The Pete Quiñones Show - Episode 1326: The Thirty Years War - Part 6 - w/ Thomas777

Episode Date: February 5, 2026

59 MinutesPG-13Thomas777 is a revisionist historian and a fiction writer.Thomas continues a series on the 30 Years War, which many historians count as the most important European conflict prior to the 20th century. Radio Free Chicago - T777 and J BurdenThomas777 MerchandiseThomas' Buy Me a CoffeeThomas' Book "Steelstorm Pt. 1"Thomas' Book "Steelstorm Pt. 2"Thomas' WebsiteThomas on TwitterThomas' CashApp - $7homas777Pete and Thomas777 'At the Movies'Support Pete on His WebsitePete's PatreonPete's SubstackPete's SubscribestarPete's GUMROADPete's VenmoPete's Buy Me a CoffeePete on FacebookPete on TwitterBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-pete-quinones-show--6071361/support.

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And yeah, I mean, I'll never be able to thank you enough. So thank you. The Pekingona Show.com. Everything's there. I want to welcome everyone back to the Pekignano show. After a little detour, we are back to Thomas talking about the 30 years war. So how you doing, Thomas? I'm doing well.

Thanks for hosting me. Of course, of course. Take it away. I mean, dedicating a lot of thought and research to the fact that the 30 years were, it framed German political cautionists in a way that was just positive. I would go as far as to say the entire theory of Sunderweig, which we've talked about in other episodes and series,

was approximately derivative of the 30-year-old. war experience. I'll get to know exactly what I mean in a moment. This is important, though, and I think this is, will provide people with a deeper and more relevant understanding of the subject matter and simply breaking down every discrete phase of the conflict or emphasizing military aspects and things, whether trivia of political intrigues, one of the various factions. it wasn't just a pragmatic affair that the Westphalian peace in conceptual terms as well as in terms of praxis created the modern state this was by necessity in terms of the historical process there couldn't be I mean the Holy Roman Empire had been destroyed but it wouldn't have been possible to return to those sorts of political modalities and modern military doctrine as well as modern military science as relates to political variables and understandings of national security and what it entails that derived

absolutely from the 30 years war and the 30 years war also built created the prussian state even though Prussia Prussia didn't exist then it was the it was the Brandenburg electorate raw practical purposes but the experience of the 30 years war

informed Prussian military doctrine for the duration of its existence and it and that includes the national socialist era and unified Germany was was really the imposition of the Prussian model of statecraft upon the entirety of the fatherland. There's this really interesting lesson on essay by Ernstinolety called, I think it's called Germany in the Cold War.

He talks about how, well, it makes a couple of fascinating points. And I'll tie this back in a moment, even if it seems tangential. Orrinaldi said in modern conceptual terms, the right and left schism, it didn't emerge from the French Revolution. He said it emerged from the war between the states. And like Heidegger and like Adolf Hitler, he viewed America as being at the forefront of historical potency, not just in the fact that in terms of technological innovations and momentum and things of that nature, but also in conceptual terms, America was at the forefront of determining the course of history in global terms, literally. He said the war between the states.

He said that the union, which became the United States of America, as we know it, was the first. first truly left wing or progressive state because of the premise entirely on abstractions and appeal to historical concepts extricated from epistemological realities of, you know, the organic experiences of a people over time. He said the South was axiomatically and unconditionally right wing. It was entirely based on this organic understanding of Americans as a discrete race of people possessed of a Christian faith that was overwhelmingly Protestant in nature. And it viewed political activity in essential capacities as activity that was tailored and implemented to guarantee the posterity. of that, you know, a discreet people and their historically coded way of life. And I basically agree with that.

