475 years ago, in the spring of 1525, Martin Luther denounced the German Peasants' Revolt in a vicious pamphlet Against the Looting and Murderous Mobs of Peasants that devastated the movement and unconditionally reaffirmed St Paul's political doctrine as stated in his Letter to the Romans. Luther's Scripture-based doctrine, which considered all government divinely ordained and therefore entitled to unqualified allegiance, remained valid as the professed political creed of German Protestantism into the Twentieth Century. It dominated, …showed first 75 words of 5954 total…

…showed last 75 words of 5954 total…lieben Deutschen" (1531). All translations and paraphrases are my own. 2 Cf. particularly Gerhard Rein, Die Protestantische Revolution 1987-1990. Berlin: Wichern-Verlag 1990. Cf. also my essay "The Protestant Revolution" in Dimensions. A. Leslie Willson & Contemporary German Arts and Letters. Verlag van Acken, Krefeld, 1994, pp. 269-277. 3 Cf. Mary Beth Norton, "The Development of a Revolutionary Mentality," Library of Congress Symposia on the American Revolution, Library of Congress, Washington 1972, pp. 132 and 130, respectively. 4 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethik. Kaiser-Verlag, München 1988. My translation.