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Sat, Oct 25, 2008
Charlemagne, king of the Franconian tribe, founded the Holy Roman Empire, but is disintegrated by dividing succession without creating a nation, hence he's revered equally by Germany and France (East - viz. West Francia). Father of the medieval German nation, till then little more then a linguistic grouping of the Franconian, Saxon, Bavarian and Swabian (alias Allemannen) tribes (and duchies, the real political entities) was the Saxon duke Otto I, crowned king by the archbishop of Mainz (Mayence) in 961. His authority rested upon the successful defense of Germany, and all Western Europe, against the Magyar (Hungarian) invaders, with whom his brother, the Swabian duke, had allied himself in rivalry for the succession, in the decisive battle on the Lachfeld, mythically ascribed to a Holy Lance, part of the German insignia, actually Carolingian but associated with the Passion of Christ. Later Otto turned to Italy, where he was crowned Roman Emperor by the pope, thus defining the Holy Rman Empire of the German Nation, and the German people got its name, after the Ancient Teutonic tribe. To gain Byzantinian recognition, Otto wed his son Otto II with princess Theophane.
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Mon, Oct 27, 2008
German king Henry IV, future emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, was orphaned young and traumatized during his mother's regency and his own kidnapping till majority by the imperial bishops and princes. When the reformist monk Hldebrandt became pope Gregory IV, declared only the Holy Chair superior by divine right to all earthly monarchs and denied them the investiture (right to install bishops, traditionally the emperor-loyal counterweight to feudal dynasties), Henry started a power struggle. Excommunicated, Henry had to beg readmission to the church at Canossa castle, but once that was obtained, suppressed the rebellious imperial princes and bishops in war. Later he even installed an anti-pope, who crowned Henry Holy Roman emperor, while Gregory died in exile and a compromise allowed the monarchs to install the bishops concerning all temporal privileges of their sees.
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Sat, Nov 1, 2008
Frederic I Barbarossa, whose (Hohen) Staufian dynasty's 'home duchies' were in the Southwest, successfully unestablished himself as German king when his cousin duke Henry the Lion, of the northern main duchy Saxony's Welfian dynasty, helped him subdue Italy -horribly sacking mighty Milan, which held out last- and the pope crowned him Roman Emperor in 1155. Frederic's grand dynastic wedding to the Burgundian duke's daughter was followed by a dispute over a papal address using 'beneficium', which can mean either favor or feudal grant, to which he responded proclaiming the empire itself Holy, held from God directly. Henry's loyalty was rewarded with the Bavarian duchy, while he extended the empire east by subduing Slavic heathens, but later his de facto rival power and refusal to enter another campaign to subdue the Italian cities lead to a confrontation and Henry's undoing. Frederic's glory ended as drowned crusader.
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Mon, Nov 3, 2008
Augustinian monk Marthin Luther spearheaded protests in the Holy Roman Empire against abuses in the Catholic church, where often aristocratic prelates behaved like princes rather then pastors. His 'back to the Bible' reasoning became opportune for many princes opposing the autocratic aspirations of Habsurg king of Spain Charles, elected Roman Emperor, who got Luther condemned in the Diet, but the Saxon elector, who remained Catholic, offered him sanctuary. Luther sides with the princes against the great peasant rising, translated the Bible into German and escaped execution. After the Augustianian Confession, his moderate proposal to maintain theological unity despite dismembering the church was rejected by emperor as well as pope, he radicalized, proclaimed celibacy abolished and lived as landed housemother. His legacy was manifold, besides splitting the church also politically and culturally, in some ways foreboding the present federal Germany, but also started centuries of religious wars and persecution.
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Sat, Nov 8, 2008
The Empire had settled on the principle of rulers determining their principalities' religion, but then Habsburg king of Bohemia and 'soon to be elected' Emperor Ferdinand's attempt to impose his Catholicism on the mainly protestant Bohemians (against the oath of his enthronement) caused an escalation of violence spreading through Germany beyond his financial means: the Thirty Years War wrecked the country and killed a third of the population. The Bohemian nobleman Albrecht von Wallerstein offered an alternative: an army of 50,000 mercenaries paid for by being allowed to plunder and exacting all of their needs from the occupied (protestant) territories. He repelled the Danish invasion, but was deposed after his fellow Catholic electors joined his opposition and awarded the Mecklemburg duchy. Swedish King Gustaf Adolf Wasa (invading South to Bavaria) forced Wallenstein to be reinstated, yet his autonomous negotiations with the imperial protestants caused the Emperor to have him proscribed. After his murder, the Prague Peace Treaty proved pointless as neighbors France and Sweden wouldn't allow the Empire to be welded together. Only in 1648 an unprecedented pan-European congress in Münster and Osnabrück reached the Westphalian Peace.
