Along with the multi-page pamphlet and the periodical newspaper, the broadsheet constituted an important journalistic medium during the time of the Thirty Years' War. The broadsheet consisted of a single page, printed on one side and often supplied with graphics to catch the eye and enhance the message. It could be produced relatively quickly and was not exorbitant in cost, even for broader levels of society. Through the choice of various aesthetic means in text and image, a wide range of interests and abilities in different segments of the public could be addressed. In its assumptions and purposes, the broadsheet generally made reference to a particular historical situation, often making an appeal to the reader. In this way, it exercised an opinion-forming influence particularly in regard to attitudes toward current events.

The journalistic activity of the years 1619-21 in support of Frederick V of the Palatinate as king of Bohemia was subjected to public criticism as early as 1621. The illustrated broadsheet Ambassador des Lucifers ("Ambassador of Lucifer"), [1] which does not reveal its own, more Lutheran than Catholic standpoint, uses the example of Calvinistic journalism to expose deficiencies in the entire political news system of the time. In the process, it becomes apparent that the individual media in question are not terminologically distinguished from each other, i.e. that there was at first little interest in differentiating between newspaper, broadsheet, and pamphlet. Rather, publications were distinguished according to criteria of content and form, for example between the defamatory Pasquill or Famoslibell on the one hand and Zeitungen (pamphlets or newspapers) which reported recent events on the other. There existed a media network in which the individual elements gradually underwent a separation of function, at the same time keeping the boundaries open to other media (e.g. song and theater).

This network was put to the first great test in the variety of publications concerned with Bohemian part of the Thirty Years' War. By 1605 at the latest, the periodical newspaper had emerged alongside the established forms of the pamphlet on the one hand, with its capacity for broader argumentation and documentation for a literate public, and the (usually illustrated) broadsheet on the other, with its direct appeal and reference to specific situations. In the early decades, newspapers concentrated on descriptive accounts, primarily of political and military events, for the most part free of partisan bias. Other events such as natural catastrophes tended to be reported only in context of their effect on the economy or military campaigns.

Significantly, the journalistic forum in which the weaknesses of this media network are discussed is the illustrated broadsheet. The publication of unreliable reports is censured morally as both human failure (Lügn in folio) and as the proximity and influence of the devil; both the unreliable reporters and the devil are said to have the goal of misleading simple readers (die armen Leute zubethören) with untrustworthy, but interesting-seeming news. This interpretation appears as well in the first theoretical statements published in book form, such as journalism theorist Ahasver Fritsch's 1676 critique of the pleasure taken in "inventing new newspapers and deceiving especially the simple through their indiscriminate dissemination" (neue Zeitungen zu erfinden und durch deren wahllose Verbreitung besonders einfache Menschen zu täuschen), an activity that should be viewed as a sin against God, the state, and one's neighbor. In his historical, theoretical, and practical monograph of 1695 on the publication of news and in particular the newspaper, Kaspar Stieler reiterates these and other remarks by Fritsch, according to which an unreliably informed journalist cannot be excused by the fact that the world wants to be deceived (die Welt wolle betrogen seyn); neither should blame be cast upon the sensation-hungry curiosity of the broader public. Stieler demands a high level of source criticism and thus reliability of information in journalism; he views the newspaper, in particular, as an instrument for the increase of reliable knowledge and concedes only in passing that the "shrewdness" (Klugheit) "according to the course of things" (nach der Sachen Lauf) that arises from the daily reading of the newspaper produces nothing constant, but that "a different shrewdness" (eine andere Klugheit) must be adopted from day to day, one that must "contradict, indeed condemn" (wiederlegen/ ja verdammen) the previous one. With the beginning of the Thirty Years' War, the task of evaluating this change in the assessment of previous and current news falls ever more regularly to the illustrated broadsheet, which at the same time increasingly relinquishes its older task of providing primary information. The broadsheet ?Einred vnd Antwort? ("Protest and Answer") [2] of ca. 1621, for example, quotes and recommends eleven broadsheets from the previous two years of the Bohemian war in text and image, thus referring the reader to a series of partisan commentaries on individual events. All twelve broadsheets are directed against Frederick V of the Palatinate and reckon with the sympathy of the "gmein Mann" (common man), i.e. the literate public outside the circle of rulers. In this way, critical reflection on the part of this public is supposed to be produced not through novelties of primary information, but through evaluative perspectives that appear persuasive, yet do not pretend to be non-partisan.

In its commentary on current political events, the illustrated broadsheet sometimes offers its intended audience figures with whom they themselves can identify. In the undated broadsheet Stachlichte Donnerdistel ("Spiny Thunder-Thistle" [3]), which already assumes the beginning of the currency devaluation of the "Kipper- und Wipperzeit" and thus probably appeared around 1622, the speaker is an "arm Mann" (poor man) who was once prosperous and considered "Kauffleut / Burger vnd Bawerßmann" (merchants, citizens, and farmers) his equals, viewing both himself and them as the "gmeinen Mann" (common man); now, however, though he retains his respect for authority, he is forced by his impoverished condition to live from robbery. Here a commentary on the current economic decline is presented from the perspective of an honest man who is forced to act unjustly and who himself probably embodies the broadsheet's intended audience. Such a perspective could give pause to other readers as well, including representatives of the state or members of other classes; yet the actual opinion-forming power of the broadsheet lies in its giving public vent to the desperation of the members of the lower and newly impoverished classes, a voice that is otherwise rare. In a similar way, the broadsheet Cvrrvs cvrsvs mundi [4] ("The Course of the World") likewise represents an anonymous "Gemein Mann" belonging to no particular territory or confession. He stands as the defenseless victim of opposing powers in a world marked by disorder. In addition to a German text presenting a plausible complaint in simple language, the broadsheet also includes a differently accentuated, more allusive Latin text, a clear indication that its accusations and suggestions are also directed at educated readers and therefore potentially at the ruling classes themselves.