And America and Germany were an odd dialogue. Nowhere is that more apparent than in terms of the national economics model that characterized America in the Gilded Age and slightly beyond. which the Germans adopted in its entirety. You know, I think we're talking about how when U.S. Grant, he toured Germany, and he was viewed as this really heroic figure there. And, you know, Hamiltonian economics, Frederick List basically represents Hamiltonian economics through a Teutonic conceptual lens.

but anyway the Prussian state or the Brandenburg what became the Prussian state Prussia was almost Germany was essentially destroyed what was to become Germany was essentially destroyed by the 30 years war

Prussia survived because it wasn't truly a party combatant in a way that most of the central German territories were but what the Prussians realized is that they had to sustain, they had to maintain a credible military capability on a permanent

and perennial basis because it was inevitable in their opinion that an event like a 30 years war would return and they wouldn't survive the next conflict cycle due to a burgeoning interdependence at scale with the rest of the continent and other things as well as, you know, the ongoing, what they received as the ongoing existential racial conflict. conflict with the Eastern peoples. So the Prussian Kingdom, not only did they create the first modern standing army, as we think of it. They also implemented taxation at scale of everybody, you know, and this is very highly controversial, but the notion was, well, we face existential threats to not just our political, but our racial survival at all times. times. So if people are going to benefit from the protection of, you know, that this mighty

military apparatus of force, able-bodied matter required to serve in it, but also everybody's required to sustain it, you know, with a proportion of their wealth or their earnings. And I shouldn't need to elaborately explicate the degree to which America internalize this idea, except it's perverse here because America doesn't face those challenges. And you can't extricate this sort of strong central state apparatus, the purpose of which is social engineering in part to inculcate people with a patriotic sensibility in, you know, in the Athenian sense, like Sorrell talked about. You can't make that some deracinated postulate. And, you know, make it work. And also you can't justify it just on propositional grounds like America tries to,

because then you have a tyranny. Then it's doing the opposite of what it's intended, and that's perverse. These things only exist. They're admittedly extreme measures that force people to sacrifice substantial aspects of their own liberties. The reason why that can be rationalized ethically, as well as every other way is because it serves the posterity of the racial community.

That's it. And of course, too, it was very cynical and remained so today. I mean, it's uncausal. This idea that America needs this massive standing army as if there's some sort of, as if there's some

existential threat constantly in the wings. You know, I mean, don't get me wrong. America does face threats, but not, but the regime won't acknowledge that those threats even exist, and they certainly aren't ones of a conventional military major. So this is important, you know, but

so, and in an very indirect way, but in various capacities that were, again, literally disposited, and how the United States of America developed after the war between the States, there is a linear trajectory from the 30-year's war to, you know, to know. It's not just a matter of trivia, and it's not, it doesn't just relate to, you know,

how the Germans as a people viewed, we would amount to a tragedy, the commons, or their unfortunate historical fate owing to this kind of collective experience of trauma. And if people require, just anecdotally, if you're not, if anybody requires more data or a more concrete understanding of the conflict within the European psyche, I mean, from the end of hostilities, you know, in 1648, until really even beyond 1945, because in the DDR, this continued to loom large. Just incidentally, it was another point nult he made in his Cold War essay. He reiterated that East Germany was the real Germany, even though they were under

hostile occupation, and the SED only existed. by design of the Soviet Union. He said that there was both a potency to East Germany because communism was dictating the course of power political events and conceptual reality, especially in the early Cold War, and Germany, East Germany was a purely ideological state but it also claimed that it was the result of a German historical process that had resolved in socialism,

which was being realized, which would bring about the end of history. You know, and I think there's something to that. He viewed the, he viewed the Bundes Republic as an absolute contrivance. You know, it was neither German nor European nor was it at, nor was it just a mirror of America. it was this ideological construct that didn't purport to represent any kind of historical resolution of processes. It simply represented an opposition to what was claimed to be perverse aspects of the German national character. some sort of economic engine and military arsenal contra communist aggression. There wasn't any potency there in the terms Nolte was talking about.

And there were there weren't there was only really one potentiality. You know, and even that even that potentiality evaporated after the inter-German border came down. You know, but to bring it back, And forgive me if I'm jumping around too much. The German stage in the 18th century was a big deal. You know, it's not as storied as the London stage is, but I'd argue that it was just as important. And a lot of plays were historically coded and oriented.

