Obviously Martin was reacting to what he saw going on around him with his fellow Catholics...
Brings a picture to mind; Standing in a beautiful orchard (I live in orchard country) of Red Delicious apples with the sweet fruit hanging from the branches amongst the dark green leaves...
Interspersed thru out the orchard are trees barren of real leaves and fruit with crepe and craft paper cutouts of leaves and apples glued to the otherwise empty branches, proudly standing amongst the trees bearing the real leaves and fruit, not knowing the harvester will pass them by...
What were the fruits of Martin Luther? A 500-year-long collapse of the German standard of living? 30 million dead in the bloodiest war in European history? Don’t say, “it takes two to tango”; the Lutherans sided with the Muslims in the 30-Years-War, and left fifteen times more dead than the entire history of the Crusades. (Ironically, this was a man who cited the pacifist Jan Hus as his inspiration.)
In 1400, German peasants worked an average of three and a half days a week and lived to be 50 (if they lived past childhood, they likely lived to 70)... The life expectancy of Germans wouldn’t reach 50 again until after WWII.