Messianic Communism in the Protestant Reformation. by Murray N. Rothbard
Peasants’ War Panorama (Wikipedia)
Based on Friedrich Engels’ 1850 book The Peasant War in Germany, Thomas Müntzer as an early revolutionary became an icon of historical materialism in East Germany.
At the 450-years jubilee of the battle for Frankenhaus in 1975, the then-ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) charged the rector of the Leipzig Academy of Visual Arts, Professor Werner Tübke, with the creation of a monumental panorama painting: Early Bourgeois Revolution in Germany, also known as the Peasants’ War Panorama. The work in a specially erected rotunda was finished in 1987. Depicting more than 3000 individuals, the panorama is 123 metres (404 ft) in length and 14 metres (46 ft) in height. (See below)
Despite the Politburo’s plans modelled on the Battle of Borodino panorama at Poklonnaya Hill in Moscow, Tübke realised a rather pessimistic vision of a resigned Müntzer standing alone among battling troops, a Bundschuh flag on the ground at his side. The Panorama was inaugurated by Kurt Hager and Margot Honecker, as deputy for her husband Erich, on 14 September 1989, eight weeks before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the eventual reunification of Germany in October 1990.
Today the Panorama Museum displays art shows and a collection of works of contemporary international artists.
