He never quite got the hang of political, as opposed to religious, freedom. He was a great one for demanding liberty which he subsequently denied to others. Grace was attainable by belief alone, not by stacking up pious deeds, kowtowing to the clergy or tipping up coinage. They didn’t need the church as a conduit, or a papacy to sell them forgiveness. Luther, by contrast, reckoned that Christians could make their own way to God. Its many abuses included requiring that the faithful cough up cash for salvation, the infamous “indulgences”. Inside Castle Church in Wittenberg, where Martin Luther is believed to have nailed his 95 theses on its doorĪnd, certainly, his truculence suited an era angry with a debauched Catholic church. This ensured he didn’t, like Hus and other ‘heretics’, end up roasted. But Luther benefited, vitally, from the printing revolution - which sent his ideas spinning fast throughout Germany and Europe - and from well-placed political protection. Others, including Jan Hus 100 years earlier, had already had reformatory thoughts. Back then, though, he wasn’t entirely alone or entirely original. Martin Luther is obviously the star of both the Reformation and its quincentennial celebrations. Some 34,000 of these were sold in three days in Germany. He’s in statues, monuments, posters and paintings (generally stout and in his doctoral cap), but also in books and pottery statuettes, on wine and spirit bottles and snack packets - “Martin Luther’s nuts” - on honey jars and bus tickets, and in the form of a recently-issued, two-inch Playmobil figure. Never was there such a plethora of portraits of a German. They’ve been at it for a decade - 2017 is the culmination - and Luther himself is everywhere. No-one, in short, could accuse the Bundesrepublik of underselling the event. From now through October, the 500th anniversary is fuelling exhibitions, celebratory events, and much else besides across central Germany and down to the Rhine. I couldn’t find even a modern hardware shop in an old town buffing itself up to be the centre of Germany this summer. “And I’m wondering, Angela, whether the hardware store still exists, the place the guy bought his nails?” Americans are practical. (He’d thought he was simply initiating an academic debate.) Thus, 500 years ago, was the world changed by a monk and a hammer in a little town 70 miles south of Berlin. The theses inveighed against papal indulgences, called the all-powerful Catholic church hierarchy into question and so, to Luther’s surprise, laid the foundations for religious freedom, therefore Protestantism. This was the door, so legend has it, upon which Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses on October 31, 1517. Next to me was a group of senior US visitors with their guide, Angela. I stood before the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg.

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