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A German history starting in the Middle Ages when the emperors fought an epic struggle with the papacy to the Reformation, the great 18th century of Kant, Goethe, Gauss, the rise of Prussia and the horrors of the Nazi regime. We will end with the post-war period of moral and physical rebuilding. As Gregory of Tours (539-594) said: “A great many things keep happening, some good, some bad” .
The year is 919 AD and things are not going well. The mighty empire of Charlemagne has splintered into a multitude of puny kingdoms. Its feeble rulers are being pushed around by their formidable barons. The frontiers are breached. In the north the Vikings and Danes are ransacking towns and villages along the coasts and even deep inland. In the east the Slavs are burning Hamburg. And in the south the most terrifying of them all, the Magyars, a steppe tribe like the Huns and the Mongols, are marauding all the way from Bavaria to Northern Spain.
Cometh the time, cometh the man/woman?
The music for the show is Flute Sonata in E-flat major, H.545 by Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach (or some claim it as BWV 1031 Johann Sebastian Bach) performed and arranged by Michel Rondeau under Common Creative Licence 3.0.
Homepage with maps, photos, transcripts and blog: http://www.historyofthegermans.com
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Most Recent Season – The Hohenstaiufen
The most fascinating and most glamorous of the German medieval emperors – Frederick Barbarossa and Frederick II whose line ends with the execution of the 16 year-old Konradin on the market square in Naples at the hands of the King of Sicily, though in reality at the hand of the papacy. Inbetween we have great diplomacy, epic battles, murder, crusades, harems and ornithology. Subscribe now to avoid disappointment…A German history starting in the Middle Ages when the emperors fought an epic struggle with the papacy to the Reformation, the great 18th century of Kant, Goethe, Gauss, the rise of Prussia and the horrors of the Nazi regime. We will end with the post-war period of moral and physical rebuilding. As Gregory of Tours (539-594) said: “A great many things keep happening, some good, some bad” .
Hello and welcome to Season 3 of the History of the Germans Podcast – The Hohenstaufen 1125-1268.
Between March and June of 1977 675,000 people visited the Alte Schloß in Stuttgart to see an exhibition entitled “Die Zeit der Staufer” (the Time of the Hohenstaufen in English). Over 1,000 items from 17 countries were on display, with the Cappenberger Kopf, the image of emperor Frederick Barbarossa, this episode’s artwork as its star exhibit.
Nobody expected these numbers of visitors for what was just 3,000 square meters of exhibition space. At peak times there was barely a square meter per person. People fainted in the low and badly ventilated rooms. They sold 150,000 copies of the enormous four volume exhibition catalogue, one of which to my father who proudly displayed it in his office for 40 years and is now in a box en route over to mine.
Whilst most other medieval German rulers are all but forgotten, interest in the Hohenstaufen never completely disappeared. Why is that? They were by no means the most successful emperors, that crown has to go the Ottonians nor was their reign the most fateful, that was the reign of the later Salians.
Frederick Barbarossa and his grandson Frederick II have been such fascinating personalities that almost any age could project their own perceptions and expectations onto them, from champion of national unity to modern man before his time. Time to find out what really happened, who they really were. As always a great many things keep happening, some good, some bad.
Episode webpage: Episode 43 – All Change All Change • History of the Germans Podcast
The music for the show is Flute Sonata in E-flat major, H.545 by Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach (or some claim it as BWV 1031 Johann Sebastian Bach) performed and arranged by Michel Rondeau under Common Creative Licence 3.0.
As always:
Homepage with maps, photos, transcripts and blog: www.historyofthegermans.com
Facebook: @HOTGPod
Twitter: @germanshistory
Instagram: history_of_the_germans
Reddit: u/historyofthegermans
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