History of Germany

Peter Wende

• Editorial: Bloomsbury Academic
• Año: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781350307162
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: History
• Categoría: European History

Even a brief glance at the maps of what has, or might have, been called Germany through the ages reveals a kaleidoscope of alterations in shape and composition. Though there are elements of continuity, the history of Germany has been the history of nearly constant change. In this concise introduction to Germany's fascinating past, Peter Wende provides an approachable historical interpretation of the key periods and turning points from Roman times to the present. Wende shows that, throughout the course of 2000 years, German history is actually the history of many Germanies, and that it can be written neither just as the history of a region nor of a political, ethnic or cultural formation. Focussing on key points in Germany's political, social and economic development, this guide is ideal for all those with an interest in the complex and compelling history of one of Europe's main nation-states.

1

. . . . . . . .

Origins and Beginnings

A ROMAN PROVINCE

On the hilltop of a wooded mountain ridge in eastern Westphalia, near the provincial town of Detmold, towers a huge monument: the statue of a warrior clad in a short tunic, brandishing a 23-foot-long sword and gazing sternly out from under his winged helmet towards the southwest. It was erected to commemorate Arminius, a noble member of the Germanic tribe of the Cherusci, who led his warriors to a decisive victory over three Roman legions in the year AD 9.

Today we know, thanks to recent excavations, that this battle took place in the swamps and forests of the region near Osnabrück and not near Detmold, and that it was more of a mutiny by Germanic auxiliaries than a fight for freedom against Roman oppression. Still, since the time when German humanists started to invent a German national identity, for many this battle has been the starting point of German history and Arminius became ‘Hermann’, to some even the real person behind the Siegfried of the Nibelungenlied, that famous German epic poem of the thirteenth century. And thus when nineteenth-century German nationalism was at its height shortly after the victory over France and the formation of the German Empire in 1871, the erection of this monument was to symbolize the myth of the origins of the German nation-state.

However, that part of central Europe which was to become Germany was not restricted to those wild and desolate lands east of the Rhine and north of the Danube, which Tacitus labelled ‘Germania’. And, accordingly, no ethnic or cultural unity can be established either. In the west and south there were the Roman provinces of Germania, Belgica and Raetia, bordered by the rivers Rhine and Danube, and in between the agri decumates, i.e. the region protected against raids by the Teutonic peoples from north of the border by the limes, a huge bulwark of palisades and fortifications running from the Rhine near Koblenz to the Danube near Regensburg.

Here, over two centuries of Roman settlements laid the foundations of a cultural heritage which was to become a formative factor in German history. Numerous towns, among them Augusta Treverorum (today’s Trier), which for a period ranked among the leading cities of the empire, stone buildings, market places, a network of roads, luxurious villae rusticae (the country houses of the Romans) and extended vineyards demonstrated the prosperity of the region. And even when, from the middle of the third century onwards, the barbarian raids from the north became more frequent and more devastating, until the Roman defence broke down at the beginning of the fifth century and migrating Germanic peoples started not only to plunder and to conquer but to settle, the cultural divide remained. There was also a second borderline, the one in the east between the Germanic and the Slav peoples.

The region where the formation of Germany took place can thus be divided into three zones: Germania Romana, Germania Germanica and Germania Slavica. And these zones again encompassed not cultural uniformity but infinite regional variety. Patches of fertile soil, more numerous in the south and west, formed rather densely populated islands in huge seas of wooded or swampy wilderness. Among them the most important were in the Rhine valley round Cologne, near Frankfurt and Heidelberg and south of the Danube near Regensburg, and they remained economic centres on the economic map of future Germany.

In the beginning there was no Germany and there were no Germans. In the beginning there was Europe, that is, those parts of western, central and southern Europe which at the time of Charlemagne’s death in 814 formed the Carolingian Empire.

THE CAROLINGIAN EMPIRE

After the decline and fall of Roman power in Western Europe the Germanic people of the Franks, who had repeatedly harassed the province of Gallia since the middle of the third century, finally crossed the Rhine in the year AD 406, in the wake of the great German migration. After their Merovingian King Chlodowech (466–511) had won the last battle against Roman forces in 486, he and his successors started to expand their rule slowly but steadily. In the end, during the long reign of Charlemagne (768–814), it stretched from the North Sea to the Bay of Biscay and from the English Channel to the Adriatic. At the same time, the rule of King Charles signalled the emergence of a new empire, for, at Christmas 800, the Pope crowned him emperor: imperator romanum gubernans imperium. Three centuries after the last emperor in the west had been deposed, the Roman Empire had been resurrected with the aid of the Christian Church by transferring the title of emperor to the most powerful ruler in Western Europe. Henceforward the seal of the ruler bore the words renovatio imperii romani.