Frederick Schiller, he was both a playwright and historian. He produced a series of plays based on the sacking and quite little rape of Magdeburg, a joint force of the Imperial Army and the Catholic League assaulted Magdeburg under the command of this upstart count. And the men who constituted this force, they were half-starved they'd been in heavy action for months on end when they laid siege to magdeburg and then finally breached the city walls it was like when the red army

laid siege to the german rike you know little girls to old women were you know were raped over and over again old men and and little boys were slaughtered you know it was an orgy of violence and when a Protestant minister approached the count and he begged him to halt the violence the count in so many words he said I can't I can't control it it's in the hands of God or maybe the double but he said If I don't let the repean and the murder run its course, I can't control these men at all. This is their reward. And this is apocryphal, but the Protestant minister said something to the effect of, well, then we're in hell.

This play about the sacking of Magdeburg, coupled with this trilogy that Schiller also wrote, called the Wallenstein trilogy. That sort of became the canon of the national traumatic experience of the 30 years war. And to be clear, there wasn't really a sectarian overlay to this. Obviously, I mean, it so happens that in the case of Magdeburg, it was the Imperial Army and the Catholic League that was engaged in this origin of repealing. and violence but the Protestant militias did the same thing and on an individual basis the Calvinists under arms were probably the most extreme of anybody except the Croats and some of the Italians who were the vanguard of Roman Catholic forces

the Croas developed a reputation as being utterly savage fighters during this during the conflict cycle, which is interesting. You know, I mean, that endorses this day. And the Croats are great people. I'm not saying that pejoratively, I mean, quite the contrary. But, you know, and the Schiller's plays developed a following during the Warriors

and the Third Reich, which isn't surprising. And, of course, Herman Lerner, Lans, Itrvarvuf. That's a great novel. And Imperium Press just published in addition of it, which is fantastic. I mean, that wasn't published until just before the Great War. I think it's at first went to print in 1910. But that was about this freehold farmer and his families massacred by marauding mercenaries.

so he he swears he's going to get revenge on these men so him and a bunch of the other villagers you know like men of the village they develop their own militia and they

savagely attack any any of these mercenary bands who threaten the peace of the village and he becomes this legendary citizen killer you know which obviously is deeply resonant in the German psyche.

And that's another thing, too, that you can take away from this. There's this sort of idiot's caricature of German military violence and German military culture as being this kind of slavishly, you know, almost as being this kind of institution that worships authority for its own sake and disdains personal initiative. I mean, that's nonsense for all kinds of reasons, including the fact that Germans literally invented mission-oriented tactics. But the German ideal is a citizen soldier.

It's the opposite of what the United States holds out as the ideal. It's this kind of professional cast of guys where basically, like, a SWAT team with permanent shoot-de-kill clearance that's deliberately discreet from the rest of the population. You know, the, I make a point again and again that the folks creditors, that concept, that wasn't just very forward-looking in terms of how modern war developed. And it's fascinating, you know, if you look at their kit and stuff, they look like they could be in Vietnam or Nicaragua in the in the in the 60s the 80s respectively 60s 70s or 80s

but it's also that concept of worked in a way I don't think it would have been in France or in Russia or uh in England it would have worked in Scotland or Ireland but the the class divide and the peculiar dynamics they're in I I don't think it's that sort of organization would have played out in a way that facilitated operational needs. But, you know, all these things culminated in a very tragic course for Germany. You know, and that history does not repeat itself. That's an idiot's canard. but there is a clear trajectory that is determined by the historical experience.

