A BRIEF HISTORY OF GERMANY BH_Germany_print_CS2.indd i 11/8/10 9:49:06 AM A BRIEF HISTORY OF GERMANY JASON P. COY BH_Germany_print_CS2.indd iii 11/8/10 9:49:06 AM A Brief History of Germany Copyright © 2011 by Jason P. Coy All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information contact: Facts On File, Inc. An imprint of Infobase Publishing 132 West 31st Street New York NY 10001 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Coy, Jason Philip, 1970– A brief history of Germany / Jason Philip Coy. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8160-8142-4 (hardcover) ISBN 978-1-4381-3391-1 (e-book) 1. Germany—History. 2. Germany. I. Title. DD17.C69 2011 943—dc22 2010023139 Facts On File books are available at special discounts when purchased in bulk quantities for businesses, associations, institutions, or sales promotions. Please call our Special Sales Department in New York at (212) 967-8800 or (800) 322-8755. You can find Facts On File on the World Wide Web at http://www.factsonfile.com Text design by Joan M. McEvoy Maps by Dale Williams Composition by Hermitage Publishing Services Cover printed by Art Print, Taylor, PA Book printed and bound by Maple Press, York, PA Date printed: December 2010 Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 This book is printed on acid-free paper. To my parents for inspiring my love of history and to my wife, Amy, for her tireless support of my research. BH_Germany_print_CS2.indd v 11/8/10 9:49:06 AM CONTENTS List of Illustrations viii List of Maps ix List of Abbreviations x Acknowledgments xii Introduction xiii 1 Prehistoric Germany 1 2 Germania: Barbarian Germany 14 3 Medieval Germany 31 4 Reformation Germany 47 5 Confessional Germany and the Thirty Years’ War 73 6 Absolutism and Enlightenment 89 7 Napoleonic Germany and the Revolution of 1848 105 8 Unifi cation and Empire 126 9 The Great War and Weimar Germany 148 10 Nazism and World War II 180 11 The Cold War: Division and Reunifi cation 197 12 Contemporary Germany 226 Appendixes 1 Basic Facts about Germany 245 2 A Brief Chronology of German History 249 3 Bibliography 257 4 Suggested Reading 262 Index 272 BH_Germany_print_CS2.indd vii 11/8/10 9:49:06 AM LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS The skull of a Neanderthal 6 The Venus of Willendorf 7 A Celtic bronze helmet from the La Tène period 10 The Hermannsdenkmal monument 15 A seventh-century funerary stele known as the Warrior of Hornhausen 17 The Black Forest region in Germany 20 View of the Zugspitze, the highest mountain in Germany 24 The throne of Charlemagne in the Palatinate Chapel 29 Ivory carving of Emperor Otto I 32 Medieval illumination of Emperor Henry IV 39 Portrait of Emperor Maximilian I, 1519 45 Events in the life of Martin Luther 55 Portrait of Emperor Charles V 62 Portrait of Martin Luther, 1532 64 Woodcut depicting the differences between Protestantism and Catholicism 72 The Michaelskirche and Jesuit College in Munich 80 Johann Tserclaes von Tilly, Imperial commander of the Thirty Years’ War 83 Portrait of Empress Maria Theresa 90 Portrait of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1787 102 A German paramilitary unit at the Battle of the Nations monument, 1932 113 Carl Schurz 125 Photograph of Emperor Wilhelm I, 1884 133 Otto von Bismarck, chancellor of Germany, 1890 137 The proclamation of the German Empire 139 The Borsigwerke locomotive factory, 1837 141 Karl Benz’s Motorwagen, 1885 155 Herero prisoners, 1904 157 Emperor Wilhelm II with military commanders, 1915 163 Campaigning during the 1919 National Assembly elections 171 Adolf Hitler, 1930 177 Wehrmacht troops in Paris, 1940 189 viii BH_Germany_print_CS2.indd viii 11/8/10 9:49:06 AM Buchenwald after liberation, 1945 195 The destruction in postwar Berlin 199 Propaganda poster for the Five-Year Plan 207 CDU poster supporting Kurt Kiesinger 213 German chancellor Helmut Kohl meets with Mikhail Gorbachev, Soviet leader, 1990 221 Tearing down the Berlin Wall, 1989 223 The Reichstag building in Berlin, where Germany’s parliament meets 228 Angela Merkel, chancellor of Germany, in 2006 239 LIST OF MAPS Topographic Map of Germany 3 Medieval Germany: The Holy Roman Empire, 1200 35 Confessional Germany: The Holy Roman Empire, 1648 79 Germany Divided: The Federal Republic and German Democratic Republic, 1960 205 Contemporary Germany: Länder 227 ix BH_Germany_print_CS2.indd ix 11/8/10 9:49:06 AM LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ADAV General German Workers’ Association (Allgemeiner deutscher Arbeiterverein) BDF Federation of German Womens’ Associations (Bund deutscher Frauenvereine) BRD Federal Republic of Germany (Bundesrepublik Deutschland) CDU Christian Democratic Union CSU Christian Social Union DNVP German National People’s Party (Deutschnationale Volkspartei) DVP German People’s Party (Deutsche Volkspartei) EC European Community EEC European Economic Community EU European Union FDJ Free German Youth (Freie Deutsche Jugend) FDP Free Democratic Party GDR German Democratic Republic IMF International