The Shortest History of Germany

In 1745, all England trembled with fear as the Highland Scots invaded. No one thought them romantic. But once they’d been smashed at Culloden, the British Army almost immediately began using them as shock-troops, and the English public fell in love with tales of their unspoiled, natural bravado.

The state of Germany at the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 is difficult to describe except in biblical terms. Syria today might give us some idea. At least a third of the entire population seems to have perished, more in some areas. In 1631, Magdeburg on the Elbe, Otto the Great’s most-favoured city, had over 20,000 inhabitants; by 1649, it was 450, the rest having been mostly slaughtered in the streets. Even today, when German children sing their version of ‘Ladybird, Ladybird, Fly Away Home’, it’s not a house that’s on fire, but Pomerania.

The Great Slav Revolt of 983 AD is as central to Slavic history as 9 AD is to German history. It was the event which guaranteed cultural survival. Just as the Romans lost everything beyond the Rhine in 9 AD, the Germans were thrown clean back across the Elbe in 983 AD

On Christmas day, 800 AD, Charlemagne was crowned Roman Emperor

After thirty years of vicious fighting, several thousand executions and the threat (issued in 785 AD) that refusing baptism would henceforth be a capital crime, Charlemagne eventually managed what the Romans hadn’t, quelling, converting and ruling all the Germans up to the river Elbe

Charlemagne’s memory is so enduring because he was the bridge which finally ensured that the culture of Roman Europe was transported into the mediaeval world, and hence to us

to this day, in Slavic languages bordering Germany to the east, as well as in Hungarian, the very word for king comes from his name: Karl the Great, better known as Charlemagne

Islam, was advancing up through Spain and into France in the shape of the Ummayad Caliphate, but was stopped forever at the Battle of Tours

The decline and fall of Rome had more or less intersected with the rise of the Germans.

In 235 AD the various Germans had been illiterate barbarians trapped in Germany by Roman power. By Theodoric’s death in 526 AD, they were muscular Christians who controlled the entire former Western Empire

After 300 AD Germanic war-bands seem to have been driven by some irresistible force to shift their habitations, in what’s traditionally known as the Völkerwanderungen – the Migrations of the Peoples