Dithmarschen

Dithmarschen was a community of free peasants in the North Sea marshes between the Eider and Elbe. In 1337 its elected elders governed around Heide, acknowledging the archbishop of Bremen as distant overlord.

Count Gerhard VI of Holstein died campaigning against the peasants in 1404. At Hemmingstedt in 1500 their militia defeated King John of Denmark’s army. Dithmarschen embraced the Reformation in 1533, but lost its independence in the Last Feud of 1559, when Frederick II’s general Johan Rantzau took Heide and Meldorf. The peasants retained considerable self-government under Denmark and the Holstein dukes.