: James Hawes
: The Shortest History of Germany
: Old Street Publishing
: 9781910400425
: 1
: CHF 7.00
:
: Regional- und Ländergeschichte
: English
: 240
: Wasserzeichen
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB
READ IN AN AFTERNOON. REMEMBER FOR A LIFETIME. The West is in full retreat. The Anglo-Saxon powers, great and small, withdraw into fantasies of lost greatness. Populists all over Europe cry out that immigration and globalisation are the work of a nefarious System, run by unseen masters with no national loyalties. From the Kremlin, Tsar Vladimir watches his Great Game line up, while the Baltic and Vizegrad states shiver -- and everyone looks to Berlin. But are the Germans really us, or them? This question has haunted Europe ever since Julius Caesar invented the Germani in 58 BC. How Roman did Germania ever become? Did the Germans destroy the culture of Rome, or inherit it? When did they first drive east, and did they ever truly rule there? How did Germany become, for centuries, a power-vacuum at the heart of Europe? How was Prussia born? Did Bismarck unify Germany or conquer it? Where are the roots of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich? Why did it lose? By what miracle did a better Germany arise from the rubble? Is Germany now the last Western bastion of industrial prosperity and rational politics? Or are the EU and the Euro merely window-dressing for a new German hegemony? This fresh, illuminating and concise new history makes sense of Europe's most admired and feared country. It's time for the real story of Germany.

PART ONE

The first half-millennium: 58BC–526AD


The Romans create the Germans, then the Germans take over Rome

Caesar invents the Germans


Rome and Gaul before Caesar

In March 60BC, the main topic of conversation in Rome (wrote the philosopher-lawyer-politician Cicero) was the threat of barbarian asylum-seekers. They were flooding into the already Romanised area of Cisalpine Gaul – in essence, today’s northern Italy – because of unrest and wars further north. There seemed to be a new and troublesome power in unconquered Transalpine Gaul. In 58BC, Julius Caesar, the new governor of Cisalpine Gaul, itching for a war of conquest to make his reputation and clear his debts, gave them a name:Germani.

From the first mention on page one of his bestselling history, theGallic War, Caesar firmly pairs theseGermani with the idea that theydwell beyond the Rhine. He is filling in a map as blank for his own readership as Central Africa was for Stanley’s, and he gets his big idea in straight away. Rome and Gaul overlap, both physically and culturally, but beyond the Rhine lies a completely different nation. This is hammered home throughout the pages of theGallic War.

Caesar soon discovers that things are indeed looking bad. Some Gaulish tribes had bribed 15,000 fighting Germans across the Rhine to help them against the domineering Aedui. But having won the day, the German leader, Ariovistus, called more of his people across the Rhine and is nowde facto ruler of all non-Roman Gaul. There are already 120,000 Germans in Gaul; soon, more will come and drive out the locals, who will be forced to seek new homes.

Patriot that he is, Caesar immediately sees the danger. The Roman province of Cisalpine Gaul – maybe even Rome itself – will be swamped by barbarian migrants. He inspires his quailing legionaries with a splendid oration and advances, carefully avoiding the dreaded narrow roads and forests. The tribes he collectively terms theGermani are en