And nowhere is that more evident than the experience of Germany in the modern world. I believe too, you know, and obviously the conditions on the conditions on the ground and on the continent didn't impact Britain in direct capacities, although there were plenty of English, Irish, and Scots and Welsh who fought in the 30 years war as mercenaries owing to the fact that that's where the action was if you were a professional soldier or owing to sectarian motivations. You know, the, what the modern UK is as well as Britain in the distant and ancient past is sort of a microcosm of what goes on on the continent. I view the War of Three Kingdoms and Cromwell's ascendancy as a microcosm of what happened in the

30 years of war in a lot of ways. And obviously when people speculate on Hobbes' conceptual horizon, they tend not to even mention the conflict variables that were ex-standing the 30 years of war, but he was absolutely impacted by those things. You know, there's less distance there that I think is often allowed, particularly by court history these days is so anglophone in character, not just because it's become the global lingua franca of academe, but in conceptual terms. I mean, that's what determines thought patterns

and the sort of parameters of hypotheses. That's one of the reasons why I emphasize continental influences so much. It's not just because I'm a Higalian. I believe these things will be true. This is an analytical model that is deliberately neglected. There's a deep conceptual bias there. So I'd like to think of my own very small way. I'm contributing to that being rectified.

But it's also tragedy as the third year's word was. And don't get me wrong, it almost destroyed the Germans as a race of people, if you want to look at it like that. Hitler famously said that the German people were scattered to the four winds, and about a third of them were just annihilated.

You know, maybe like 30 to 40 percent, they just died. And obviously in the early 20th century, people were far more oriented towards understanding race and ethnos in biological terms, Hitler included as a man of his epoch. So he spoke of the kind of different racial types in Europe being uprooted from their land of origin and mixed and scattered.

And in Hitler's view, it had taken almost three centuries for the German people to reconstitute in essential capacities, including biological. But the other side of that was owing to Prussian ascendancy in the aftermath of 1648 and the fact that the conflict cycle approximately caused or at least facilitated at least was an essential condition precedent the Prussian ascendancy that did create the Prussian master cast. narrative, I think. And the Second Reich, the Kaiser Reich, that was viewed as the ongoing process of realizing the destiny of the German folk after the destruction of the empire. And that's

one of the reasons, and I'm not saying this is a positive thing, because sectarianism is always ugly, but, you know, the Kulterkamp, which originally described the Hohen-Zerner effort to purge Catholic influence from public life, you know, this endured until the end of the Kaiser Reich in some sense. Supposedly, Wilhelm's, Belhem the second's wife, wouldn't let Catholics in her house. But Prussia viewing itself not just as the master element of the German people and the first among the Volk, but they're committed to never again allowing a supranational imperative. or authority or power to set the vogue against itself, you know, and confidence in the state and confidence in the national narrative that, I mean, don't get me wrong, there was very bad blood owing to

excesses of the culture comp, and a lot of Catholics were treated very badly. but that didn't deteriorate that never deteriorated or enravelled into the kind of sectarian hatred that that happened in in the UK which is interesting but Germany also the Kaiser Reich was also far more of united polity than the UK and even England you know within that structure. You know, and that's one of the things that's, I mean, I've made this point again and again, Hitler was a Habsburg Austrian, whose forative experiences were, you know, being taught and kind of raised by priests.

You know, he had an abusive father who then proceeded to die of a heart event when Hitler was, you know, a little kid, not even a teenager. You know, Hitler was a Habsburg Austrian who identified the national socialist mandate as being the heir to Prussian political culture. And, you know, he had the confidence of his own tribe and their adjacent co-religionist in Bavaria, as well as the unconditional loyalty of, these northern Protestants and these Prussians, you know, like we've talked about, the National Socialist Heartland and so the electoral map was the

was the semi-rural Protestant North. You know, that's remarkable because the Hitler Coalition really shouldn't have existed. If you look at things in conventional terms and what

people generally take for granted about European identity and how the sectarian divide plays into that, among other things. And that also, during the war, during the conflict cycle, there was this, you've probably seen them, I think most people have, you know, if you spend any time in museums or read books about the early modern period in Europe. There's these engravings and carvings, both on metal and wood. And that became a, the subject matter of those tended to be historical.

