Germany does not present a fruitful field for examples of popular uprisings and the exhibition of the indignation of the people when crushed by the oppressors of the upper classes. Germany to-day, even in the last decade of the nineteenth century, presents a picture of the only government in Europe which pretends to have a representative form of government, where the chief executive, the Emperor, can speak of himself, or would dare to do so, as the “war lord,” to whom absolute obedience is due by the citizens of the Empire. The Anglo-Saxons, while a branch of the great Teutonic race, seem to have acquired, by their being transplanted to the British Isles, a greater spirit of independence than the other branches of the German race that have remained on the continent of Europe. Otho I., son of Henry I., the mighty Saxon duke, was the founder of the German empire (936-973), and remorselessly crushed the rising opposition of the princely aristocracy. Mutterings of discontent, ominous of coming revolution, began to be heard throughout the whole of South and Central Germany, in the early years of the seventeenth century. The social position of the peasants was of the most degrading character. They were serfs; or, in other words, belonged to the soil on which they were born, and through that to the lord who owned the soil. The miserable peasants had no right to move from these lands; there was no appeal from the authority of the lord. When he appropriated for his own use the common pasture grounds of the village; when he forbade them to fish in the streams, or to hunt in the woods; increased the ground rent; tithe socage service, according to his own need, they had to submit or revolt. Thomas Münzer was an earnest, advanced preacher at Zwichfau, in Saxony, in 1520 and in 1523. He was expelled from Allstadt by the government, and went first to Nuremberg, and then to Schaffhausen, returning soon to Thüringia, and settled at Mülhausen. There he succeeded in overthrowing the city council and appointing another which was completely under his control. Götz von Berlichingen was a famous German knight, surnamed “The Iron Hand.” He was born in 1480, at Berlichingen Castle, in Wurtemberg. He lost a hand at the siege of Land Shut, and replaced it with an iron one. He was a daring and turbulent subject, continually involved in feuds with neighboring barons. Thomas Münzer and Götz von Berlichingen were the only leaders who took part in what is known as “The Peasants’ War,” in Germany. This was an uprising of the peasants, which first manifested itself January 1, 1525, by the capture and looting of the convent of Kempton. This served as a signal for general uprising of the peasantry from the Alps to Havz, and from the Rhine to the Bohemian frontier. Münzer quickly persuaded the whole population in and around Mühausen and Laugensalza to rise in revolt, and Götz von Berlichingen hastened to place his skill at the service of the infuriated peasants.