Thusco

'Father of All Germans'

aka Tuysco, Tuisco, Thuiscon, Tuisto, Tuito, Teuto, Tuiskon

Thusco is found in the traditional Frankish line from Pharamond back to Noah (cf ahnen-sf, ahnen-sg). MDB below says (p260, note 33) 'for the Trojan descent of the Franci ... see E[nea] S[ilvio] [Aeneas Silvius] Piccolomini's [ESP b1458, see below] Europa, edited by Adrianus van Heck (Vatican Library, 2001, pp148-50)'.

A Most Dangerous Book

Tacitus' Germania From the Roman Empire to the 3rd Reich

Christopher B. Krebs (Harvard classics prof)

W W Norton, 2011, 303pp, Mustang

He describes the Fall 1943 effort by Himmler's SS to recover an original copy of Tacitus' Germania from the Villa Fontedamo of Count Aurelio Baldeschi Guglielmi Balleani near Ancona in NE Italy. After ransacking the place, they failed, since after a long journey the document had in 1901 fallen into a priest's (Cesare Annibaldi) hands. Simon Schama tells the tale in his 1995 bk 'Landscape and Memory' of how the manuscript was discovered by Marco Vattasso in the presence of the priest, who then published it in 1907. Unfortunately, by this time the book had already done its damage. The Roman historian had written it c98 AD, < 30pp. The text was in Latin and German translations had been available for ~400yrs! Widely taught as 'the only comprehensive account from ancient times of the Germanic peoples' (17), CBK argues 1 'it is not a report' (i.e. not objective) and 2 'it is not about the German past' (i.e. more about 1C AD Roman ideology). Krebs says, while Romans conceived of Germans as '1 single ethnic group bound by geography' (18), in reality they were many distinct tribes across a wide region and many migrations. He says its critical that these ancient tribes 'not be considered as the ancestors of modern Germans, as quasi 'ancient Germans'' (19). The Nazis used the myth to fuel their horrific 'folk' cult, based on an ideological reading of Tacitus from its rediscovery in the 15C on. Key words were 'simple, brave, loyal, pure, just, honorable' (20). When Himmler was 1st inspired by the text in 1923, he was 'but 1 of many on a long list of readers, starting w/the Italian humanist Giannantonio Campano 1429-77 48yo, who in 1471 called upon his German audience to rise to what they had once been' (20). Before Bismarck created a unified Germany on 18 Jan 1871, it had only existed as a dream of elites i.e. 'the 'Volk' had lived happily outside a national culture and inside their communal boundaries w/regional traditions and local dialects' (21) for centuries. Many 100s of states comprised the (til 1806) 'the loose fold of the 'HRE of the German Nation'' (21). The 'enemy' changed; from Roman to Italian to French to Jew, but there was always some threatening 'other' in the myth. 19C German Jewish poet Heinrich Heine satirized this thinking. Not long after WWII (1966 bk) Italian historian of ideas Arnaldo Momigiliano included Tacitus' bk in his '100 most dangerous bks ever written' list (22). CBK says ideas can be like viruses, ganging up together to form ideologies (23). Tacitus likely never visited 'the banks of the Rhine'; its 'undoubtedly 1 of history's deeper ironies ... [that] the text that would be called upon to define the German national character was a Roman's imaginative reflection on human values and a political statement' (25, like a set of 'talking points' from a political hack).

1 The Roman Conquest of the Germanic Myth (29)

When Domitian was finally ass. in AD 96, one of the many elites that had endured his 15yr 'reign of terror' was Cornelius Tacitus c55-c130 75yo, 'the leading Roman senator, the greatest historian in Latin literature, and the author of a most dangerous book' (29). Germania was his 2nd work. His name means 'silent'. He was b. in the region between the Pyrenees, the Alps, the Po and the Med., an area 'often favored by a light breeze carrying a faint whiff of the salty sea ... famous for fertile soil, a prosperous economy, and the morality of its inhabitants ... piety, simplicity, disciplined virtue' (32). His father was a member of the equestrian (knightly, middle) class and dealt in finance. Tacitus' b. in c55 was not long after 17yo Nero came to power in AD 54 after the ass. of Claudius (likely poisoned by his wife Messalina?). With good tutors (Seneca the Stoic) and others running things (e.g. his designing mom [Julia] Aprippina [II] the Younger), his 1st 5yrs were 'tranquil and stable', but after that things went downhill fast i.e. toward 'arbitrary and absolute power' (33). He even k. his own mother, 'ending the reign of the sis [of Caligula], wife [of Tiberius], and mom [of Nero, also dau of Germanicus, son of Drusus, younger bro of RE2 Tiberius] of REs'. When he finally commit suicide in AD 68, Tacitus was still in his teens, so these were his formative years. Civil wars followed, with 'the year of 4 REs' ... order restored 1yr later (69) w/Vespasian (34, d79). Around this time Tacitus moved to Rome and was educated in 'the Trivium' (grammer, logic, rhetoric). V's son Titus ruled alone only 2yrs, d81. Then his younger bro Domitian took over, a less capable and paranoid ruler (loved to k. flies!?). He did manage to est. 2 Germanic provinces, begin construction of the Roman dam against barbarian surges aka the limes, and stabilze the Danube region via a treaty w/pwrfl king Decebalus (39). Tacitus later portrayed both Nero and Domitian as tyrants (fair?). Tacitus 1st work was his AD 98 bio of Agricola, his f-in-l. He was named consol in AD 97 (40, the highest republican ofc). But he was compromised since his career was boosted by Domitian, so tho he secretly admired the RE's critics (who often d.) he outwardly criticized them (41).

Note: Agrippina the Younger d59 AD is called 'sister [of RE3 Caligula], wife [of RE4 Claudius, 1st wife [? dau Genvissa m. Arviragus], 2nd was Messalina who may've k. him] and mother [of RE5 Nero m1 Octavia] of REs' (33).

After Domitian came 'the 5 good RE's' (Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius d181). He also wrote his 'Histories' c98. CBK says Tacitus' preoccupation (and perhaps guilt) on how 'values depend on social and political circumstances' (and how one can publicly contribute even under a corrupt regime) affected his portrayal of Germans in Germania (42). For his own ideological purposes, Caesar had called tribes W of the Rhine 'Gauls' and those E 'Germans', but there was no political union on either side, only 'factious and discordant [tribes], hardly [able to] share a meal unmarred by brawling' (44). Like Caesar but unlike then-current usage, Tacitus 'marked the Rhine as Germany's W border (thus basically excluding the 2 Roman provinces [of Domitian, Upper/Lower Germany, link])' (44). Tacitus says '[tho ugly and undesirable] this land brought forth from its soil the god Tuisto [containing 'twi' meaning '2', and] this earthborn god had a son, Mannus [meaning 'human being'], whom ancient Germanic songs - their only form of history - commemorated as the original founder of the Germanic people' (44). He says the Germans remained isolated from other people groups (and thus 'pure'), praising their 'freedom, fortitude, morality, and simplicity' (cf br-oei also 'simple, loyal, brace, moral' 47). CBK suggests he was using them as a foil to contrast these pure values w/the somewhat degraded ones of Rome (e.g. shame on us Romans for allowing tyrants and other moral degradations and lapses of our ancient values ...). The Germans resist luxury and its twin vice, decadence (46). They are 'neither cunning nor shrewd ... prepared to die for the sake of honor and loyalty' (hmmm, contrast [Germanic-Viking] warlord-loyalty to [English-Saxon] principle-loyalty, cf TLK in Bamburgh.html). The Nazi SS wore belt buckles that read 'My honor is called loyalty' (46, more like former). Like the Spartans, Germans are portrayed as being 'devoted to military valor and fortitude, and [seeing] rest [as] odious' (46). By Tacitus' time there'd been > 200yrs of Germano-Roman wars, and tho he sarcastically hinted they were no match for mighty Rome, he admired their love of freedom and admitted it had made them fiercer than the Parthian monarchy, Rome's biggest threat to the E (47). Often missed is that Tacitus was looking down on the Germans' lack of cultural development, farming ability, bloody internal discord, illiteracy and sheer primitiveness ... they either fight or laze ... if they had alchohol, they'd destroy themselves ... they gamble recklessly (47, while patronizingly 'patting them on the head'). Amazingly, til the early 20C Tacitus' work was seen 'as a historical source on authentic Germanic life' (48), when in reality it was just a formulaic Greek/Roman ethnography, expected to answer a set of questions (e.g. autochthonous v. immigrants, pure v. mixed ... i.e. mere stereotpyes 48).

