"Lewer dod as Sklav", "rather dead than a slave", is the motto of the Stedinger farmers in their two-year struggle for freedom against the Archdiocese of Bremen. In May 1234 the decisive battle of the Stedinger War takes place. The scene is Altenesch, today a district of the municipality of Lemwerder in the district of Wesermarsch. There, on May 27, around 2,000 farmers under their leaders Thammo von Huntorp, Detmar tom Dyk (tom Dieke) and Bolko von Bardenfleth faced around 8,000 crusaders of Bremen Archbishop Gerhard II. The peasants are crushed in this crusade - the only one on German soil.
Peasants denounced as heretics
Who were the Stedingers? In 1160 the Archbishop of Bremen settled farmers in the Stedingen region west of the city. They should drain and embank the land. These farmers called themselves Stedinger, riverside residents. Financial and legal concessions were made for their hard work, and a kind of peasant republic developed, which was not scorned by the emperor and pope as allies.
Through military successes, the Stedinger became self-confident enough to defy the archbishop. The Archbishop of Bremen, Gerhard II, wanted to make the wealthy residents of the marsh dependent on them through higher taxes. The peasants, however, refused to pay taxes. Since this was not enough for a war, Gerhard II blackened the Stedingers as heretics to Pope Gregory IX. in Rome. He accused them of killing priests and monks, robbing and burning churches and monasteries, and of having practiced pagan magic with wax images. In response to Gerhard's accusations, the pope finally issued a crusade bull that allowed the people of Steding to be diverted from their religious aberrations by force.
Peasant liberties are lost
The obelisk commemorates the dead in the Battle of Altenesch.The beneficiaries of the defeat in Altenesch were the Counts of Oldenburg, who expropriated the farms and divided them up among themselves. Peasant liberties were lost.
The Battle of Altenesch fell into oblivion for 600 years. At the instigation of a clergyman, Pastor Gerhard Steinfeld, the black obelisk was erected on a hill in Altenesch as a "Honor of Steding". Another 100 years later, the peasant struggle for freedom came in handy for the National Socialists. In 1934 they used the 700th anniversary for the premiere of an open-air performance of August Hinrichs' play "De Stedinge". Arrived in 16 special trains, 20,000 spectators are said to have seen the performance with 300 actors in a specially built village setting near Altenesch. Today, the Altenesch Heimatverein maintains the memory of the battle.