The Violence of the Thirty Years’ War

Toward the end of the Thirty Years’ War, the German artist Hans Ulrich Franck began producing a series of twenty-five etchings aimed at capturing the horrors of the conflict. This wood engraving based on one such etching shows how violence was directed at women in particular. Unlike the print that opens this chapter, which shows a whole panorama of atrocities committed in a city, Franck’s etchings focused on crimes committed by soldiers against civilians in small rural villages. (akg-images.)