MBK says Tacitus' interest in Germans was moral and political, NOT scientific and thinks T's main angle was to convince RE Trajan to conquer the rest of the tribes, as Domitian had begun (49). If so, it failed since Trajan soon 'turned away from the Rhine to the Danube, which he rightly considered the more troublesome frontier. The Romans never conquered Germanic territory. But where their legionaires failed, their writers succeeded: Tacitus' 'Germania' would determine the Germanic myth for centuries' (49-50). Tho T greatly admired Trajan, he oddly never wrote of that reign (hmmm, maybe safer to avoid present? 53, esp. for such a witty writer e.g. 'the gods don't care about our comfort, only our punishment' 52). Of his (likely) 12 works covering 28yrs, only the 1st 4 and opening of the 5th have survived (53, from an 11C manuscript, acct'ing for < 2yrs). The 'Annals' was his 2nd major work (after 'Agricola', 'Germania' was a minor work). He seems focused on the origins of tyranny and human weakness i.e. 'the pretense of morality is the best to be hoped for' (53). Of the 'Annals' 18 bks, only 12 (1-6 and 11-16) survive today (thx to 2 9C and 11C manuscripts). John Milton called Tacitus 'the greatest possible enemy to tyrants' (54). He was also an expert ('white-gloved ... no blood on his hands') character assassin via witty innuendos and insinuations. The greatest 20C Tacitean was Sir Ronald Syme, who said 'men and dynasties pass, but style abides' (55). He's tough to read e.g. 'undermines what is stated by what is suggested', but a small sign of the force of his style is that the modern phrase 'conspicuous by its absence' is originally Tacitean.

Note: On a recent PBS Globetrekker episode, Justine Shapiro visited Lord Bath at his Longleat estate in England. On a large wall display he had a family genealogy chart leading back from himself to both Tacitus and [Old King] Coel. I'd love to see a copy of that (emailed show but nogo, said contact Lord Bath website). Tacitus m. the dau of late-1C AD Roman Gov. of Britain Agricola.

2 Survival and Rescue (56)

Here he tells the story of how copies of Tacitus' work were rediscovered in the 15C at a monastery in Germany (probably Fulda, which held ~2k ancient manuscripts) thru the efforts of Poggio Bracciolini 1380-1459 79yo, Niccolo Niccoli of Florence 1364-1437 73yo, Guarino of Verona 1374-1460 86yo, Panormita [i.e. of Palermo] 1394-1471 77yo ... He quotes a Rudolf of Fulda c865 citing the document to explain how ancient Saxons protected the 'purity' and 'nobility' of their race by avoiding intermarriage w/other tribes. MBK says RE38 Marcus Claudius Tacitus r275-6 'falsely claimed descent' (59) from the historian, ordering reproductions of his work. 'Until the mid-6C [scholars, monks] continued to produce new [copies of ancient works], but from 550-750 the so-called Dark Ages ... repros of secular texts came almost to a standstill' (59). Charlemagne's 747-814 renaissance then revived many texts, but of course far from all. 'From his capital, Aachen, where today Germany abuts the Neth. and Belgium, [he built and] ruled over a European empire evocative of its Roman predecessor' (60). In the W and S Latin was slowly morphing into proto-Italian and proto-French, while (non-Romance) Germanic dialects were spoken in the E (and by Charlemagne himself i.e. a dialect known as 'Frankish'). Writings produced at Aachen (led by Alcuin 735-804) were sent thruout the empire; one recipient was the monastery at Fulda, in what is now the C German state of Hesse. This is where the only known codex of 'Germania' was later found. Rudolf made use of Tacitus in writing of Germany's past. 'Until the 9C, the Latin theodiscus was used as the proper name for Germans. Linguists have shown how its related to the German word theudo, which means 'the people' ... but then in 876 [Rudolph uses] Teutonicus' (64). Tho w/o connection to the German language, it replaced the former and became the standard Latin term for 'German' til humanists replaced it w/'Germanus'. Tacitus had used the term 'Teutones' in reference to 1 of many tribes in the region, so perhaps that inspired Rudolf. This seems to be the only adaptation of Tacitus in the middle ages, after which he 'would once more float on the sea of time' til the humanists picked him up again in the 15C.

The humanists in Italy first heard of Tacitus in the early 1420s (65 i.e. early 'quattrocento'). 'In 15C Italy umanista signified a student and, in turn, teacher of classical culture' (67). It derived from Cicero's notion of humanitas, originally applied to a person versed in the 'liberal arts'. But starting w/Petrarch 1304-74 ... [the term came to refer to] one w/a lively, almost existential interest in classical culture' (67, and disdain for the 'backward Middle Ages'). Their mad scramble for ancient manuscripts sometimes put ethics aside. Starting in 1426 and after many delays (including a mention at the Council of Basel 1431-49, organized by dissenters pressing for church reform from w/in, 75 [nice try]), it was finally spotted in Rome in 1455 by Pier Candido Decembrio 1399-1477, sec'y in pope's svc and experienced bibliophile (probably got to Rome via Enoch of Ascoli, ofcl papal manuscript hunter, 76). Popes Pius II and Nicholas V had been scholars and bk hunters before becoming popes. The RCC sought 'a Roman library that could rival the celebrated ancient collection in Alexandria'. Enoch found libraries 'infested w/dust, worms, soot, and all the things associated w/the destruction of books, we all burst into tears, thinking this was [how] the Latin language had lost its greatest glory' (77). Later, Giovanni Pontano 1429-1503 'the most important humanist in 15C Naples', mentions Enoch as a source. The monk Sigismund Meisterlin of Augsburg (after getting a visit from Enoch en route back to Italy in 1455 and apparently reading Tacitus) seems to be the 1st to [in examining Augsburg's history] 'reject the common assumption that [Europe's] originators were to be found among those who'd fled Troy's smoldering ruins (aka the Trojan genealogy, hmmm, my Thusco list?), instead proposing a novel idea; the Suevs, the original inhabitants, had been indigenous (78). Unfortunately, by the time Enoch returned to Rome his patron was dead (Nicholas V d. 24 Mar 1455), so to survive he likely 'parted out' the texts for money to live on, d1457 (79, mentioned by Carlo d'Medici, an illeg son of Cosimo the Elder employed by RCC in Rome). Finally, Enea Silvio [Aeneas Silvius] Piccolomini (Cardinal of Siena, later Pius II 1458-?) asked Carlo if Enoch had left any manuscripts behind when he died. This inquiry apparently turned up Tacitus, since quotes soon appear in ESP's writings! So, in '3 Acts' i.e. Poggio, Enoch, ESP; Tacitus is rediscovered.

3 The Birth of the German Ancestors (81)

Not long after he became Pope Pius II 'the humanist pope', ESP published his 'Account of Germany', which included his own experience-based description of Germany (the 1st from a humanist) along with his (also the 1st in modern Europe) paraphrase of Tacitus' work. Unlike Rudolf, ESP equated the ancient and modern Germans as 'the same people at 2 different moments in history. Thus was born the Germane as the German ancestor. This misconceived notion of an ethical continuity would last into the 20C' (81-2). CBK says Caesar, Strabo and Tacitus had all described ancient Germany (83). Tho many Italians (esp. humanist ones) looked down on Germany as 'barbaric', the Ottoman threat required European unity, so their rhetoric emphasized either 'barbarians' or 'noble warriors' as needed (so their idea of 'Germania' served politics from the start [also implying that these humanist types were 'philosophes' i.e. less interested in truth and more in rhetoric, or 'making a case']). ESP then gave a rousing oration on 15 Oct 1454 'meant to arouse the Germans to join a [new] crusade' (84) against the Ottomans, who'd recently [1453] shocked Europe by sacking Constantinople, '1 of the 2 lights of Christendom' (83, w/Rome). [so, tho he looked down on them, he could see they'd be very useful in a coming fight, esp. if he played up the 'noble warrior' angle, here's a common theme of humanity, (effete?) elites getting their perceived inferiors to fight their battles for them (cf 'neocons')]. They didn't join up, but copies of his talk circulated widely in Germany, and they were both pleased by his portrayal of them as 'upright defenders of W civ in shining armor' and bugged by his 'German past occupied by fur-clad and uncouth nomads' (85). After spending 20yrs in Germany, ESP hoped to parley his knowledge and experience into being seen as 'liason' both ways (86 RCC<->Germ) and hoped to be named pope based on that. But the Germans were already upset about RCC greed, corruption and Germany being manipulated (and held down) by Rome. :-) Like many humanists since, before ESP had joined the RCC hierarchy in 1446 'at the advanced age of 41, he - a poet, lover, and scholar - had behaved in ways that he later piously regretted' (87 'their intelligence outdistanced their morals'). To counter the argument that Rome had corrupted Germany, ESP used Caesar, Strabo [Greek of Amaseia, modern Amasya, Turkey] and Tacitus to show how barbaric they'd been in ancient times, before the civilizing influence of Rome (and the RCC, 89). Unfortunately for ESP (and his cause), it didn't have the desired effect on Germans. When 'Germania' was published in Germany for the 1st time in 1476, few noticed. But after ESP's incendiary 'Account of Germany' appeared in 1496, it sparked a huge interest in Tacitus i.e. to reinterpret him in a more pro-German way (raged for ~50yrs w/6k German copies, impressive for the time).

