The Herberstoff epitaph

Turncoat and war profiteer

Two farmers kneel on the ground under a mighty oak tree. Fear flickers in their eyes. They roll the dice. Their lives are at stake. Behind them are the soldiers of Governor Herberstorff. The die is cast. One farmer goes free. The second is taken away and hanged.

A cynical game of life and death, which we only know from dystopian films such as Hunger Games or Squid Game, takes place under the brutal rule of Count Herberstorff, Governor of the Duchy of Bavaria in Upper Austria.

The prelude begins in Bohemia: Herberstorff, raised Protestant, converts to Catholicism for career reasons. When the Thirty Years' War begins in 1619, Herberstorff takes part in the Battle of White Mountain, in which the Bohemian Protestants suffer a crushing defeat. At the subsequent Prague execution, 27 Protestant nobles and citizens are tortured, hanged or beheaded in front of an audience. Their heads are impaled and displayed on the Old Town Bridge Tower.

From now on, things start to pay off for Herberstorff. He receives the expropriated estate of the Protestant nobleman Hruška von Březno and Ort Castle from the Scherffenbergs and the estate of Jörger von Tollet in Upper Austria. With immediate effect, Bohemia is declared a Habsburg hereditary kingdom and re-Catholicised.

The game continues: "I would rather rule over a desert," vows Ferdinand II, "than tolerate heresy." He pledges Upper Austria to Bavaria in order to fill his war chest and persuades Bavarian Duke Maximilian to enter the war.

Enshrined in the Treaty of Munich, which is referred to as the Magna Carta of the Catholic alliance, Emperor Ferdinand II is obliged to accept liability with everything he owns for all damages incurred by the Bavarian Duke Maximilian as a result of the war against the Protestants and to reimburse him for the costs of the campaign.

Herberstorff becomes governor of Upper Austria, raises taxes and sends tax collectors and Catholic priests from South Tyrol to preach in Italian. The peasants are supposed to bear the brunt of the war; they rebel and besiege Frankenberg Castle. Promised mercy, the insurgents abandon the siege. Herberstorff promises mercy too and summons 5000 of the county’s men to Haushamerfeld near Vöcklamarkt. Of the 36 alleged ringleaders, half are "pardoned" in Herberstorff's manner: they are allowed to roll the dice for their lives. The winner goes free, while the loser is immediately hanged without trial.

This drastic punitive action does not have the effect Herberstorff hopes for, but becomes the trigger for a carefully planned peasant uprising in Upper Austria, which breaks out in May of 1626.

The aim of the uprising is to expel the Bavarians and return Upper Austria to the emperor. The peasants send a delegation, but the emperor does not receive them. The peasant revolt is not directed against the Habsburgs, but solely against the brutal implementation of the Counter-Reformation and oppressive Bavarian rule. 40,000 peasants of the “land above the Enns” take up arms, conquering Wels, Steyr, Kremsmünster, Freistadt and besieging Linz. They inflict heavy losses on Herberstorff. It is not until the end of 1626 that the Austrian and Bavarian troops are able to defeat the peasants in two battles. It is carnage, in which over 12,000 peasants lose their lives, 2,000 on November 15, 1625 alone, in the Battle of Pinsdorf. A monument on a farmer's hill on the road between Gmunden and Pinsdorf commemorates this.

Herberstorff is described as benevolent by Catholic propaganda, which can be read in the Chronicon Lunaelacense, the Mondsee Chronicle, on page 373:

"Sed & Herberstorffius aggrestium animos demereri beneficiis, placare, clementia, faucios vulneribus obligatis, captivos donis liberaliter cultos dimittere,...

"But Herberstorff, who had raised their (the prisoners) spirits up with benevolences and soothed them with clemency, bandaged their wounds and released the prisoners with generous gifts..."

In the parish church of Altmünster, in the Chapel of All Saints, stands Herberstorff’s epitaph made of red marble. It bears the relief of this once feared man, true to a portrait, life-size and in full armor. At the four corners are his coats of arms and all around the inscription, which you can read in the text:

" Count Adam von Herberstorff, Knight, Ruler of the County Orth am Traunsee, Imperial and Royal Majesty of the Privy Councillor and Governor of Austria above the Enns, also His Royal Highness in Bavaria, vested General-Constable and Colonel on horse and foot, etc. etc. died in 1629, on Sept. 11, between 7 and 8 o'clock in the evening, gently and blessedly in Christ Jesus our Redeemer and Saviour, in his 46th year. What a great soul and protector of the holy Catholic Church. God have mercy on him.”

However, we will never know whether Herberstorff, as the inscription claims, actually found mercy before God.