Records start around the 6th century, when the Merovingian kings of themselves dynasts of the Germanic Franks, conquered several other German tribes and placed them under control of autonomous dukes of mixed Frankish and native blood.
Roman provinces north of the Alps had been Christianised since the fourth century, with missionary work revived in the 6th century by Irish-Scottish monks.
Located in the heart of Europe, the German lands underwent the usual European bloody history of power struggle.
In the early 16th century, there was much discontent in Germany due to the abuses of the Catholic church, with Martin Luther nailing his call for reformation onto the church door in 1517. In 1545 the counter reformation began by the Spanish Jesuit order, dividing Germany into central and north-east protestant areas, and western and southern Catholic areas. In 1618 the Protestant nobility in Prague exercised its interesting invention of defenestration, which is a form of execution by simply pushing someone out the window of a high tower. However, the fact that this time it was the emperor of Europe sparked a major war, the main theatre of which took place in Germany, wiping out one third of its population and laying the country to waste. After this Thirty Years’ War, the country was divided up among the waging powers, and Germany grew weaker as the controlling powers each exercised their rights.
Over time Prussia grew into a great European power, as did Austria, under the Habsburgs, and thus started their rivalry for control over Germany. And as is akin to European history, various wars moved boundaries, with parts of West Germany going to France under Napoleon, parts of Poland going to Prussia with the Partition of Poland, and then both moving back in the original power’s favour.
After the fall of Napolean in 1815, European nations gathered in Vienna to redraw the continental map and set new rules. The Holy Roman Empire had already dissolved in 1806, and at the Congress of Vienna, the Holy Empire of the German Nation had been transformed into a loose federation 39 states, called the German Federation. Nationalist sentiments were kindled, eventually leading to the Austro-Prussian war of 1866, favouring Prussia, which came into control of a new North German Federation, Austria remaining outside German affairs through the 19th and 20th centuries.
National sentiment grew stronger, eventually leading to a dissolution of the German Confederation and the creation of the German Empire in 1871, led by Otto Von Bismark. A dispute with France led to a war which brought German troops as far as Paris, French emperor Napolean III was taken prisoner and the Second French Empire collapsed. Much land previously lost to France was regained, and then some to add even French speaking areas.
Bismark wanted to consolidate power and focus on a “little Germany”, but powers within were ambitious to colonial acquisitions abroad. There was a policy of Germanisation where Polish, Danish and French minorities were discriminated against, and Bismark had a hard time repressing the growing influence and ultra nationalistic and inflamatory tendencies of the Social Democratic Party of Germany. Bismark formed an alliance with Austria (the Dual Alliance), and eventually Italy, to form the Triple Alliance as a deterrence against France’s possible ambitions to team up with Russia in order to regain lost soil.
But Bismark eventually ceded to expansionist pressure, led by Wilhelm II, and many German colonies in Africa and Asia were formed. Wilhelm’s expansions abroad led to various frictions, which Bismark wanted to avoid, and from 1898 Germany started constructing warships to protect its various overseas possessions, directly threatening Britain and isolating itself further.
General imperialist ambitions between the various European powers, the armaments race, generally differing policies between the European states, German-British rivalry, difficulties of the Austro-Hungarian multinational empire and Russia’s Balkan policy contributed to a tinder box which exploded when the Austrian heir apparent Franz Ferdinand was shot in 1914 with his wife by a Serbian nationalist while they were visiting Sarajevo. Overhasty mobilisations and ultimatums, the concerned powers believing that a conflict would be short, led to Germany taking the side of Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire against Russia, France, Great Britain, Italy, Japan and others to initiate the First World War, the fighting spreading to the Near East and around Germany’s colonies abroad.
The war was one of attrition, with borders barely moving. Germany’s policy of unrestricted submarine warfare provoked the Americans and marked a decisive turning point against Germany, and Britain’s blockade in the North Sea with its crippling effects on Germany’s supply of raw materials and foodstuffs brought Germany to its knees and led to the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. Germany and her allies were to accept full responsibility for the war and all its damages, parts of Poland were restored free of German rule, administration of the country’s important industrial Rhine region was handed to the League of Nations for the next 15 years, the coal fields were to be administered by France, Germany’s standing army was reduced to 100,000, and the production of all military arsenal was severely curtailed.
In the face of such humiliation, bitter indignation was provoked throughout Germany and its fragile democracy was seriously weakened. Extremist left and right wing parties flourished, and with so many troops leaving the military to attain the newly imposed 100,000 limit, the abundance of disgruntled army personnel was exploited by the right wing powers. With the US pulled out of Europe, Germany was the first state to establish diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, and the two powers agreed to cancel all pre-war debts. In 1923 Germany refused to pay war reparations, inciting French and Belgian troops to occupy the heavily industrial Ruhr district. The German government encouraged passive resistance and the local population cooperated by not providing any services to the invading forces. This proved effective but led to hyperinflation. Many lost their fortune, blamed the democratic government, and eventually were to support the anti-democratic right.