ESP d1464 and was replaced by Paul II, much less enamored of humanism (i.e. his election was a RCC reaction against it). He wasn't nearly as interested in the Turks as ESP until Mehmed II conquered Negroponte in 1470, the Venetian [he was Venetian] stronghold on the Aegean island of Euboea (92). He then asked German emp. Frederick III to convene the Imperial Diet in Regensburg [1471] to enlist them in a new crusade. As mentioned above, G Campano (prof. of rhetoric at U of Perugia) was appt'd by the Pope to convince the Germans. He (and Pius II's nephew F T-P, later Pius III, 92) used Tacitus in this effort. Bottom line: the 'speech failed to lead Germans to the crusade [but] succeeded in bringing them to a different view of their past' (93). Tho he never gave the speech orally, written copies circulated from 1487 and became a classic in Germany (w/ESP's Frankfurt 1454 [p84] speech). For his purposes, of course, he'd portrayed Germans as 'no longer barbaric but exemplary in their bravery and religious piety' (95, 'Louts Then, Now Gentleman' p83 heading). Where Tacitus had hoped for continued discord among Germans (to save RE), Campano now needed their unity (and thus [falsely] portrayed the ancestors as unified). CBK says he used Tacitus 'most dangerous paragraph' (96 i.e. ch4 w/parts of ch2). Its clear from his letters that he was only feigning affinity w/Germans, while actually feeling contempt for them [or at least wittily joking this way to his Italian friends] and their culture (97). Tho the Germans were angry about that, responding to his barbs of their 'alcoholism, gluttony, and coarseness which left no room for finer tastes' by saying he was 'effeminate, sodomite, m, i ...' (97), they still liked [and latched onto] what he'd said in Regensburg.

Here's an esp. interesting section, entitled 'Noah's New Son' p98. CBK says around the same time Campano's published letters created a scandal, another greater one was caused by the summer 1498 publication (by Eucharius Silber in Rome) of Annius of Viterbo's 'Commentaries on the Works of Various Authors Discussing Antiquities'. Ostensibly a collection of ancient historical texts previously thot lost, they contained 'a novel account of prehistoric times before and after the Flood, of nations founded by Noah's sons'. Viterbo was hardly known at the time, and had added explanatory notes, an outline and a concluding summary. It said e.g. Etruscans were the true fndrs of Italy, once ruled by Noah himself, Romulus [and Rome] had been named after Roma, dau of the mythical Italian king Italus, and all Germans descended from Tuysco, a previously unknown son of Noah [apparently from the German earthborn god Tuisto of Tacitus' bk]. CBK [along w/consensus opinion] calls it 'a masterpiece of artful forgery'. At the time, he says, 'all over Europe families, tribes, and nations vied to claim the earliest origins' (99, like br-doka's 'Matter of ... [Britain, Rome (Troy), France, ... and of course the Bible]'). In addition to Trojan refugee Aeneas who fnd'd Rome, 'another Trojan, Francus, as the 7C 'Chronicle of Fredigar' demonstrated, was the eponymous forefather of the Franci' (99). French, Brit and Norman elites took great pride in these lineages. Rulers (e.g. Hapsburgs, [England's anti-Welsh Edw I?]), cities (Augsburg) and other authorities funded research into their origins. 'Fabricated stories naturally abounded'. But no counterfeiter was greater than A of V 1432-1502 70yo. Born Giovanni Nanni, later a Dominican bro and ofcl papal theologian (under Alex VI), he'd dabbled in forgery before. Envious of Athens and Rome, he'd concocted a past for Viterbo, had it chiseled in stone, buried, then had dug up by unsuspecting workers, showing a glorious biblical founding for the city [45mi NW of Rome] by Italian god Janus, 'a heathen [name] for Noah' (100). But his 'Antiquities' bk was much more audacious, amounting to 'nothing less than the rewriting of world history from 3 gens before the Flood down to the fndation of Troy, a project in which talent was rivaled only by vanity' (100). He 'edited these 17 [ancient] texts, which centered on Europe but treated Africa and Asia too'. He wanted to show 'the glorious antiquity not just of [Italy] but of the whole of Europe'. But CBK says all the alleged authors, from AlexGrt 3C BC to 2C AD RE Antoninus Pius, were really just the editor's alter egos. He says 'the single most important text - 5 bks full of lists of prehistoric kings and Noachide family trees - appeared near the end of the anthology and contained the mention of the Germanic progenitor Tuysco' (100). Annius said its author was 'Berosus, b. a Babylonian, in status a priest' (both Pliny the Elder and Josephus had mentioned him, 101). The real Berosus 'had indeed been a Chaldean priest, who early in the 3C BC not only excelled in astrology but also wrote a Babylonian history (in Greek) in 3 vols, of which fragments remain to this day. Their content overlapped w/the OT' (101). Annius, CBK says, rightly figured this would enhance credibility. Annius said Berosos had also been curator of the Babylon library, which Chaldeans had kept up to date since Adam (playing on a medieval legend of an antediluvian book). But CBK says Annius' pseudo-Berosos 'shared w/his real namesake little other than the name'. He claimed to have gotten the Berosus material from an Armenian Dominican master.

'With great diligence Annius laid out the content of Berosus' now 5 volumes ... 1st, a summary of the Chaldean priests' reports on the time before the Flood, followed by genealogies of the progenitors who repopulated the world after the rain had abated. This 2nd part segued into [3rd] an account of the age of Janus, identified w/Noah, whereas the 4th and 5th parts related the antiquities of various early kingdoms, like the Assyrian. Tuysco appeared in the midst of the postdiluvian genealogies, where he joined Noah's sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth as a half brother. He was 'the progenitor', Annius added in his commentary, 'of the Germans, as Berosus as much as Cornelius Tacitus testify'. Ever alert to his readers' difficulties [he's selling them, after all], Annius suspected that many of the names of Tuysco's offspring in Berosus' work might appear 'rather obscure', and [so] he quoted in full Tacitus' chapter on Germanic indigenous beliefs about their origins. It had not been cited or used previously:

[The Germanic tribes] celebrate in olden songs - which is their only form of historical record - Tuysco, an earth-born god, and his son, Mannus, as their people's origin and founders. To Mannus they attribute 3 sons, from whose names the coast tribes are called Ingaevones; those of the inland, Herminones; and all the others, Istaevones. Some, with the freedom of conjecture permitted by antiquity, assert that the god had further descendants, and the nation further appellations [names], as Marsi, Gambrivii, Suevi, Vandilii, and that these are genuine old names.

The heathen god [Tuysco] appeared to have a biblical lineage. This was welcome information. By grafting Tacitus' earthborn but somewhat uprooted Germanic god Tuysco onto Noah's family tree, the 'Antiquities' told German readers who they were in relation to the other European people and their respective originators. True, all Europeans were descendants of Noah, but Berosus know further [that] Noah favored and adopted Tuysco's offspring, preferring them to his other equally nation-founding progeny. In this regard the Germans (along w/the Sarmations, peoples located in the E Balkans and the S of European Russia) excelled over the other European peoples, as is emphasized by the heading of this portion of Annius' text' (101-2).

Hmmm, so maybe Annius was 'buttering them up' to make them more inclined to join the crusade? So Annius used Tacitus to add credibility to his forgery. 'The cunning of this strategy is attested to by its impact on the skeptical reader Sebastian Muenster, author of the 1st German cosmography' (102), who decided that Berosus, corroborated by Tacitus, 'could not be doubted'. Annius says Berosos refers to 'Germans' as 'Tuyscons' (later Teutons). Annius' bk continued to circulate among 'excited but duped intellectuals' for 250yrs [to 1748]. By 1551 there were at least 25 editions in print in France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands (104). By Renaissance standards it was an intl best-seller. People WANTED to believe them due to their patriotic enthusiasm. CBK concludes the chapter by noting that 'in the rhetoric of the past ESP, Campano and Annius all relied on Tacitus' 'Germania' as an acct of German history, yet each w/a different purpose: as a historical illumination of cultural change, as evidence of ethnic continuity, or simply as prehistory' (104), but all tended to reinforce the idea [solidified by 1600] of then-modern Germans as descendants of Tacitus' 'Germania'. 'During the MA, German genealogies had mostly been dynastic and tribal e.g. Hapsburgs or Bavarians but NOT 'Germans'. The rediscovery of [Tacitus' bk] changed this for good ... [from] behind the shrouds of time ... the Germans ancestors emerged' (104).

