeois reformation movements, reducing his message to one of passive obedience and divine justification of authority. The Bible he once wielded against ecclesiastical and feudal powers was now used to sanctify the very structures of domination the peasants had hoped to overturn. Luther published his pamphlet Against the Murderous, Thieving Hordes of Peasants, (1525) calling for the violent suppression of the uprising. Müntzer, on the other hand, became a leading voice and guide for the rebels, especially in Thuringia.
While Luther’s Reformation was largely theological and cautious in its relationship with political authority, others saw in it a mandate for total transformation — including the social order itself. Among them was Thomas Müntzer.
Müntzer preaches revolt against ‘the weeds in God’s vineyard’
Born around 1498 in the small town of Stolberg, Thomas Müntzer’s life was shaped by oppression from the very beginning. According to tradition, his father fell victim to the arbitrary cruelty of the local nobility, executed by hanging — an early lesson in the violence of feudal power. This injustice left its mark on the young Müntzer, who, by the age of fifteen, was already organising secret resistance against the Church. While studying in Halle, he formed an underground group opposing the Archbishop of Magdeburg and the corruption of Roman Catholicism. His sharp intellect earned him a doctorate in theology, but rather than climbing the clerical ladder, he grew increasingly disgusted with Church rituals and dogma. As a chaplain in a Halle convent, he openly mocked Catholic rites, even skipping the consecration of the Eucharist — a defiant act that foreshadowed his later rebellion.
Müntzer’s radicalism was deeply influenced by medieval mystics, and their prophecy of a “Millennial Kingdom” of divine justice. For Müntzer, the turmoil of the Reformation was the prelude to this great reckoning — a chance to overthrow not just corrupt priests, but the entire social order. By 1520, he had become a preacher in Zwickau, where he encountered the Anabaptists, a radical sect expecting Christ’s imminent return. Though he never fully joined them, their visions of a world turned upside down resonated with his own revolutionary fervour. When authorities cracked down on the movement, Müntzer fled to Prague, hoping to revive the militant traditions of the Hussites. But his fiery proclamations only got him expelled, forcing him back to Germany.
In 1522, he found his true calling in Allstedt, a small Thuringian town that became the epicentre of his rebellion. Here, he did what even Luther had not yet dared — abolishing Latin Mass and replacing it with fiery sermons in the people’s language. He didn’t just preach reform; he incited revolt, calling on peasants and even sympathetic nobles to take up arms against the “godless” clergy and nobility. Quoting Christ’s words—“I have come to bring, not peace, but the sword”—he declared that true faith demanded action. The old order had to be uprooted like “weeds in God’s vineyard,” and if princes wouldn’t act, the people must.
As his thinking grew more militant, Müntzer broke decisively with Luther, who had begun siding with the ruling class. Where Luther preached submission, Müntzer called for revolution. He denounced private property, echoing the communal ideals of the early Christians, and argued that the poor had a divine right to seize land and wealth from their oppressors. By 1524, he had transformed from a radical priest into a full-fledged revolutionary leader, organising peasant armies across Thuringia.
A spark waiting to ignite
His rebellion reached its climax at the Battle of Frankenhausen in 1525, where thousands of poorly armed peasants faced the forces of the German feudal lords. The result was a massacre. Captured and tortured, Müntzer was executed as a heretic and rebel. Yet his vision outlived him. Friedrich Engels later hailed him as a man who saw religion not as a tool for obedience, but as a weapon for liberation:
Müntzer’s political doctrine followed his revolutionary religious conceptions very closely, and as his theology reached far beyond the current conceptions of his time, so his political doctrine went beyond existing social and political conditions. As Müntzer’s philosophy of religion touched upon atheism, so his political programme touched upon communism (…) His programme, less a compilation of the demands of the then existing plebeians than a genius’s anticipation of the conditions for the emancipation of the proletarian element that had just begun to develop among the plebeians, demanded the immediate establishment of the kingdom of God, of the prophesied millennium on earth.
In the end, Thomas Müntzer was more than a theologian. He was a revolutionary who dared to imagine that heaven’s kingdom could be built on earth, by the hands of the oppressed. And for that, the powers of his time made sure he would not survive.
The Twelve Articles
The Peasants’ War was the largest popular uprising in Europe before the French Revolution, involving tens of thousands of peasants and plebeians. Their demands were outlined in the Twelve Articles of the Swabian Peasants (1525), calling for the abolition of serfdom, fair rents, and communal access to forests and waters — requests inspired in part by scriptural principles. This plebeian radicalism, though doomed by immature material conditions, represented history’s first anticipation of modern communism. While their demands for common ownership could only manifest as crude charity in that era, and their egalitarianism as mere legal equality, Müntzer’s movement gave these aspirations their first coherent expression. His rebellion marked the point where medieval peasant revolts converged with emerging proletarian consciousness. And as long as inequality endures, his spirit remains a spark waiting to ignite.
In May 1525, the Peasants’ Revolt was brutally crushed by the feudal forces, resulting in thousands of deaths. Müntzer was captured, tortured, and executed on May 27, 1525. Although official (West) German historiography has systematically erased Müntzer from Germany’s official narrative, he and the revolutionary movement he stood for was celebrated and is still remembered in the East of Germany. Like the existence of the GDR, Müntzer’s revolutionary legacy refuses to go away, and is far more than a footnote of history.
This article is closely based on Friedrich Engels’ The Peasant War in Germany. See here for Jenny Farrell’s companion article on Werner Tübke’s Peasants’ War Panorama, in Frankenhausen.
