Germany (Lonely Planet, 6th Edition) - Andrea Schulte-Peevers [10]
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TRIBES & THE ROMANS
The early inhabitants of Germany were Celts and, later, the Germanic tribes. In the Iron Age (from around 800 BC), Germanic tribes on the North German Plain and in the Central Uplands lived on the fringes of Celtic regions and were influenced by the culture without ever melting into it. Evidence of this is still apparent today in Thale, in the Harz Mountains.
The Romans fought pitched battles with the Germanic tribes from about 100 BC. The Germanic tribes east of the Rhine and the Romans fought for control of territory across the river until AD 9, when the Roman general Varus lost three legions – about 20,000 men – in the bloody Battle of the Teutoburg Forest and the Romans abandoned their plans to extend eastwards (see the boxed text). By AD 300, four main groups of tribes had formed: Alemans, Franks, Saxons and Goths.
The Roman presence is evoked today in the thermal baths and amphi-theatre of Augusta Treverorum (today’s Trier), and other Roman relics in Aachen, Xanten, Cologne, Bonn, Mainz (where 4th-century Roman shipwrecks can be viewed), Bingen (prized for its Roman surgical instruments), Koblenz, Augsburg and Regensburg. The Rhine and Moselle vineyards are a lasting tribute to the Romans’ penchant for a tipple or two.
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The Roman Empire and Its Germanic Peoples by Herwig Wolfram and Thomas Dunlap (translator) is an authoritative history spanning five centuries of Germanic tribe migrations and the foundations of the Roman Empire.
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THE FRANKISH REICH
Based on the Rhine’s western bank, the Frankish Reich became Europe’s most important political power in medieval times. This was due, in part, to the Merovingian king Clovis (r 482–511), who united diverse populations. In its heyday the Reich included present-day France, Germany, the Low Countries and half the Italian peninsula. Missionaries such as St Boniface (675–754) – considered the father of German Christianity – crossed the Rhine to convert pagans.
When fighting broke out among aristocratic clans in the 7th century, the Merovingians were replaced by the Carolingians, who introduced hierarchical Church structures. Kloster Lorsch in present-day Hesse is one fine relic of this era. From his grandiose residence in Aachen, Charlemagne (r 768–814), the Reich’s most important king, conquered Lombardy, won territory in Bavaria, waged a 30-year war against the Saxons in the north and was crowned Kaiser by the pope in 800. The cards were reshuffled in the 9th century, when attacks by Danes, Saracens and Magyars threw the eastern portion of Charlemagne’s empire into turmoil and four dominant duchies emerged – Bavaria, Franconia, Swabia and Saxony.
Charlemagne’s burial in Aachen Dom (Aachen Cathedral; ) turned a court chapel into a major pilgrimage site (and it remains so today). The Treaty of Verdun (843) saw a gradual carve-up of the Reich and, when Louis the Child (r 900–11) – a grandson of Charlemagne’s brother – died heirless, the East Frankish (ie German) dukes elected a king from their own ranks. Thus, the first German monarch was created.
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The first rulers to promote a strong German identity were Charlemagne’s grandson, Louis the German (r 843–76), and Konrad I (r 911–18).
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EARLY MIDDLE AGES
Strong regionalism in Germany today has its roots in the early Middle Ages, when dynasties squabbled and intrigued over territorial spoils, watched on helplessly by a toothless, Roman-inspired central state.
The symbolic heart of power was Aachen Dom, which hosted the coronation and burial of dozens of German kings from 936. Otto I was first up in the cathedral. In 962 he renewed Charlemagne’s pledge to protect the papacy and the pope reciprocated with a pledge of loyalty to the Kaiser. This made the Kaiser and pope strange and often acrimonious bedfellows for the next