Note: He shows a page in Gothic [German] type on p103, from the Houghton Library (Harvard) copy

Note: I checked AMZN, nope. But Abebooks.com had an old copy at $1376 + $21 s/h, and said it 'professes to recover Berosus [the Chaldean], Fabius Pictor ... but judged to be a forgery'.

4 Formative Years (105)

The German Humanists embraced Tacitus' bk as a 'golden booklet'. The ancient Germans had been 'indigenous, pure, hard- but free-living, simple but moral, tall, fair [blue-eyed], flaxen[blond]-haired men/women of war ... what they lacked in cultural refinement they more than made up for by moral rectitude' (105). As Jacob Wimpfeling, 'the Alsatian author of the 1st [modern] history of Germany [said in his] 1505 [bk 'Short German History'], 'we can pride ourselves [in these] ancestors'. They began to see all 'germanic' peoples e.g. Alsations, Bavarians, Saxons, ... as 'all branches of 1 tree'. This era [c1500] was 'a time of dramatic cultural change' (106) due to Gutenberg's [1454] invention. Nationalistic feelings were flaring across the [decentralized] HRE [Emp. Maximilian I b1459 r1493-1519] as France, England and Spain were centralizing and nationalizing political power. Max I succeeded his father Frederick III and was followed by his gson Chas V. Max 'suffered a constant shortage of money [and thus military pwr]'. The HRE 'retained its romantic allure, but [lacked] real pwr', threatened by both Turks and internal competitors [e.g. later Prussians]. Budding nationalists saw as 'yokes' both the RCC and Vienna (HRE Hapsburg HQ). JW was just 1 of many German humanists writing 'pan-German' histories (and hoping for political union, 107). For > 100yrs Italian humanists had been promoting the 'culture of the Roman classics and Latin' and looked down on 'barbaric' Germans. The latter obviously wanted to claim this classical heritage and 'join the sophisticated classical club [aka 'republic of (Latin and Greek) letters']' so to speak. The Germans wanted to inherit not just Roman military rule, but also cultural rule. Tho it seems ironic, this early German nationalism was culturally Romanocentric (108). A key figure was arch-humanist poet Conrad Bickel 1459-1508 49yo, who called himself 'Celtis' (Latin 'chisel'). 'Unlike the Romans, the ancient Germans had failed to follow up w/the quill what they'd accomplished w/the sword' (109). CBK notes the odd paradox that humanists were [like modern libs] committed to [extra-national, classical, ('tolerant')] ideals and also deeply nationalist [pro-German, anti-Italy], hmmm (107, like they 'love people in general, but can't stand particular ones'). Just as Cicero et al had created a Roman literature as distinct from Greek, they wanted a German one (a 'matter of Germany' as br-doka would say). Celtis wrote an epic poem called 'Germania generalis' which laid out a German 'cosmogony, history, geography, and ethnography' (110), 'depicting an ideal world in which high culture and high morals conjoined' (a tall order, as modern libs demonstrate, 'intelligence outdistances their morals'), which served as basis for his 1501 lecture tour, the 1st one N of the Alps. His bk represented the arrival of Tacitus bk as of central importance (i.e. Germany's founding document) from mere scattered mentions c1450. Notably he 'airbrushed' Tacitus' mention of human sacrifice (called it a scribal error, so obviously ideological v. philological).

When Max I was forced (by German princes) to retire to Innsbruck, his newly crowned poet laureate Heinrich Bebel 1472-1518 did the same (111). On 30 May 1501 he delivered a Latin oration at the court praising Max and lamenting what had happened. He related a dream he'd had where an old woman i.e. Germany, was 'old, imposing, majestic, yet in tatters and emaciated'. He spoke of German history, knowing Max would be very interested, having 'maintained a staff of hisorians charged w/tracing his family's beginnings back to the Trojans and even to Noah' (111). But he insisted the Germans came from nowhere else i.e. they were indigenous, citing Tacitus and Berosus (latter via Annius of Viterbo). Being of Swabian origin (then a mostly impotent Duchy), he felt they were the finest Germans. He took issue w/ESP's Trojan ancestry for Germans. He went into alot of detail w/an alternative genealogy (I'd like to see that). The key was this allowed him to directly link Tacitus' ancient Germans with then-modern ones i.e. 'same blood'. Unlike Rome, which had mixed many peoples [Rome was declared an 'asylum' by Romulus to attract many settlers], Germany was 'pure' [uh oh]. This indigenous version quickly trumped the Trojan one pursued by Max's staff, and the latter was ridiculed and 'virtually vanished' (114). A contemp of Bebel's and ofcl court historian of the Bavarian dukes, Johannes Turmaier aka Aventinus, also mocked the Trojan myth e.g. saying 'the German kingdom had existed for 700yrs before the kingdom of Troy ... fnd'd 71yrs after the Flood, to be precise' [i.e. Tuisto's era].

Tho true that ancient Germanic songs had celebrated Tuisto as primogenitor (acc. to Tacitus), CBK scolds both Bebel and Aventinus for buying Annius' forgery hook, line and sinker i.e. their 'patriotism got the better of [their scholarly] judgment' (114). Aventinus 'filled in' [from his imagination] more details [several pages worth] about Tuisto e.g. he was Germans' '1st king and lawgiver', ancestor of Charlemagne, found evidences of him in place-names like Tuitz, a village near the Rhine, and Teutoburg, near Osnabrueck. He even included the woodcut shown above. But above all were his laws, which had shaped for time the Germans' virtuous character. Then Tuisto d. in the 236th year of his reign, succeeded by his son Mannus (also from Tacitus) 'whom our ancestors also worshipped and for whom humankind is stall called men (mannen)' (116). From Mannus' sons then originated 'a long coherent line of kings, which Aventinus followed to his own present' (see list below). There was great pride in Germanic warriors, 'big-bodied and fierce-eyed' and also in the Cheruscan (a Germanic tribe in what is now NW Germany, hmmm, Frisian?) Arminius' AD 9 slaughter of 3 Roman legions at Teutoburger Forest. Tho the original story told how Arminius was k. by his own people, who feared he'd want to be their king, Aventinus had him come back to life, dealing further defeats to later Romans (117). Martin Luther later renamed him Hermann, a German rendering of the Latin Arminius, and Tacitus had explained that he'd 'served the Romans in previous campaigns and risen to captain of their auxiliaries before he dealt his former employer the lethal blow' (118). The humanists liked to stress that Germans had assisted Romans in their key victories and even served as Praetorian Guards i.e. 'their necks had refused Rome's yoke, but their shoulders had carried its leaders' (118). This was due to the Germans' 'loyalty and integrity'. This was in contrast to the 'masters of fickleness, fraud and deceit' applied to Italians, and later French (119). The humanists liked to portray the Germans as maintaining an 'empire' tho in reality they were scattered (non-unified) tribes (til 1870 amazingly). Migrations complicating things, but 'germanic' was left as vague as possible to included all possible tribes. One myth was that 'Swedes' were originally Swabians, 'the 1st [germanic tribe] to occupy Scandinavia' (119). Long lists of 'Germanic' victories were compiled (concocted). Another myth was that Germans had seeded all other 'noble' families in Europe, perhaps in the world, using 'the late-antique notion of the N as the 'cradle of humanity'' (120 i.e. an alt 'Atlantis' cf br-lciv). Wimpfeling even tied the word 'german' to 'germinate' in support of this. The much-later late-19C 'pan-Germanism' movement would make similar claims.

'A hallmark since ancient times, German freedom was seen facing serious threats [c1500]: Turkish forces battled at the gates of Vienna in 1529; the Curia tightened its grasp on German holdings; and the Roman legal code supplanted time-honored local laws [per an imperial decree at 1495 Diet of Worms]. To German humanists these times called for Arminius' bellicose and freedom-loving spirit' (120). A key voice was Ulrich von Hutten 1488-1523, author of Arminius, which sparked the warrior's idolization. Hutten was 'one of the most prolific pamphleteers in the years leading up to the Reformation', rivalled only by (later) Martin Luther and respected by other leading humanists of the era; Erasmus and Thomas More. He traced his lineage from a 10C knight and fought (mostly w/his pen, but when younger v. French soldiers) passionately for German greatness (like other humanists, he saw his main enemy as the RCC). Tho he'd trained in Italy to be a lawyer, he grew to hate that system and never obtained a degree, instead calling for a return to traditional Germanic laws and customs. For centuries the RCC had generated rules, land holdings, taxes and other hated 'encumbrances on the German nation' (121, not to mention rampant corruption) and anger was rising to a boil in these years (soon to help fuel the Ref). Hutten quipped that 'more than half of Germany [was owned] by Holy Joes' [snidely called 'Romanists']. It seemed the RCC had succeeded by guile where Rome had failed to enslave Germany. In addition to 'origin and freedom, ancestral morality [piety]' (122) excited the Germans as part of their heritage. In this they were soon joined by the reformers. They HAD to base German greatness on character v. culture since there was a lack of evidence of past culture and in any case 'it was clear that the German ancestors could not compete culturally w/the Romans' (123). Some humanists argued for 'a lost high culture' (br-lciv). The main idea was to contrast German virtue and 'moral integrity' [simple decency] w/Italian (and RCC) decadence and corruption [amoral artistry 124]. The problem was that, as arts, learning and 'enlightenment' spread N of the Alps, so did decadence! A worried Celtis encouraged youth to study history to learn 'not only what had happened but also what to do' (125).