However, unlike its Roman model this new Carolingian Empire was not to last for centuries. Though Charlemagne tried hard to create a widespread administrative network for the peoples under his rule, making use whenever possible of the relics of Roman institutions and the spreading universal network of the Church, in the long run this huge domain was doomed to fall apart. One of the reasons was its sheer vastness, which made efficient communication impossible: sending a message from Aachen to Rome would take three months. Moreover, severe problems were caused by the customary rules of hereditary succession.

There was no rule of primogeniture by which the heritage would be passed to the eldest son. Instead, according to Salic Law all the legitimate sons were entitled to an equal share of their father’s estate. And it was only due to chance – to the fact that two of his sons had died before him – that on his death in 814 Charlemagne could leave his realm undivided to his last son, Louis ‘the Pious’ (778–840).

But, in spite of all the emperor’s efforts to preserve the unity of the realm, the empire was to break apart after his death. After the murderous battle of Fontenoy (841) Charles the Bald and Louis ‘the German’ forced their brother, the Emperor Lothar I, to grant them their share. The treaty of Verdun (843) sealed the division of Charlemagne’s empire. Charles was to inherit the western part, Louis the domains in the east, and Lothar to keep the lands in between, from then on called ‘Lotharingen’, i.e. Lorraine, as well as the Italian kingdom. Finally, when his line died out, Lorraine, in a piecemeal process, fell to the eastern Frankish kingdom. The treaty of Ribémont defined the frontier between the two kingdoms and throughout the Middle Ages it remained more or less unchanged.

Although (as a result of the chances and accidents of lineage and succession) Charles the Fat was once again sole ruler of the empire for a short time between 884 and 887, the process of dissolution was irreversible. It demonstrated the failure of the attempt to preserve the unity of the empire by establishing a multiple kingdom – the division of power and the partition of the realm finally led to separation. Charlemagne’s empire did not mark the beginning of a ‘second Rome’ but it was the cradle of future European nation-states. There was a kingdom in the west which was to become France and another in the eastern and southern parts of the former Carolingian realm from which the medieval German Empire evolved.

Here, with the death of Louis the Child (911) the Carolingian line became extinct because he was not succeeded by a blood relation. Instead, the powerful nobles in the east decided to establish a new dynasty by electing Conrad, Duke of Franconia and still of Frankish origin, as their king. When he was followed by Henry I, Duke of Saxony, the last links with the Carolingian dynasty were severed. This has usually been regarded as the beginning of German history. There was still no Germany and there were still no German people. There was, however, a new kingdom which was to be linked to an empire and which, in the long run, turned out to be a major factor in the long process of the ethnogenesis of the German people.

THE EMERGENCE OF A GERMAN PEOPLE

The new kingdom which emerged in the eastern half of the old Carolingian Empire was not the political organization of a specific ethnic group. And although a kind of language barrier between the west and the east was slowly evolving – in 842 the two kings Louis and Charles swore a solemn oath in front of their armies in different languages – there was as yet no German people to form a German state. It was rather the other way round: this kingdom in the east, which was often still called regnum Francorum, or sometimes regnum orientalum Francorum – the eastern Frankish kingdom – provided the political frame for the gradual formation of a German people. And it was a long time before this medieval kingdom became a German Empire (regnum teutonicum) whose inhabitants were Germans and lived in Germany. People rather regarded themselves as members of one of the five ancient Germanic tribal units – the Franks, Swabians, Saxons, Bavarians or Thuringians – which were later organized in the so-called ‘stem-duchies’ and together provided the basis of the kingdom.

These tribes had their own laws and their own dialects which, though related since they all stemmed from a common Indo-European source, still stood in the way of a common German language. Communication, not only in a European but also in a wider German context, still depended on the knowledge and use of Latin. On the other hand, the term thiutisk (Latin theodiscus) existed, which later became deutsch, but this originally just meant any vernacular of the common people set against the Latin of the learned clergy. It was not until the late eleventh century that the usage of this word was narrowed down to signify the dialects of the common German people. And because of this original connotation, for a long time the term related the name of the Germans to images of uncouth barbarism.

This points to the fact that even before the Germans started to call themselves Germans, they were called Germans by their neighbours, rivals and enemies. The Italians in particular spoke of i Tedeschi when the emperors from north of the Alps led their motley armies towards Rome. And in the course of his struggle with Emperor Henry IV, Pope Gregory VII used the label regnum teutonicum in order to reduce the universal claims which up to then the German kings had associated with the imperial crown to which they aspired. In 1160 the English clerical scholar John of Salisbury asked the famous question: ‘Who has made the Germans (teutonici) judges of the nations?’ in response to Emperor Frederick I’s policy of unseating and enthroning popes according to his political preferences. In contexts like this, the term teutonici pointed back to the furor teutonicus, the horrors of the first incursions by warlike Germanic tribes into Italy in 102 BC.

