The Battle of Hemmingstedt took place on February 17th 1500 near the village of Hemmingstedt in present-day Schleswig-Holstein in Germany. It was an attempt of the dukes of Holstein and Schleswig, Duke Friedrich and Duke Johann to subdue the peasantry of Dithmarschen who had established a peasants' republic at the coast of the North Sea. (Duke Johann was at the time also king of the Kalmar Union.) February 17 is the 48th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... // Events Europes population was ~60 million. ... Schleswig-Holstein is the northernmost of the 16 Bundesländer in Germany. ... The term duke is a title of nobility which refers to the sovereign male ruler of a Continental European duchy, to a nobleman of the highest grade of the British peerage, or to the highest rank of nobility in various other European countries, including Portugal, Spain and France (in Italy... For other uses of the word, see Holstein Holstein (Hol-shtayn) (Low Saxon: Holsteen, Danish: Holsten, Latin and historical English: Holsatia) is the southern part of Schleswig-Holstein in Germany, between the rivers Elbe, Eider, and the Schlei firth. ... The region of Schleswig (Former English name: Sleswick, Danish: Sønderjylland, Low Saxon: Sleswig, North Frisian: Slaswik or Sleesweg) covers the area about 30 km north and 40 km south of the border between Germany and Denmark. ... King Frederick I. Frederick I of Denmark and Norway (October 7, 1471 – April 10, 1533) was the son of the first Oldenburg King Christian I of Denmark, Norway and Sweden (1426-1481) and of Dorothea of Brandenburg (1430-1495). ... John, Johann, Johan II, or colloquially Hans, Danish monarch and union king of Denmark (1481 – 1513), Norway (1483 – 1513) Sweden (1497 – 1501), under the Kalmar Union, and also Duke of Schleswig and Holstein. ... In a detail of Brueghels Land of Cockaigne (1567) a soft-boiled egg has little feet to rush to the luxuriating peasant who catches drops of honey on his tongue, while roast pigs roam wild: the 16th century was a good time for European peasants A peasant, from 15th... Dithmarschen is a district in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. ... A republic is a state or country having a government whose political power depends solely on the consent of the people governed. ... The North Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean, located between the coasts of Norway and Denmark in the east, the coast of the British Isles in the west, and the German, Dutch, Belgian and French coasts in the south. ... The royal lineages of Norway, Sweden and Denmark for the period around the formation of the Kalmar Union The Kalmar Union (Danish/Norwegian/Swedish: Kalmarunionen) was a series of personal unions (1397–1520) that united the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden under a single monarch. ...

The ducal army consisted of the "Black Guard", 4.000 mercenaries from the Netherlands, commanded by a petty noble (Junker) named Slentz, 2.000 armoured cavaliers and 5.000 commoners. The defenders were about 3.000 men, all of them peasants. These men were a well-armed, well-organized militia, not the desperate, badly-armed rabble one would associate with the term "peasant rebel". After seizing the village of Meldorf the ducal army advanced, but was stopped at a barricade. The defenders opened at least one dike sluice in order to flood the land. The land quickly turned into morass and shallow lakes. Crammed together on a narrow road with no solid ground on which to deploy, the ducal army was unable to make use of its numerical superiority. The lightly-equipped peasants were familiar with the land and used poles to leap over the ditches. Most of the ducal soldiers were not killed by enemy arms, but drowned. Junkers (English pronunciation: ; German pronunciation: ) were the landed aristocracy of Prussia and Eastern Germany. ... A militia is a group of citizens organized to provide paramilitary service. ... A dyke (or dike) is a stone or earthen wall constructed as a defence or as a boundary. ...

The farmer Wulf Isebrand was the leader and organiser of the peasants' defence. While he was a real person, the existence of other participants of the battle is not proven. For instance, the legendary Reimer von Wiemerstedt is said to have killed Junker Slentz, the chief of the "Black Guard"; another doubtful participant was the "virgin" Telse.

Many details about the battle were made up later in order to heroize the defenders. In 1900 a monument to the defenders was raised. The cult reached its peak in the Nazi era, when local party members used the names of the battle participants for their propaganda. Today there is a more neutral museum at the site commemorating the battle. 1900 is a common year starting on Monday. ... Look up Nazi in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

The Battle of Hemmingstedt is a prime example of the use of terrain in military tactics.