The Reformers joined the humanists in attacking RCC/Italian decadence. In his travels w/his protege Philipp Melanchthon [Wittenberg Grk prof, surname 'Schwartzerdt' = black soil, was Greek-ified to Melanchthon] 1497-1560, Luther worried that 'the Germanic values of steadfastness, loyalty and fidelity that Tacitus had praised were now bygones' (126). PM repub'd the 'Germania' w/notes in 1538 and 57 (w/writing by Hutten and Celtis) as part of his effort to reform German education. A student of M and L named Johann Eberlin von Guenzburg wrote the 1st German translation of 'Germania' in 1526 (pub'd much later). Tacitus had called Germans 'a people neither clever nor treacherous .... of a mind [that] cling[s] to what is true and just' (128). By this time, CBK says, 'the text that started the tradition is supported by the tradition' and 'the Germanen, fully profiled, were becoming quite indep of their original source'. In contrast w/ESP's criticisms of German culture (and warning to tow the RCC line), 'by 1505 the mythical Germanen had become the exemplary Germans: pure and noble, long limbed, fair [blue-eyed], and flaxen-haired [blond]; free spirited, stouthearted and straightforward ... [this vision] provided a sense of natl belonging and moral guidance toward a better future ... for many centuries ... [future Germans mostly] continued what the humanists had begun, merely modifying aspects of the Germanic portrait to fit their current needs. In most if not all respects the [Nazi] vision of the Germanen would be a mirror image of the humanists', only slightly twisted thru time [w/19C racism and anti-Semitism]' (128).

5 Heroes' Songs (129)

A century on; German heroes Arminius and Henry I the Fowler (Duke of Saxony) appeared in special roles in a 1642 play called 'The Victory of Peace' written by Justus Georg Schottelius 1612-76 64yo); as dead heroes commenting on [and critiqueing] the [then] living. After 20yrs of war, pillaging, famine and disease [i.e. 30yrs War 1618-48, 'which had begun as a regional conflict; the Bohemian revolt, in today's Czech Republic 130, cf 'Warlords' rvw in ScotKings], Arminius is made to say 'is this country supposed to be Germany, really?' (129). By contrast, modern Germans were made to look effete, having adopted many Italian and French words, mannerisms and customs. Many armies were involved (Gustavus II Adolph's Sweden, Cardinal Richelieu's France, Hapsburg Spain ...), but Germany was the main battleground. Many once again wondered why the >300 'German states, indep cities, and free imperial villages' loosely affiliated by the HRE couldn't set aside their quarrels and form a unified German empire (131 aka the 'German question'). Many also worried about foreign ways brought via mkt (trading) cities e.g. Hamburg in N, Augsburg in S. 'Next to Schottelius were Philipp Cluever, the towering historian and geographer, and Martin Opitz, the 'father of German poetry'' (134). Whereas patriots of the last century had cherished history, now the German language 'provided forlorn patriots w/a fatherland' (134). In seeking the origins of the language, some even proposed that German v. Hebrew was the 1st or 'ur' language! Most were content to leave Hebrew #1 and date the emergence of proto-German to right after Babel. A typical chronology would show that, ~100yrs after the Flood, Noah ordered his sons Shem, Ham and Japheth 'to oversee the earth's repopulation' (135). But after the Babel Tower fiasco, '1 common language gave way to 72 ... Ashkenaz, a gson of Japheth ... led his people to the part of Europe later to be called Celtic and comprising the Balkans, France, Spain, Germany and the British Isles. Ashkenaz was [thus] the 'father of all Celts', of whom the primeval Germans were believed to have formed the largest faction' (135, from Cluever). German was thot to be closer to the original Hebrew, while French moved further w/influence from Latin. '1 early-17C author after careful calculation declared [German] to be 3822yo' (135, e.g. 1621 - 3822 = 2200 BC). They relied on etymology, the science of the origin and meaning of words, to draw clues e.g. Nuremburg must've been fnd'd by Nero ('Nero's Berg' or hill). Ashkenaz, 'a Hebrew word for German' (136), they argued was a cognate of Ascanes, whose sons had been called 'thi [die] Ascanes', which w/a few chgs becomes Th-uisc, obviously related to Tuysco! These kinds of 'linguistic maneuvers' were common, but in this case Cluever 1580-1622 42yo begged to differ.

In his 1616 'Germania antiqua' he advocated an alt theory; adorned w/26 woodcuts of ancient Germanic life (137). Since he gave the Bible top status, he rejected the idea of indigenousness, like most others seeing early proto-Germans as having come from Babylon post-Flood, following Ashkenaz NW. But the Latin 'Germani' was not their original name. That came from Tuisto, which he said Tacitus should've spelled Teuto or Tuito (leading to Teutsch, Tuitsch, Deutsch). 'More than a name correction, this proposal pronounced death for the pagan god ... [since] Teut [is related to] the Greek and Latin words 'theos' and 'deus', meaning 'god' or 'God' ... It was obvious, he proclaimed, that when ancient Germans sang of Teuto, they simply if unwitthingly praised the Christian God. This allowed Cluever to dispense w/the problem of how to connect Tacitus' earth-born god to the biblical Ashkenaz ... Tuisto simply disappeared into God' (139). Likewise, T's son Mannus becomes God's 1st offspring Adam, meaning 'man' or 'human'. The '3 sons' spoken of in the songs must then refer to Noah's (not Adam's) sons Shem, Ham and Japheth. Tho he d. early, Cluever's fame spread widely and 'he would carry the humanistic heritage from the 16C to the 19C, adorning the desks of the poet F G Klopstock and the polymath J Grimm' (140). Just as Aventinus ushered Tacitus' 'Germanen' from the humanistic to the Baroque age, Cluever took them forward.

What Shakespeare was the England, Torquato Tasso to Italy, Pierre Consard to France, Martin Opitz 1597-1639 42yo later became to Germany i.e. leading poet/writer. Tho he initially wrote in Latin, as was the custom at the time, he later sought 'to lead the Muses into his fatherland' (141). At the time, German was seen as 'rough, unpolished' v. Spanish, Italian and French, seen as (respectively) majestic, dignified, graceful, suitable for conversation w/[respectively] God, princes, women (143). Tho trained in Latin, Opitz in fall 1617 (<1yr bef outbrk of 30yrs war) 'delivered his obit on the Latin language' (many were not pleased, esp. the est.). But some were now seeing that 'language was character' and German had 'purity, heroism, and originality'. He saw (or inserted?) in Tacitus that the ancients had venerated 3 groups; druids (tchrs, censors), vates (priests, soothsayers) and poets (or bards, singers 145). Until that time only the Gauls had discussed these 3 'honored guilds' of old, but now Opitz encouraged Germans to do so. Connected w/this was the idea that language and character are closely related (-> if Germans adopted foreign words they'd also adopt foreign [and less virtuous] mores [as the Romans had, to their ruin]). Since France, Italy and Britain already had 'literary societies' to promote/protect their languages (and mores, virtue, character), the Germans now formed one as well, called the 'Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft' or 'fruit-bearing society' (148 at Weimar, in modern Thuringia). Their most influential published work was by J G Schottelius (hailed as 'father of German grammar and the German Varro') in 1663 called (simplified title) 'Extensive Work Concerning German' (150). He argued that German was a capital language like Hebrew, Greek, Latin and Slavic i.e. it did not spring from any other tongue (151, on the contrary, others e.g. Danish derived from it). By their military valor and success they'd managed (unlike others) to preserve the ur-language mostly intact from Ashkenaz' era. The 'Romance' languages all depended on Latin. He 'crystallized the widely shared notion that a language was indissolubly fused w/its spkrs' moral character into the expression 'the nature of the German language' (Sprachnatur)' (151).