Two broadsheets serve in text and image to illustrate the relation between a particular political situation, with the detached activity of political leaders, and the helpless situation of those who see themselves as mere objects of the powerful. The Netherlandish broadsheet Het Vorstlijck Raffel-spel om Schencken-Schants [5] ("The Princely Game at Schenkenschanze") of 1636, reflecting the Protestant perspective of a particular territory, represents the European powers as players in a game of dice in which the latest object is to win the Schenkenschanze near Cleves. The potentates make statements concerning their chances in the conflict, statements that blur the distinction between politics and play; only the farmers who lie hidden under the playing table, oppressed by all and plaintively crying for revenge, receive neither answer nor help. Similarly, the picture field of the broadsheet Groß Europisch Kriegs-Balet [6] ("Great European War Ballet"), written after 1643, arouses the suspicion that irresponsibility and aimlessness predominate in European political affairs; as with the game for the Schenkenschanze, the dancing potentates are here shown from the perspective of those who suffer under the circumstances of the time and hope in vain for a responsible politician who will care for their need. In both cases, the very choice of this perspective leads to an unusual commentary, such as is not found in the newspapers of the time. Even for the illustrated broadsheet with its many partisan commentaries, the interest in the perspective of the powerless is the exception rather than the rule; nonetheless, this medium makes it possible to expand the spectrum of positions in public discourse and thus also to imagine, beyond all actions of leaders and states, the normal person of the time, whose self-understanding is so difficult to document. This holds true not only for political, but also for religious conflicts: the broadsheet Geistlicher Rauffhandel ("The Spiritual Brawl"), [7] probably printed around 1619, contrasts the violent struggle between the representatives of the three confessions - the pope, Luther, and Calvin - with the hope of Einfalt (unity), shown in the form of a praying shepherd who stands for all Christians outside the class of political and religious leaders. Here, religious conflict is rejected in the name of the Irenism espoused long before the beginning of the Thirty Years' War, and the search for the common ground of primitive Christianity is recognized as the more important task.

Only seldom do the partisan representations of the broadsheet encourage broad criticism of the authorities, even when the subject is a monarch of the politically opposing side. The devastating mockery of Frederick V of the Palatinate as king of Bohemia is a rare counterexample. When criticism of the emperor is intended, the attack is leveled not at the emperor himself, but at his counsellors (Jesuits) or army commanders. Then, to be sure, the persuasive rhetoric of the broadsheet does not hesitate to present the enemy in the most negative light possible, not least of all by the concrete denunciation of the opponent in image and text.

Occasionally, the illustrated broadsheet articulates emergent opinions or points the way toward future opinions within the centers of power themselves. The broadsheet Triga heroum of 1632, [8] composed in difficult Latin and with a highly artificial textual design, shows Luther flanked by the elector Johann Georg I of Saxony and King Gustav II Adolf of Sweden as the protectors of the true faith. The author Abraham Lehmann, court chaplain and army chaplain of the Saxon general Johann Georg von Arnim (Arnheim), refers to himself by his full name. The difficulty of the text narrows the circle of intended readers to the educated, while the recognizable political strategy points to politicians primarily of the Saxon court. The text, oriented to laudatio and persuasio, names the reasons why the ideal situation shown in the image should also be produced in reality. The Saxon elector is flattered into a constellation that he himself had resisted up to this point, but which is here presented as highly laudable, using methods drawn from both the literary genre of the panegyric and the activity of the court chaplain: the ruler is praised for a position or activity that he ought to, but does not yet perform; the praise anticipates the deed hoped for by the author. The purpose of the broadsheet is to place Johann Georg on a level with the Swedish king, in order to propagate the continuation and improvement of Swedish-Saxon cooperation at both the military and the political level.

The pro-Swedish journalism surrounding Gustav Adolf's intervention in the Thirty Years' War, with its wealth of aspects and argumentation, repeatedly includes expressive broadsheets soliciting trust, intended not only to shape opinions, but also to change them. The broadsheet Schwedischer Hercules ("Swedish Hercules") [9] of ca. 1630, for example, portrays Gustav Adolf as a pure deliverer who merits confidence from his own followers and whose deeds are guided by God himself. The defenseless faithful, from whom the papacy, visualized as the Antichrist, snatches the church (or the exercise of religion), receive him as a savior in the act of crushing a brood of vipers. His open heart is accessible to view; into it lead the paths of the divine Word, while from it proceeds his speech to those who are and will be his followers. The combination showing Gustav Adolf as the guarantor of assurance and strength in a religiously oriented role as savior and protector was varied in a number of broadsheets. Testimony to their effectiveness is borne, among other things, by the lament of the opposing party in the Catholic broadsheet Vlmer Wehklag vnd Augspurgische Warnung ("Ulm Lament and Augsburg Warning"). [10] Following the death of Gustav Adolf, the broadsheet looks back at his overestimation even among Catholics; he was considered a god, it says, and many a faithful Catholic prayed to him as a saint:

Ich sags vnd ist nur gar zu wahr/
Die Weber vnd ein jeder Narr
Sein Bildniß hett an der Kammer Thür/
Vnd betteten: Lieber Schwed hilff mir. [11]

FOOTNOTES