Florian Geyer (1490-1525) was a Franconian nobleman who led the Black Company during the Peasants War resulting from the Protestant Reformation in Germany in the 16th century. Despite his membership in the ruling class, Geyer sided with the Protestant peasants against the Roman Catholic hierarchy, for which he became a notable folk hero in Franconia and the whole of Germany. He was identified as precurser of the vanguard of the proletariat in Frederick Engels, The Peasant War in Germany (1850), which primarily stresses the economic class origins of the Peasants War rather than its religious origins. Geyer was also the problemmatic hero of one of Gerhart Hauptmann's major plays, the historical drama Florian Geyer, published in 1896, *[1], and the inspiration for the German folk song, "Wir sind des Geyers schwarzer Haufen" ("We are the Black Band of Geyer"), which has been adopted by the international Marxist labor movement as a rousing union anthem. *[2] The family of Florian Geyer died off in the early 1700s and the original Geyer castle, in Giebelstadt, passed into other hands, but is still the site of an annual "Florian Geier Festspiele". Events Tirant Lo Blanc by Joanot Martorell, Martí Joan De Galba is published. ... Events January 21 - The Swiss Anabaptist Movement was born when Conrad Grebel, Felix Manz, George Blaurock, and about a dozen others baptized each other in the home of Manzs mother on Neustadt-Gasse, Zürich, breaking a thousand-year tradition of church-state union. ... The adjective Franconian (also Frankish) refers to three main meanings : Anything related to the Franks, an ancient Germanic people, although the adjective Frankish is more appropriate for that meaning. ... German nobility was the aristocratic class in Germany. ... The Black Company or the Black Troops was a unit of Franconian mercenaries during the Peasants Revolt in 1520s during the Protestant Reformation in Germany. ... expanding insurgences The Peasants War (in German, der Deutsche Bauernkrieg) was a popular revolt in Europe, specifically in the Holy Roman Empire between 1524-1526 and consisted, like the preceding Bundschuh movement and the Hussite Wars, of a mass of economic as well as religious revolts by peasants, townsfolk and... The Protestant Reformation, also referred to as the Protestant Revolution or Protestant Revolt, was a movement in the 16th century to reform the Catholic Church in Western Europe. ... (15th century - 16th century - 17th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 16th century was that century which lasted from 1501 to 1600. ... Protestantism is a general grouping of denominations within Christianity. ... Categories: 1911 Britannica | Historical stubs | Feudalism ... The Roman Catholic Church, most often spoken of simply as the Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with over one billion members. ... For the various types of hierarchy, see hierarchy (disambiguation) A hierarchy (in Greek: , it is derived from -hieros, sacred, and -arkho, rule) is a system of ranking and organizing things or people, where each element of the system (except for the top element) is subordinate to a single other element. ... A folk hero is a person that is idolized by the common person, but loathed by the rich and powerful, because generally the folk hero must take away something from those of the upper class to make life better for the peasants. ... The Franconian Rake is originally is a heraldic symbol of the bishops of Würzburg, who - though nominally Dukes of Franconia - only ruled in parts of Franconia. ... Vanguard can mean: A vanguard is the forward division in an army. ... The proletariat (from Latin proles, offspring) is a term used to identify a lower social class; a member of such a class is proletarian. ... Friedrich Engels Friedrich Engels (November 28, 1820 - August 5, 1895) was a German Socialist philosopher and the co-founder of modern Communist theory with Karl Marx. ... The Peasant War in Germany is a book written by Friedrich Engels in London, during the summer of 1850, following the failure of the revolutions of 1848-1849, drawing a parallel between that failure and that of the Peasants War of 1525. ... A social class is, in the most basic sense, a group of people that shares the same or similar social status. ... Religious is a term with both a technical definition and folk use. ... Gerhart Hauptmann Gerhart Hauptmann (November 15, 1862 - June 6, 1946), German dramatist, was born on at Obersalzbrunn, Prussia (now Szczawno Drój, Poland) in Silesia, the son of a hotel-keeper. ... Marxism is the political practice and social theory based on the works of Karl Marx, a 19th century philosopher, economist, journalist, and revolutionary, along with Friedrich Engels. ... The labor movement (or labour movement) is a broad term for the development of a collective organization of working people, to campaign in their own interest for better treatment from their employers and political governments. ...

As one of the few German historical figures identifiable with the national history of Germany, and not merely of a principality or region of the country, Geyer attracted the attention of Hitler and the National Socialist Party. As a result, during World War II, the 8th SS Cavalry Division was named after him. Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (April 20, 1889 – April 30, 1945, standard German pronunciation in the IPA) was the Führer (leader) of the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazi Party) and of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. ... A number of different political parties in various contexts have referred to themselves as National Socialist parties. ... This article is becoming very long. ... The SS Division Florian Geyer was a Waffen-SS cavalry division, named after Florian Geyer, that saw action on the Eastern Front in areas such as Briansk and Vjasma, amongst others. ...

External links

• History of Giebelstadt and the noble Geyer family