6 The Volk of Free-Spirited Northerners (153)

Events (BN HT):
- 1675 Battle of Fehrbellin; Swedes defeated by Frederick Wm 'the Grt Elector' of Brandenburg
- 1679 Chas II of England rejects idea of new Parliament (pro = 'whigs', anti = 'tories')
- 1682 Ivan V Tsar of Russia to 1689 7yrs
- 1683 Siege of Vienna by Turks, repelled by German/Polish troops
- 1685 Louis XIV revokes Edict of Nantes i.e. RCC only in France, >50k families lv (Huguenots), K James II of England to 1688 3yrs, J S Bach b. (d1750 65yo)
- 1688 England's 'Glorious Revolution'
- 1689 War of the League of Augsburg to 1697 (Treaty of Ryswick) 8yrs, France invades Palatinate, 'Grand Alliance of (Protestant) LoA, England, Neth. (v. RCC France and Spain?)
- 1692 Salem witch trials in MA
- 1694 Voltaire b. (d1778 84yo)
- 1696 Peter I the Great 1672-1725 of Russia makes incognito visits to W Europe to 1697
- 1701 War of Spanish Succession to 1713 12yrs, Grand Alliance England, Neth., HRE, German states v. France (crucial win for Eugene of Savoy & Duke of Marlborough, cf Rahe), also Frederick III, Elector of Brandenburg, crowned Frederick I King of Prussia to 1740 (FtG's father)
- 1704 Isaac Newton 16xx-17xx publishes 'Optics'
- 1707 Act of Union joins England and Scotland to form Great Britain
- 1712 J J Rousseau b. [uh oh] (d1778 66yo)
- 1715 1st Jacobite uprising in Scotland
- 1720 Collapse of John Law's MS co in France (1st 'stk mkt' crisis, cf NF's Ao$)
- 1721-42 1st PM Sir Robt Walpole admin
- 1725 Catherine I, widow of Peter tGrt succeeds to throne
- 1739 John Wesley fnds Methodist movement
- 1740 Frederick II the Great, K of Prussia to 1786 46yrs
- 1745 2nd Jacobite uprising in Scotland
- 1749 Goethe b. (d1832 83yo)
- 1756-62 '7yrs War' (cf '1759' the yr Britain won the world)
- 1762 Rousseau pub's 'Social Contract', Cath II tGrt Tsarina of Russia to 1796 34yrs
- 1775-83 American Revolution

Here we meet Frederick the Great (1xxx-1786 cf Germany), 'the monarch of Prussia's military might and 18C absolutism personified' (153). He enjoyed conversing over dinner w/his guests on many topics (and loved controversy). The loosely affiliated German states w/in the HRE had been battling for dominance and he'd come out on top by 1779, when FtG had a conversation in Breslau (then the main city of Lower Silesia, today Wroclaw in W Poland) w/E F von Hertzberg 1725-95, his FM. FtG was a francophone and disdained German, thinking it unsuitable for polite conversation. He argued that E German 'Goths' had come from Sweden and that the Parthians (aka Arsacid dynasty) had at the hgt of RE been 'more redoubtable than their German counterparts' (i.e. a greater threat to Rome, p154). He was a friend of Voltaire's and 'the finest rep. of the 2 principle movements of his age - absolutism and enlightenment'. Tho EFvH had learned to to defer tactfully by now (had worked for FtG 35yrs), he took exception and responded the next day by sending passages from Tacitus showing how the Romans esteemed the Germanic peoples higher than the Parthians (and their admirable mores ...). They continued their exchanges and FtG decided if a man like EFvH was defending the cause, it would prosper (and perhaps he was sympathetic). In 1780 EFvH gave the 1st of 8 speeches promoting Germanness at the Prussian Academy, 'an interest of his since HS' (156). Not only had they bested the Romans, but those same traits now helped explain Prussia's great recent successes (of course w/exc ldrshp from FtG). Further, they'd 'migrated at will' and 'initiated the major European monarchies'. He quoted Cluever who still 'enjoyed unabated popularity'. Germania, should be called Teutonia, was the only country in Europe, maybe in the universe, that had NEVER been subjugated. He also pointed to Montesquieu's famous 'Spirit of the Laws', 'one of the most influential texts of 18C Europe'.

CBK quotes Montesquieu (1689-1755 66yo) as saying (in 1748) 'If one ... read(s) ... Tacitus, one will see that the [Anglo-Saxon] English have taken their idea of political govt from the Germans. This fine system was found in the forests' (157, cf br-oei). He says 'the Germans' national spirit awoke in the S of mid-18C France' (i.e. via Montesquieu). They built on the 'patriotic language enthusiasts of the previous century, eventually decid[ing] on the vernacular and folklore' as the way to promote 'Germanness' (158, and tying into the 'Romantic' movement 1750-1850, cf br-cre). Montesquieu was b. ~10mi S of Bordeaux in the Chateau de la Brede, a castle built in the Gothic style and surrounded by a moat' (hmmm, connected w/Dutch House of Orange?). He spent 20yrs writing his masterpiece, surrounded by >3k books. He was a veteran of 'the salons of Paris ... in which the lack of morals was more readily condoned than the lack of wit and finesse' (158). The French were also interested in Tacitus, assuming a Germanic origin for the French people. 'The Franci, a Germanic tribe populating the E area of the lower Rhine, were assumed to have crossed the river seeking settlement in Gaul [in Roman days?]' (158). But controversy still raged (dating to late MA) as to whether the French descended from those invaders or from the Gauls they'd found (or both). M spoke of 'the spirit or character of a people' and its laws, and asserted that the cold climate of N peoples increased their blood circ., giving them 'greater, albeit impulsive, strength' (160). His work today 'stands for the damnation of despotism and advocacy of sep. of pwrs and legal limitations on govt aka constitutionalism. Before M, not many commentators spoke of Germans' 'constitutional freedom' i.e. how nothing happened w/o 'the people's vote, cognizance and volition', and after 1648 Trty of West. even fewer (rulers didn't want to hear that!). But M chg'd that. Paul Rahe details how M got into trouble w/French rulers and elites and delayed pub (and then in Geneva to avoid French censors), even smoothing wording to appease them (cf br-sddd, br-? in ?). M turned 'the frmrly wild and [unciv] N ... [into] the cradle of [civilized] freedom' (161, and by implication, the S the home of degraded morals, despotism, ...). Voltaire famously disputed this idea, and also that French came from Germans, viewing the latter as 'ferocious beasts seeking pasture' (162, ouch).

A 1760 translation used the term 'geist' for M's 'spirit', and this became an enduring term i.e. 'the German spirit'. A spirited debate followed, centered around an essay by F C von Moser [hmmm, LBC fam] 1723-98 75yo. His 1765 'About the German Natl Spirit' was composed 'in the imperial city of Frankfurt' (162). He lamented the lack of political unity among modern 'Germans' and hoped they could rally around their shared 'spirit'. As an 'imperial patriot' (Frankfurt part of HRE) he 'identified Germany w/the empire'. During the 7-Yrs War 1757-63, 'the 1st global war, w/its 2 front lines in Europe and N America ... these 2 Germanys [empire past (HRE) v. nation-state still out of reach] were thrown into sharp relief. While smaller German states, allied w/either Prussia or Austria, fought against one another on battlefields w/in the HRE, a supraregional 'German movement' came into being e.g. publishers and pamphleteers embraced the dubitable nation ... Goethe and Schiller summarized the paradoxical situation as ... 'Germany begins for the learned where it ends for the politicians'. Another tetrarch of Weimar classicism [other 3?], J G Herder, reflecting on the same disparity, declared the most natural state to be the one that enclosed 1 people of 1 natl character [but] another 100yrs would have to pass before [that one] actually appeared on a map' (164-5 i.e. Bismarck's 1871 creation). A key area of debate was aristocrats v. commoners; many disputed that the frmr could represent the 'spirit' of the nation, insisting that 'Frank or Saxon working his ancestral lands, defending them personally, attending assemblies as necessary [to vote or give his opinion]' (166 i.e. the 'volk') must be the true meaning of that 'spirit' (and thus the then-current state of the many aristocrat-dominated 'germanic' areas could NOT represent 'the nation'. But even if past citizen-farmers were inspiring, they couldn't imagine a modern 'assembly of farmers' in their own time (not cultured enough, they'd lost key virtues, ...), so how to proceed?