Sometimes they were iconographic and religious in nature, but generally these etchings that dealt with political events and warfare. And a tremendous amount were produced by these master engravers. Jacques Calo, he produced a really famous one called The Great Misories of War that depicted atrocities in a way that was shocking for the time. and there's another one called the terrors of the 30 years war

you know and this of course a lot of people then weren't literate but you know that's something too that it tells you something because there weren't you didn't find that kind of thing associated with the seven years war or even with

some of the crusades in the east against the indigenous vends and things. And don't let me wrong, there was extreme brutality there too. But something happened to the continental psyche, you know, particularly in Germany and in, particularly in German lands and in parts of France, that habituated them to a horror of a certain sort. and that I believe inculcated German political life understanding that when war arrives, really anything is possible,

if the conflict cycle reaches a critical intensity, you know, and that that's one of the things that people don't understand. And I was telling to some people the other day over dinner about the posts and speeches. You know, that was Himmler's sort of direct acknowledgement of the ethnic cleansing, particularly of Jews. And a lot of mainstream historians, aside from whatever idiotic mythologies and ideological conceits, they include within their narrative, they act like, well, Himmler's talking about, about these horrible acts with this dispassionate tenor. What a monster. I say, no. Now, people are going to misunderstand what I'm saying here. If I say that's within the German political character, they're going to say, oh, you're saying that the Germans are monstrous. No, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying that the German political

mind and the German ontological sensibility about the ethics of warfare is resigned to the fact that truly monitors acts become not just normalized with characteristic. And yes, there was a lot of unprecedented variables in the Second World War, but Europe-central, was also habituated to a degree of existential brutality really sight unseen

save some of the horrors brought to bear on the American frontier and in the racial wars with the most sanguinary and savage tribes but you know and this what's culturally resonant as regards war and peace questions

I mean this is this is important not just for the sake of standing on ceremony and not just for clarity in the historical record this is how people understand themselves as a nation and as an ethnos and you know within the of their confession and what the meaning is of their own, their own, you know, shared memory within their racial group, epigenetically and spiritually and otherwise, I think that can't be overstated. And that's one of the reasons why these lies about history have had such a catastrophic effect on the American character. And how and why the punitive social engineering regime to literally deculturate the Germans as a people has had such a catastrophic effect on them. you know but to understand I mean relatedly to understand the cultural persona or the historical

persona probably more accurately of a people is to decipher their historical memory and as late as 94 or 45 and even subsequent in the DDR until the 1980s until the 1980s references both direct and oblique to the 30 years war and phenomena therein was a regular part of German national life and that's not accidental or some kind of curiosity but the There are also, too, if we're going to, if people accept what it postulated about the 30-year's war being this outsized causal factor in conceptual statecraft in the modern era, particularly as regards military affairs, but not, but not exclusively. There was this destructive fury to the 30-year's war that, I mean, I know some people, some revisionists say that that became sort of mythical, and it did, because myth-making is always part of the process of historical memory and aggregate. But it bore a real relation to reality.

and that changed things. The modern state, again, was born out of Warcraft and high politics and the exigencies presented by national security imperatives. You know, that's one of the things, and again, I'm no libertarian, but that's one of the things that's wrong with the progressive mindset. And that's one of the things that's wrong with the United States as government developed after the war between the states, and particularly after 93. The state's, the state doesn't exist to teach children how to read or to give them lunch at school. The state doesn't exist to help men and women get along better. The state doesn't exist to make black people feel better about themselves or to get girls interested in studying engineering or to make you a better man

or woman. The state exists as structured in the modern era to guarantee the posterity of the national community and to manage military affairs. and guarantee the existential security of the national community and adjacent peoples who are legitimately under its dominion. That's it. And this was always the understanding until very recently in comparative terms. And so when we say that the 30 years war, when we say the Prussia, the Prussian state was the progeny of the 30 years war, and that the Prussian state was the model of all state crafts at scale in the Western world, I mean, that's what we're talking about.

and the significance of that can't be denied. And the rebuttal of that, or the criticism, in ethical terms, there's an empirical criticism, too, that I, is a little bit outside the scope, at least for today's discussion, but the ethical objection is that, well, a state that self-conscionally views its existential mandate as entirely derivative of war is going to be this warmongering state. No, not, I mean, there's always that potentiality, but a state that, a state born of military necessity, there's going to be natural choice. checks on the reckless exercise of military violence just owing to the reality of the strategic balance and the existence of near peer competitors in immediate proximity.

