Qualla: Münster

Münster: Introduction

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Three iron cages hang from the spire of St Lambert's Church in the centre of Münster. They are about six feet long, rusted, and visible from the cobblestones of the Prinzipalmarkt below if you know where to look. They are empty now. From 1536 until the early 18th century they held the bodies, and then the bones, of the three leaders of the Münster Rebellion: Jan van Leiden, Bernhard Knipperdolling, and Bernhard Krechting. The cages were left hanging as a warning. They were taken down once, briefly, to be cleaned. They are back up. They have been part of the skyline of Münster for nearly five hundred years.

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Münster: The Anabaptist Kingdom of God

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In February 1534, a group of radical Anabaptists seized control of Münster in the middle of the religious chaos of the Reformation. They expelled or forcibly rebaptised the rest of the population, abolished private property, declared the town the New Jerusalem, and prepared for t...

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Münster: The Peace of Westphalia

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

A century later, in May 1648, Münster again became the site of an event that reshaped Europe. The Thirty Years' War had been grinding through central Europe since 1618, killing perhaps a third of the population in some regions, and the peace negotiations between the Holy Roman Em...

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Münster: Charlemagne's Mission and a Bishop's Seat

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The city itself is far older than the events that made it famous. In 793 Charlemagne sent the Frisian missionary Liudger into the Münsterland to convert the local Saxons. In 797 Liudger founded a school which eventually became the Cathedral School and is still in operation. The s...

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Münster: October 1943

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

On 10 October 1943 the United States Eighth Air Force flew one of its first "city-busting" missions against Münster. The town's railway yard was a major target but the bombers struck the old city centre as well. Münster's Luftwaffe air defences and the Luftwaffe fighters that cam...

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Münster: Rebuilding the Prinzipalmarkt

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

After the war, Münster did something unusual. Many German cities damaged in the bombing campaign were rebuilt as modernist cityscapes, with the old street plans replaced by ring roads, glass office blocks, and wide boulevards. Münster chose instead to rebuild its old city centre ...

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Münster: The Bicycle Capital

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Münster has roughly 320,000 inhabitants and, by most estimates, slightly more bicycles than that. The flat Westphalian landscape, the size of the student population at the University of Münster (around 45,000 students at a single institution), and the extensive Promenade, a green...

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