And, indeed, it was abroad, far away from home, as members of an army in a hostile country, that German warriors from different German regions first experienced a sense of solidarity and community. Here they were not only called ‘Germans’ but also called themselves ‘Germans’ when they took the oath to keep the peace among themselves or when they gathered in common prayer.

At the same time the consciousness of and efforts towards a common language gradually began to emerge in Germany. Within an empire which in the Middle Ages included parts of France such as Burgundy and Provence as well as northern Italy, this group of German-speaking people formed the nucleus for the evolution of a German nation. And even when a learned cleric like the historian Otto, Bishop of Freising, pointed out in the middle of the twelfth century that a German empire had emerged with the reign of Otto I, he also stressed the importance of the Carolingian tradition and the fact that the Germans were German Franks (Teutonici orientali Franci) and their empire of Frankish origin (Francorum regnum orientale, quod teutonicum dicitur), even if their kings came from a different family and spoke a different language.

Thus Germans were late to develop a common identity because they lacked a common ethnic substance and – initially – a common language. They achieved this goal in the end by means of a common history, that is, by the common institution of a kingship, which constantly united the different tribes and peoples in common endeavours, and finally in the common goal of an empire which in itself extended far beyond the boundaries of Germany. The outlines of a difficult beginning and the history of a complicated ethnogenesis fore-shadow future developments in the evolution of a nation which differed so much from its neighbours that it always had to struggle either to overcome or to justify those differences.

2

. . . . . . . .

Medieval Germany

KINGS AND EMPERORS

One of the major factors in the process of the formation of Germany was the office of kingship, which decisively contributed to the integration of Germany as a political entity. In Carolingian times, according to traditional custom and contemporary understanding, monarchy was the natural form in which human society should be organized. Only the rule of kings, based on the chain of command and obedience, could guarantee law and order, peace and protection. Where there was no king there was no constitution and not even a realm. The king did not represent the kingdom or empire: he, or rather the power he wielded, incorporated the realm. Where there is no king there is anarchy and chaos. The kingdom (regnum) is not a certain territory within clearly defined frontiers but the totality of kingly rights and the whole of the sphere where he wields his power.

The position of the kings was further strengthened by the Christian faith and the Church. And whereas in Carolingian times the king was still regarded as God’s servant (minister), later, in the time of the Saxon emperors, he was thought to act as ‘the deputy of the supreme judge’ and as God’s proxy even within the Church.

But such high ideals of kingship would, of necessity, often clash with the harsh realities of medieval society. For where there was no standing army and no central administration at the king’s command, real power rested with those who controlled the regions: the local magnates and their masters, the nobility. In fact, medieval kings would not and could not rule as absolute monarchs, but only with the consent and aid of their peers, the great magnates of the realm. The secret and the essence of royal power rested with the king’s capacity to harmonize, unify and concentrate the real forces of medieval society, that is, to ally himself with the nobility and the Church.

To achieve this, medieval rulers were constantly on the move. This was especially so in Germany, where, since no capital developed, there was no place like Paris or London which could grow into a political centre and which would eventually become the main seat of royal power. Therefore, German kings and emperors not only travelled repeatedly to Italy, but north of the Alps, too. They continually moved from place to place with a huge entourage of up to 2000 persons, either holding court at royal palaces on the scattered crownlands or staying at the seats of mighty nobles, usually bishops. This continuous royal progress served as the essential means of ‘government’, of communication between the king and the nobility of the realm.

This fundamental alliance between Crown and nobles found its expression in the election of the king, which became firmly established within the political structure of the eastern Frankish kingdom, i.e. of Germany.

In 987, in the western part of the former Carolingian Empire, Hugo Capet succeeded in founding a royal dynasty which was to reign on the basis of hereditary right (including the sidelines), well into the nineteenth century. But here, in the course of the first two centuries after Charlemagne’s death, the influence of the Crown was more and more reduced by the growing power of a new aristocracy which, apart from the king’s domain in the Isle of France, divided the rule of the realm among themselves. Thus they were no longer interested in controlling the Crown by exercising their right of election.

In the east, on the other hand, the election of the monarch became a fundamental principle of constitutional practice. Along with the fact that early on the rulers here succeeded in rejecting and cancelling the principle of dividing the realm among all the sons, this grew into a unifying factor in the new kingdom and a lasting constitutional feature of the German empire for the next 800 years.

In the beginning, election did not necessarily mean selection, for example, from a number of possible candidates. The term would usually imply mere confirmation or acknowledgement or elevation to the high office of king. Quite often, as in the case of Otto I, t...