Johan Rantzau

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Johan Rantzau (Johann), (November 12, 1492 - December 12, 1565), was a German-Danish general and statesman, known for his role in the Count's Feud.

He belonged to an old Holstein nobleman’s family who had come into the service of the Danish king after the union between Denmark and the Duchies but he always stayed by the rulers of the latter. From his early years he sought a military career and was educated an officer and a lansquenet but at the same time he also acted as an important political advisor of the duke.

When Christian II in 1523 was overthrown by Frederick I Rantzau lead Frederick’s army of conquest. He became a member of the Danish Privy Council as well as governor of the Duchies and was the most important of the king’s non-Danish advisors. At the same time he emerged a Holstein large-scale squire making the manor house of Breitenburg his entailed estate. Among his military missions was his fight against the Scanian peasant rebellion of 1525 that was bloodily crushed. During these years he also became a devote Protestant working together with his Danish colleagues on advancing the Lutheran victory.

His participation in the Count’s Feud 1534-1536 has made him his name. Together with the Holstein nobility he supported Christian III in spite of the latter’s desperate situation. An attempt of conquering Funen 1534 ended in a defeat and a humiliating retreat but the same year Rantzau totally crushed Skipper Clement's peasant rebellion in Jutland and secured the peninsula for the king. Next year he successfully conquered Funen defeating Count Christopher of Oldenburg’s army at Øksnebjerg and finally he led the siege of Copenhagen that ended by the triumph of Christian III.

After the war he continued being the king’s general and advisor but he was pushed a bit in the background in Denmark concentrating on Holstein affairs. 1545 he resigned as the governor of Schleswig-Holstein in protest against the division of the duchies the year before. However he went back in active service one last time 1559 as the leader of the conquest of the Dithmarschen which he managed both recklessly and quickly.

As an outstanding figure of Danish military history of the 16th century Rantzau has been both lauded and blamed. Earlier historians have normally called him a brilliant general, loyal to the royal house, a man of clear strategic and tactic gifts and ability of quick solutions. However liberal and national historians, to say nothing of Marxists, often stress him as a representative of militarism and squire interests criticising him as a ”peasant’s butcher” – in many ways a parallel to the Finnish Mannerheim debate.

Johan Rantzau’s son Heinrich Rantzau (1526-1598) was an outstanding Holstein cattle king, governor and large squire of cultural and literary interests. His biography of his father is our main source of the latter’s life.