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Mon, Nov 10, 2008
Frederic II the Great of Prussia and the contemporary Habsburg imperial couple, archduchess Maria Theresia and husband Francis, rivaled for preeminence in the German heartland of the empire. Frederic modeled his capital Berlin on Versailles, Vienna was Europe's grandest royal city. Frederic's superior army, an immense burden on his small population, performed superbly in great wars, mainly over Silesia and Saxony. Still, they were excessive risks, possibly the result of a most frustrated youth as sensitive, culture-hungry crown prince abused by a brutish father who even executed his best friend. The rivalry was key in European alliances. Maria Theresia had to be bailed out by her Hungarian nobility.
Sat, Nov 15, 2008
Paradoxically, nobody did more for the emergence of Germany in the 18th and 19th century then Napoléon. At first he was welcomed as a liberator and modernizer, replacing feudal privileges and traditions with more rational administration, but as his continuous wars exacted a high price on the people in blood and taxes he became hated as a foreign oppressor. He defeated Prussia and Austria, who lost territory, annexed the left bank of the Rhine and reorganized the bulk of Germany into fewer and larger, solely secular states, confederated in the Rheinbund. After the annihilation of Napoleon's -conscripted, in part German- Grande Armée by the Russian Winter and ultimate defeats in the Battle of the Peoples near Leipzig and Waterloo (1815), the Vienna Congress partially restored the old order. However, the Holy Roman Empire remained abolished and the new German Federation was founded on a national feeling which re-emerged during the resistance against Napoleon, championed by Prussia, where Freiherr vom Stein (from Nassau), had also introduced significant reforms.
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Mon, Nov 17, 2008
Robert Blum from Leipzig (Saxony) was a moderate liberal and German nationalist, who believed unifying Germany under French revolution principles was the way out of 19th century misery, which even lead to massive emigration. The revolutionary wave trough Europe in 1948 swept trough most German principalities, allowing liberties and/or elections. Robert was among the first delegates elected throughout Germany for a 'pre-parliament' in Frankfurt am Main, which declared the transformed German League a republic. The Prussian refusal to repulse a Danish invasion from Schleswig stirred radicals to divert from the gradual line into an open revolt against the monarchies, which meant civil wars and the bloody crushing of rebels. Blum participated in the Vienna revolt against the emperor and was executed as an example, despite a review of the illegal death sentence which arrived too late.
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Sat, Nov 22, 2008
Squire Otto von Bismark, the diplomatically brilliant Ministerpräsident (chief minister) of far less astute, often unwilling Prussian king Wilhelm, survived an attempt on his life and conceived a cunning strategy to unite Germany, some thirty independent monarchies since the Napoleonic era, under Prussia's Hohenzollern dynasty. First a war against Austria, the imperial Habsburg rival for predominance in the former Holy Roman Empire, allowed uniting the Northern League states. Soon after, he and the proud French emperor Napoleon III headed for a Franco-German war, in which the reluctant Southern monarchs has to take the Prussian side. After the 1870 Sedan victory, the French empire collapsed and Bismarck arranged for gay king Ludwig of Bavaria, the major southern state, whose wasteful romantic castles Bismarck financed as blackmail base, to offer Wilhelm the crown of a new German Empire. It got an elected diet (parliament), which despite a generous social policy ended up left-wing, against conservative Bismarck. Shortly after Wilhelm was succeeded by his grandson Wilhelm II, the loyal statesman, was dismissed, and rightly predicted the empire would soon crumble.
Mon, Nov 24, 2008
German emperor Wilhelm (William) II dreams of a colonial empire rivaling the other great European powers' overseas territories, but is simply too late. Still he and his government manage to build a fast-growing, modern, rich homeland with a strong army and a rising navy. His and French emperor Napoleon III's vanity play a part, like Bismarck's system of balancing alliances, in the outbreak of the Great War, the first nightmare worthy to be called a 'world war', ignited in the Balkanic powder keg by his Austrian major ally's escalating conflicting with Serbia and its Russian protector. Instead of the intended fast victory, it bogged down in the trenches nightmare and brought down empires and dynasties, including Hohenstaufen's own, after his generals took over political control.