Germany History

The Germans have proved to be fierce and able warriors for a long time.  In earlier centuries before the arrival of the Romans, they had driven the Celts from central Europe to the west into present-day France and beyond.  While most of Europe had succumbed to the Romans through the conquests of Julius Caesar and others, the Germanic tribes were able to resist the Romans and in fact eventually destroyed the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD.

The Romans tried to invade Germanic land, but the most they could achieve was to occupy the land up to the Danube and the Rhine by the time Augustus Caesar died at the beginning of the first century AD.  Even then the Romans suffered defeats in the hands of the Germanic tribes a few times.  In the next four centuries, the German tribes invaded Roman territories with increasingly frequency until 476 AD when the Germans overcame the Western Roman Empire.  However, for the next 14 centuries, Germany came under the rule of separate feudal lords, powerful abbots and towns, except during the reign of the Frankish King Charlemagne who united France, most of Germany and Italy into one kingdom, and in 800 AD became the first Holy Roman Emperor.  Napoleon also ruled Germany as a single political entity during his times, but it was a short period. 

In the 13th and 14th centuries, some German towns became commercially wealthy and pushed into less developed territories in the north and east, including the Baltics, Austria and Switzerland and formed the Hanseatic League.  They formed a threat to the Scandinavian nations but the League faded in influence in the 1380s when Poland and Lithuania merged, and Denmark, Norway and Sweden united as one kingdom.

The Reformation movement in the 16th century started by Martin Luther created the Protestant Church; several religious wars ensued, first in 1546 and later during the Thirty Years’ War from 1612 which devastated Germany and gave the chance for France to dominate Europe. 

The 19th century saw dramatic changes in the history of Germany.  First was the Napoleonic Wars which brought Germany under French rule.  Next came the emergence of a customs union of German states organised by Prussia in 1833, which provided the foundation of future German unity.  Under the Prussian chancellor Bismarck, who aimed to create a united Germany, Prussia led the German states to defeat Austria in 1867 and became the champion of the German unity cause.  This was followed by the Franco-German War of 1870, which was partly provoked by the Prussians as a means to call other German states to arms against a common external enemy.  This led to the defeat of the French under Napoleon III in 1870, his downfall and humiliating terms which Germany imposed on the French under the Treaty of Frankfurt.  Under the treaty, the French had to cede Alsace and Lorraine to Germany and pay a five billion franc indemnity.  To add insult to injury, the new German state created in 1871 crowned its new Kaiser William I and had its victory parade, of all places, in Versailles and Paris, respectively.  This, among other things, led to the French desire for revenge and demand of a large compensation after Germany’s defeat in WW I, which in turn triggered WW II.

The 20^th century saw great social and political upheavals in Germany, two world wars, war time atrocities, subsequent domination by the Soviet Union and eventual formation of a democratic, united and prosperous nation which has become an important country in that continent and in the world.