Monetary Fund ISAF International Security Assistance Force KPD Communist Party of Germany (Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands) NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization NSDAP National Socialist German Workers’ Party or Nazi Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei) RAF Red Army Faction (Rote Armee Fraktion, or Baader- Meinhof Gruppe) SA Assault Division (Sturmabteilung) SAPD Socialist Workers’ Party of Germany (Sozialistische Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands) SDAP Social Democratic Workers’ Party of Germany (Sozialdemokratische Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands) SED Socialist Unity Party (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands) SPD Social Democratic Party of Germany (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands) x BH_Germany_print_CS2.indd x 11/8/10 9:49:06 AM SS Protection Squadron (Schutzstaffel) UN United Nations USPD Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (Unabhängige Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands) WTO Warsaw Treaty Organization xi BH_Germany_print_CS2.indd xi 11/8/10 9:49:06 AM ACKNOWLEDGMENTS his project owes scholarly debts to a trio of friends and men- Ttors. First, I would like to take the opportunity to thank Mary Lindemann for encouraging me to take on this project and for her ongoing support of my research endeavors. I would also like to thank David Sabean for training me as a historian and for inspiring my inter- est in the history and culture of Germany, including the rustic pleasures of Swabian cuisine. Finally, I owe a debt of gratitude to Rich Bodek, my colleague at the College of Charleston, who read every word of my manuscript and provided me with invaluable advice and guidance. I would also like to thank three members of the editorial staff at Facts On File, Claudia Schaab, Melissa Cullen-DuPont, and Alexandra Lo Re, for their continual encouragement and support. Their careful editorial attention to the project has improved this work considerably. Finally, I would like to thank three institutions for their permis- sion to reproduce the images that appear in the book: Art Resource (New York), the Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz (Berlin), and the Bundesarchiv (Germany). xii BH_Germany_print_CS2.indd xii 11/8/10 9:49:06 AM INTRODUCTION hile Germany has a history that stretches back to antiquity, it Wis important to remember that it was fi rst unifi ed as a nation- state only in 1871, making it in a sense even younger than the United States. Located in the heart of Europe, without natural boundaries, Germany has experienced centuries of immigration, confrontation, and negotiation. Consequently, the arrangement of its constituent parts has changed repeatedly, with individual territories joining together or breaking apart. Thus, Germany’s boundaries, and what it means to be German, have always been unstable and have evolved continually throughout the region’s long and troubled history. Situated along ancient migration routes, the area known today as Germany has become home to an endless stream of migrants since prehistoric times. In fact, paleontologists have recovered traces of early hominid habitation in Germany going back almost 50 million years, as distant ancestors of modern humans migrated there from Africa. During the last ice age, extinct relatives of humans called Neanderthals, named after the German valley where their remains were fi rst discovered, fol- lowed these earliest migrants into the region. They were joined around 40,000 years ago by another group of migrants, early humans known as Cro-Magnons, who lived alongside them in the area that comprises modern Germany. Remarkably, some of the most important archaeo- logical fi nds relating to these prehistoric peoples have been made in Germany within the last few years. These recent discoveries have even prompted some archaeologists to think that an area on the Swabian Alb in southern Germany may have been where early humans fi rst discov- ered music, and perhaps even art itself, around 35,000 years ago. During the Bronze Age, beginning in the third millennium B.C.E., Celtic peoples migrated into the area and built their own sprawling civilization in central Europe, one that lasted centuries. The actual his- torical record, however, does not begin in Germany until the so-called Migration Period, when Greek and Roman writers fi rst described the inhabitants of the region. During this turbulent time, from roughly 300 to 500 C.E., nomadic peoples speaking Germanic languages— including the tongues that would one day develop into modern German and xiii BH_Germany_print_CS2.indd xiii 11/8/10 9:49:06 AM A BRIEF HISTORY OF GERMANY English—migrated into the area now known as Germany from the east, encountering the Celtic peoples already living there. In the centuries that followed, these warlike Germanic tribes gradually supplanted the Celts and encroached upon the Roman Empire along its Rhine and Danube frontiers.