Leuthen

Polish: Lutynia

The village of Leuthen is situated in south-western Poland, 20 km west of Wrocław, the capital of Lower Silesia, and 15 km east of Środa Śląska.

Lower Silesian Voivodeship/Województwo dolnośląskie, Neumarkt in Silesia District/Powiat średzki, Nimkau Municipality/Gmina Miękinia (1945–54: independent municipality of Leuthen/Lutynia).

The village of Leuthen was first mentioned in a document in 1346. It is home to a Gothic St Joseph’s Church (15th century) and a neo-Gothic, formerly Protestant church (now a Catholic branch church).

The most famous event in the town’s history is the Battle of Leuthen on 5 December 1757, one of the most significant military engagements of the Seven Years’ War (1756–63) between Prussia and Austria, which paved the way for the Kingdom of Prussia’s rise to become a major European power. Following a series of defeats suffered by Prussian troops, King Frederick II (1712–86) defeated an Imperial execution army and French units at the Battle of Roßbach (Electorate of Saxony) on 5 November 1757. Frederick’s aim was now to reclaim Silesia, which was being held by Austrian troops.

The Leuthen Chorale. After a painting ‘
’ by Wilhelm Camphausen (1818–85). (Bruno
Schrader [ed.]: Frederick the Great and his
era in pictures and words, Hamburg 1910, p. 117)

 

On the morning of 5 December 1757, a large Austrian army under Karl Alexander of Lorraine, which outnumbered the approaching Prussian army two to one, took up position in a long line in the hilly country near the village of Leuthen. The Prussian army initially carried out feint attacks on the left wing, before launching the decisive assault on the right wing with infantry and cavalry units that were initially concealed from the Austrians. Frederick II and his generals successfully employed the ‘oblique order of battle’ for the first time. After the Austrian formation had largely been broken, a battle of position broke out at Leuthen, particularly around the churchyard, which ended by evening with a crushing defeat for the Austrians. This cleared the way for Frederick II to advance on Breslau and for Prussia to take definitive possession of Silesia.

Alongside the battle of Leuthen’s historical significance, its symbolic value for Prussian-Protestant history is of secondary importance: it encompasses the military aspects of the battle, its appropriation by a Protestant culture of victory, and various anecdotes. Hardly any other event of the Silesian Wars has been depicted more frequently in engravings, historical paintings and drawings than the Battle of Leuthen. Novellas, novels and songs form the literary branch of this culture of remembrance. The primary focus of remembrance was on the skilful strategy of the numerically outnumbered Prussian army, which, contrary to expectations, had brought about victory. In particular, the skill of the cavalry general Hans Joachim von Zieten and Lieutenant-General Georg Wilhelm von Driesen was emphasised. After the battle, the approximately 25,000 surviving Prussian soldiers sang the Protestant chorale ‘Nun danket alle Gott’. This subsequently became a ‘patriotic anthem’ in Prussia and a symbol of Protestant confidence in victory, which was staged at numerous Prussian military celebrations. Frederick II’s victory thus acquired a quasi-sacred significance.

Frederick the Great at Lissa Palace.
Illustration based on a work by Adolf Menzel.
(Franz Kugler: Geschichte Friedrichs
des Grossen, Leipzig 1840, p. 366)

 

One of the best-known, albeit ahistorical, anecdotes recounts an alleged unguarded visit by Frederick II to the Austrian camp near Deutsch-Lissa/Leśnica Castle on the evening following the battle (“Bon soir, Messieurs, surely you would not expect to find me here. Is there still room for me here?”); the taken-by-surprise Austrian guards are said to have greeted the king with the utmost deference. This tale served to cement the image of the daring and fearless monarch. Several monuments commemorated the battle prior to 1945: the ‘Altar of Leuthen’, erected in 1824 by King Frederick William III, a 12-metre-high granite column (1854) on the spot where Frederick II is said to have devised his battle formation, and a 24-metre-high obelisk (1907) marking the spot where the soldiers sang the ‘Choral of Leuthen’ after the battle. The historical feature film *Choral von Leuthen* (directed by Carl Froelich), which was released in German cinemas in 1933, served to glorify Prussian soldierly spirit. Between 1921 and 1945, there was a museum dedicated to the Battle of Leuthen in the village of Leuthen; since 2003, the Friends of Leuthen Association (Stowarzyszenie Przyjaciół Lutyni) has been working to re-establish it. The 250th anniversary of the battle was celebrated on a grand scale in 2007.

• Bernhard R. Kroener: “Nun danket alle Gott.” The Leuthen chorale and Frederick the Great as a Protestant hero. The production of political myths in the 19th and 20th centuries. In: Gerd Krumeich, Hartmut Lehmann (eds.): “God with Us”. Nation, Religion and Violence in the 19th and Early 20th Centuries. Göttingen 2000 (Publications of the Max Planck Institute of History 162), pp. 105–134.
• Tobias Weger: The Battle of Leuthen – Myth and Place of Remembrance. In: Silesia Nova 2/2 (2007), pp. 55–65.
  
• Rościsław Żerelik, Stanisław Rosik, Grzegorz Borowski (eds.): Bitwa pod Lutynią (1757). Historia i tradycja [The Battle of Leuthen (1757). History and Tradition]. Wrocław 2010.

• www.theartofbattle.com/battle-of-leuthen-1757/
• books.google.de/books?id=R4IMAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=geschichte+friedrichs+des+grossen&hl=de&ei=NVTOToSuOY_m-gbKv429Dg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CEAQ6AEwAA# (Franz Kugler: History of Frederick the Great. Leipzig 1840, pp. 353–368, with the well-known illustrations by Adolph von Menzel).
• www.herder-institut.de/bildkatalog/wikidata/Q1011982 (Images relating to Leuthen/Lutynia in the image archive of the Herder Institute, Marburg)

Tobias Weger: Leuthen/Lutynia. In: Online Encyclopaedia on the Culture and History of Germans in Eastern Europe, 2011. URL: ome-lexikon.uni-oldenburg.de/p32306.html (as at 30 July 2021).