Thomas Muentzer (film)

Thomas Muentzer is a 1956 East German film about the life of the 16thcentury Protestant theologian and peasant leader Thomas Muentzer, directed by Martin Hellberg.

At 1523, Muentzer arrives in Allstedt to assume the office of the local pastor. When a local villager is arrested after assaulting an overseer who tried to rape his sister, the priest helps him escape. He also carries a first Mass in German rather than Latin, and preaches his flock to destroy all the saints icons in the local chapel, which he deems to be heretical. The people burn it down. The local baron retaliates by destroying the village. The priest now realizes that he is no longer a follower of Luther, who called to refrain from violence. He flees to southern Germany, where he and his friend Heinrich Pfeiffer take over the city of Muehlhausen and form a peasant rebel army, intending to liberate the people. But betrayal and the schemes of the nobility bring about their defeat in the Battle of Frankenhausen. Muentzer is captured as he is tortured, he refuses to deny his religious doctrines and is then executed.The communist leadership of East Germany, in its attempts to create a unifying narrative for the citizens of their country, attempted to portray the history of the land as a chain of events which developed according to the rules of MarxismLeninism, leading unavoidably to the consolidation of socialist power in the state. The figure of the preacher Thomas Muentzer held an especially important status in the eyes of the establishment, both because of his radical theology that was regarded as a precursor to communism and his recognition by Friedrich Engels, who viewed him as a revolutionary leader as stated in Engels book, The Peasant War in Germany. ........

Source: Wikipedia