Note: In his 2009 bk 'In Search of Civ' (Mustang), John Armstrong discusses (ch17) 'responding to the human condition', w/sections on tragedy, comedy and epic. ''Epic' is the name for a crucial way in which we join up experiences over time - how we perceive the larger rhythms of life, and what kinds of patterns we think we can make out [e.g. cosmogony, incl. God's providence, ...]' (113). A key example is Virgil's Aeneid ... the epic imagination ... [allows us to] make sense of our difficulties [the human condition] because they are part of a larger vision of life w/in which struggle makes sense ... [but] this ... need for a guiding myth - is very dangerous as well as noble; dangerous because we can hitch our self-regard to stories that are false' (114). Challenge is for it to be good and hopeful enough to be worth believing but also true enough to be plausible i.e. close enough to perceived reality, to be a genuine source of [lasting] strength (see also br-dahe for ?'s discussion of cosmogony, the Nazi 'story' had 'jumped the tracks'). JA discusses civ as 1 belonging, 2 material progress, 3 the art of living, and 4 spiritual prosperity.

We now meet Justus Moeser 1720-94 74yo, apparently not related to Carl. Justus became a cmd-ing figure in Osnabrueck (meaning 'ox bridge') politics between the 7-Yrs War [1756-62] and the French Rev [1789-]. Always interested in history, he decided to write a History of Osnabrueck (pub'd 1760s?). It quickly became popular and was recognized as 'the 1st German history w/a German head and heart' (167). It focused on regular 'volk' v. elites, but was a history of 'decline and depreciation' i.e. the 'volk' had gone from free and self-governing to serfdom. Censors made him stop in the 13C, keeping his work 'safely situated in the past'. He made Tacitus' era 'the golden age'. He wrote a 70p intro about their political system e.g. general assemblies, consensus decisions, temporary war ldrs. He said they were 'artists in protecting their freedom' (168). But he overreached, reading more into Tacitus than was warranted (noticed even at the time). He portrayed them as 'farmers' when Tacitus had shown them more as 'warriors' or even 'marauders'. Tho not himself a commoner, he boosted the currency of the 'volk', allowing Jacob Grimm a few decades later to more closely associated 'volk', 'folklore' ... w/'free' (and w/his bro collect folk-tales to be adulated). It was basically; there was once a golden age, things are messed up now, what went wrong? the 'volk' have been suppressed [hello Rousseau]. For awhile, the epicenter of 'Nordic Folklore' was Copenhagen, 'where Germany met Scandanavia' and past met present (171), helped by Danish King Frederick V's r1746- desire to fix 'the austere image of his kingdom by making its capital a center of the arts'. One influential scholar was Paul Henri Mallet 1730-1807. It was thot that Celts, Germans, Nordics were all 'of the same stock' (172). The 'Cimbri', a famous Germanic tribe, had settled Scandanavia as 'founding fathers'. On religion, he turned to the 13C Icelandic 'Edda' which told of Odin ruler of Asgard, Sigurd the dragon-slayer and others. Thus, 'the primitve and primordial [was] proclaimed as an aesthetic alternative to the subtle and sophisticated' (173), following Rousseau. Also becoming popular around this time were 'runes' and etchings, giving evidence beyond Tacitus of a germanic past. The Nazis later made big use of this theme e.g. Himmler's runic 'SS' on a photo album (p174) and runic letters 'stitched and printed on millions of lapels and documents [which] would come to symbolize the terror spread in the 3rd Reich' (173, but also 'told of the high level of [ancient] culture'). Mallet spoke of 'bards' and songs (recently made popular via the writings of the Celtic poet Ossian), countering Tacitus' claim of illiteracy. So 16C Germans had celebrated their 'original people', 17C linguists their 'original language', and now 18C ones their 'original mythology' (at a time when Romanticism emphasized originality above all, 174). Unlike the earlier humanists, these Germans were ready to 'retire Apollo [and Latin], the Greek and Roman ldr of the Muses' and rediscover their own 'Skalds' i.e. Scandanavian bards. Copenhagen was thot 'the Danish end of Germany' (176). F G Klopstock 1724-1803 was 'the most celebrated author before Weivmar classicism' (175) and attended the 'Schulpforta, a boarding school by the river Saale [that] retained the discipline characteristic of the erstwhile monastery [it had once been]' (175, other famous alums were Fichte, Neitzsche). CBK says by Herder's time (1744-1803), the idea of the 'volk' had changed 'from a [mostly] socio-political to an ideological term' (180). But he notes that Herder's nationalism was NOT chauvinistic i.e. he tho ALL peoples should embrace their own 'words, myths, poetry, right to self-determination' (181) etc. He never spoke of bloodlines and explicitly rejected the term 'race' for its vagueness. But unfortunately, 'the Volk and its spirit would [soon] take on a life of their own' (181).

7 White Blood (182)

Now we've arrived at the later 19C, as 83yo F Kohlrausch [in 1863] writes his memoirs, recalling 'his many friends, his flourishing family - as well as some unfortunate public events like the German humiliation under Napoleon at Jena in 1806 and the dashed hopes of the Frankfurt parliament in 1848, when the Prussian king refused the offered German crown' (182). He and many others called for a unified German empire, but d. 4yrs before it finally happened under Bismarck's ldrshp in 1871. It was during this era that the 'Germania' and related writings/mythologies 'reached beyond scholars and intellectuals and entered the living rooms of the growing German middle class' (183). But by this time 'Germanness' had taken on a distinctly racial aspect not present earlier [uh oh]. During the earlier French occupation of Berlin, Fichte had been 'a leading figure of philosphical idealism and Kohlrausch's mentor' (184), delivering 14 'Addresses to the German Nation' beginning in 1807. With the HRE dissolved and many Rhine provinces annexed to France, many German patriots had given up [on politics], 'retreat[ing] to the cultural realm i.e. language, law, abov all history as bastions of Germanness' (184). He'd gotten into trouble for being a 'hothead and [at least reputed] Jacobin' (185) and was known for 'vitriolic exchanges w/his enemies' (calling them 'shitheads' and 'canailles' [scoundrels]). His main demand was for 'a national (re)education' for all German-speaking peoples. As German honor and fortitude had thrown off Roman, then RCC dominance, they must now fight again to throw off French. He even linked the struggle to 'the fate of humanity'. Another enthusiast was F L Jahn, whose 1810 'The German People's Essence' [Das deutsche Volkstum] was an immediate success, making 'Volkstum' a 'well-worn coin in nationalistic currency' (187). But no-one fed into it more than Jacob Grimm (w/younger bro Wilhelm). At this time, the idea of 'law' was changing; away from 'the fixed law of God, nature, or reason [and] toward law as an expression of a specific people's will at a specific time' (188, uh oh, aka 'historicism'). This added to the already strong nationalist desire to dump Roman law and adopt 'German' law. And of course they also wanted to throw off the Napoleonic laws that had been imposed after Jena 1806.

Heeding Fichte's call for a 'national and popular book [on German history], just like the Bible' (189), Kohlrausch in 1816 (Jena +10, Waterloo +1) pub'd the 1st of ? volumes in his highly influential 'German History for School and Home'. It filled a 'deeply felt need' and appreciative notes flooded into him. The 16th edition appeared almost 60yrs later in 1875! It was finally superseded in the 1870s. He said 'no discipline save religion could provide better guidance than history' (190). But he too had dabbled in 'racial purity' themes. While racial (racist) thinking can be traced to the Middle Ages, not til the mid to late 19C was 'the scientific concept of race' advanced (191). Swedish anthropologist Anders Retzius picked up Dutch artist Pieter Camper's 1760s idea of 'ratios' (meant as a scultor's guideline originally, but later used for racial purposes) to define a 'cephalic index', which soon differentiated 2 types; 'the broad-skulled [Grk] 'brachycephalic' v. long-skulled [Grk] 'dolichocephalic' (Himmler was frmr, much to his chagrin). Further studies distinguished the 'Caucasian' race from others (194, Blumenbach d1840, Meiners, Mt Caucasus [NE Turkey?] was thot to be its original habitat) and posited they'd been the originals [and best, implied] and others resulted from changes [degeneration, implied]. Tho not personally racist, Blumenbach's ideas seeded other and future racists. This was also the era of phrenology e.g. Lothar Gall in Berlin. Blumenbach had taught Kohlrausch, so that's where K had picked it up and how it found its way into his influential 'History'. Next comes E M Arndt (name means 'stank'!), who was later called the 'Father of Germany' for his patriotic (but racist) pamphlets, poems and songs, which linked decline to 'degeneration caused by miscegenation [mixing w/other races]' (195). In this way, Arndt 'conceived of a racial theory of history, of which the French writer Arthur de Gobineau, also influenced by Blumenbach, would a few decades later develop the gloomiest version' (196). 33yo G ('noble, impoverished, rancorous') had been hired by Tocqueville not long after T had been appt'd France's FM in the wake of the Feb. rev. of 1848. While on assignment in Switz. he wrote 'Essay on the Inequality of the Races' 1st 2 vols 1853, final 2 1855 (197, self-pub'd, Richard Wagner in 1870s had to borrow a copy to read). In it, G discerned '3 types'; black, yellow and white ['red and ylw, blk and wht ...']. W/in these basic races are minor groupings e.g. Aryans 'the noblest w/in the white race'. Other types over time resulted from miscegenation. He listed 10 major civs thru history (list?), concluding that 'the Aryan-Germanic[s] ... [were] responsible for all the highlights in human civ' (197). He contrasted then-current degredations w/historic glories (due to low v. hi concentrations of 'white blood'). The term 'Aryan' had appeared c1800 to refer to 'certain Indo-Iranian tribes who roamed the C Asian steppe [and] referred to themselves [as such] as early as 2000 BC' (198). It gained prominence w/Sir Wm Jones' yr? bk on 'the striking linguistic parallels between Sanskrit, Greek and Latin'. But it later came to refer to blond-haired, blue-eyed, long-headed peoples of whatever language (i.e. nordics). They were believed to have 'conquered, colonized and acculturated' (198) the world (after coming from the Himalayas).