But also, one of the reasons why these Normy sociologists and social science types, who, I mean, first of all, like, their big kink is pretending that democracy has a meaning and isn't a floating signifier, particularly after 1991. But they also have this idea that the internal situation of the state somehow impacts in dispositive ways, the external environment. That's ridiculous. That's like saying that somebody who has cancer is making the external environment toxic. You know, like I, the, the state is always, unless you're talking about a true hegemon, which, or something approaching that, America's not a conventional hegemon, but it, the impact it has on the wider paradigm is like that of a hegemon, but globalism changes things. But with that exception, and it's more complicated than I'm permitting, admittedly, for this example. With that exception, it's the strategic landscape that determines the form and structure of the internal situation.

it really can't be any other way and um you know but like i said the it's complicated um in the case of america and um but also the way the way i mean this is the discussion for another day too the the way that america approaches military affairs is um is at odds with is it odds with is it odds with extant realities. But, you know, that did present something of unique danger. And in the American case, even before America achieved true superpower capabilities, Just by virtue the fact, even if you were to extricate the ideological motives of the new dealers, I'm not singling them out to burn an effigy.

The New Deal Revolution was truly revolutionary. Okay, I mean that, and it totally altered American national life and the structure of the American state. It was the realization of the process that began when the war went to the states in terms of what Noel he was talking about. But attempting to extrapolate those Prussian structural aspects to a purely ideological and propositionally abstract political culture, you don't have any concrete or organic or historical variables to appeal to. to unify the body politic

or to command its loyalty or at least its obedient compliance and that conveys a grossly outsized significance on warfare and its function within the state and its usefulness

in managing the internal situation if you follow me there. And I think that's exactly what happened. It's not the whole story, but it's undeniable. And at base to, I mean, I hope to write some law-informed stuff on this too. Americans, the core of America, there's a strongly Germanic aspect to it. Regionally, America differs in terms of the culture-bearing and native element.

But, you know, a major aspect of the founding mythology, according to the Hamiltonian faction, was that Americans are Anglo-Saxons were a Germanic people and were casting off this sort of alien tyranny of the Roman church and of this Latin overcast that ruled us in Britain. I mean, part of that was ideological myth-making, but, I mean, that's not incorrect either. you know you add in the uh the the the the celtic aspects and the fact of ulster blood that changes things too and the descendants of the cavaliers in substantial measure constituted the aristocracy of the south

and they obviously were descended from normans so it's complicated But, you know, there's this Germanic blood intermingled with, you know, the Ulster Scots as well. You know, they, we are in part, you know, the bastard offspring of Vikings. So you can't, that's why make the point a lot, too, that the kind of Calvinist diaspora of, you know, America, Ulster. South Africa, Australia, New Zealand that represents the unique heritage that's not just some mirror of, you know, the United Kingdom or something.

I mean, obviously, but that's a bit outside the scope. I'm going to stop there, as I fear that I'm rambling a bit. I'll wrap this up next episode and get more into sort of the concrete military aspects of the conflict and things. I hope that this was useful and interesting to the subs. I think it will be. I took some notes. Oh, awesome.

All right. All right, head on over to Thomas's substack. It's real Thomas-77.7.substack.com. And you can connect to them from there. You can also go to Thomas-777.com. The T is a 7. And yeah, I think he posts, it links, everything is linked there, I believe. Yeah, I mean.

So go support Thomas, do that on Substack or whichever way he has linked on his website. And thank you, Thomas. I look forward to the next episode. Yeah, thank you, my friend.