Before his death, G visited Richard Wagner 1813-83 70yo, 'Germany's most controversial and influential composer of the time' (200). RW was already prominent 'when Germany belatedly became a nation-state' (2000, 18 Jan 1871 at Versailles) after Bismarck's 3 consecutive wars v. Denmark, Austria and France over border areas in the 1860s. RW selected Bayreuth, then a little town c50mi NE of Nuremberg (in Bavaria) for his 1st music festival (1876). There he formed the famous Bayreuth Circle which, after his d1883, became 'a quasi-religious sodality in which ... the maestro's musical works and cultural ideas were discussed, interpreted and elaborated upon' (201). Tho G d1882, his racist ideas were imbibed by 2 of the B. Circle; Ludwig Schemann and Houston Stewart Chamberlain. Tho G had believed 'England was the place where 'the scraps of Germanic practices were best preserved'' (202), LS shifted the focus back toward mainland Europe. Also, both LS and HSC rejected G's pessimism and saw a bright future ahead, if only Germans could reclaim their 'purity' (as Arabs also had, leading to strength p203). Both of these 2 were later picked up and admired (and used) by Nazis. After 1871 there was both excitement but also disappointment that many German-speakers remained outside the empire (i.e. a pan-Germanist movement p203). CBK notes this was often 'beer-fueled' and 'loutish'. The term 'voelkisch' was used instead of 'national' to convey the broader scope. Further, this 'romaniticization of the past was suffused w/a fear of modernity ... dislike of the city, distrust of intellectuals, love of the peasant life' (204). German archaeologist Gustaf Kossina founded the new discipline of prehistory (yr? 'German Prehistory') and claimed 'Germanen had had a period of technical accomplishment and cultural sophistication in the Bronze Age ... ruling elites [of the Mediterranean region were Nordic] - a consequence of this 1st Indo-Germanic migration' (206). The ancient Germans 'titillated the imagination in historical novels like Gustav Freytag's 'The Ancestors', wall-sized oil paintings like Carl T von Piloty's 'Thusnelda at the Triumph of Germanicus'' (207) and many others. Tho b1855 in England to aristocrats, HSC never felt at home there and, when his Scot mom d., was sent as a boy to Versailles. Always sickly, he was treated mercilessly by other boys later at English boarding school (1st [of many] mental brk-down at 14yo). He visited Germany as a teen and 'fell in love' w/Germanness, later m. RW's youngest dau and moved to Bayreuth, becoming by 1900 the most influental member of the BC. Asked to write a summing up of the 19C, HSC wrote a best-seller (vol1 pre-19C, vol2 19C, vol3 evals, 208, only vol1 finished 1899 'The Foundations of the 19C', >30 editions by 1944). Wm II was so enamored of it that it caused concern among 'sober observers' (208). He included Celts and Slavs in his 'Germanen' and said their 2 main distinguishing qualities are freedom and loyalty (210). The German takeover of the multi-culti RE was a good thing, the start of REAL history. History is a 'clash of races' and 'races [are] the actual historical individuals'. He hit all 3 big themes of the 'volkish' movement; racism, anti-Semitism and pan-Germanism (211). Eduard Norden, 'the greatest Latinist in the world', challenged these themes in his 1920 bk, saying Tacitus had used Greek/Roman 'stock categories' in describing Germans, similar to those used w/other 'barbarians' e.g. Scythians, Egyptians, and that his words shouldn't be seen as historically authentic. But he was reviled by movement enthusiasts. Volkish ideology flourished during the Weimar years (fed by humiliation in WWI and unhappiness w/the Treaty of Versailles), and there were obvious links between it and Hitler's Nazis e.g. swastika similar to a logo of former's. 1 committed 'volkisher' was Heinrich Himmler, later the #2 man in the 3rd Reich (Reichsfuehrer SS).

8 A Bible for Nazis (214)

Here we meet Michael von Faulhaber, cardinal-archbishop of Munich/Freising, who on 31 Dec 1933 delivered (at Munich's St Michael's Church, the largest Renaissance church N of the Alps) the 1st of 5 sermons [subtly] warning of Nazism and calling Germans back to orthox RCCism. 'The Weimar Republic was dead but its gravediggers [were] not yet certain of their power, and the cardinal made them nervous' (214). MvF worried that there was 'a movement afoot to est. a Nordic or Germanic religion' (215). Taking his listeners back to pre-Christian German barbarism, he echoed ESP's warnings (from 450ya) of polytheism, human sacrifices, savage superstition, indolence, mania for drinking, carousals, passion for dice playing ... using Tacitus as chief witness! Only Chr had united the 50-odd tribes Tacitus had mentioned, so Germans owed its civ and existence to Chr. Nazis attacked his talks, esp. Alfred Rosenberg, 'regime's chief ideologue, [who] charged the cardinal w/severely disgracing the process of self-reflection under way in the 3rd Reich' (216). But the bk (of his sermons) was very popular, selling >150k and translated into 11 languages. With sporadic violence and book-burning, MvF wryly noted these 'cast contemporary cultural sophistication [claimed by Nazis] in a less flattering light'! Interestingly, Hitler [privately] distanced himself (critical, scornful, aloof 218, 'irritated by Himmler's mystical fits and ridiculed the ideology of the SS' 219) from the die-hard 'volkishers' like Himmler, but of course used them and their enthusiasm for his own political purposes [and towed their line publicly to an extent]. But Rosenberg saw Hitler as the successor to Hermann and Widukind (Saxon foe of Charlemagne 218). Hitler wanted Nazism to be 'a movement of the people, not a cult'. Goebbels promised to make the Germanic past alive again, tho he himself 'master of an acid wit, suffered temper tantrums when the words 'Germanic' or 'Nordic' were mentioned' (220, tho they were reiterated ad nasueam in his own propaganda) i.e. he was cynical, but like (their ideological cousins) the commies, the Nazi ldrs saw individuals as 'fodder' to be 'kneaded' into 'a coherent mass ... utilized and manipulated for the political aims of the state' (221).

One smark-aleck wife of a high-ranking SS man (Mrs. Best) quipped that Hitler, Himmler nor Goebbels fit the 'Nordic' archetype of 'blond-haired, blue-eyed, long-headed and large' and joked that it was a 'dangerous doctrine' i.e. excludes top 3 ldrs (225)! A sardonic street slogan said 'a typical Nazi is as slim as Goering, as athletic as Goebbels, and as blond as Hitler' [not, not and not]. Another party ideologue, H F K Guenther, panned the 'effeminate and degenerate culture of his day' and praised Germanic warrior culture, tho neither he nor Himmler had ever seen combat ('fantasized about the manliness they could never prove [and perhaps didn't have]' 226)!? HFKG distinguished 'Nordics' from 'the other 4 European races' over which they 'towered' (227, hmmm, French, Italian, Brit and Spanish? [Slav?]). Contemporaries 'simply identified Nazism w/the ideology of 'Blood and Soil' [Blut und Boden], a phrase so catchy that Goebbels, his pen dripping ... [w/]cynicism ... considered it 'ridden to death' by 1940' (230). 'Stripped of its mystical embroidery, it emphasized an opposition between city and countryside, elevating the latter as the seat of the Nordic race's health, morals and authenticity'. Nazi ag. minister was Richard Walther Darre (' over last e [hmmm, Dr Sarre?]). The country was self-sustaining, cities were parasitic.

Now we turn to Heinrich Luitpold Himmler 1900-45, 'true believer' who'd read Tacitus in the fall of 1924 on a 'bumpy train ride' when, 'under the moderating influence of Gustav Streseman ... the Weimar Republic had just entered its golden period' (233). Hitler's failed Beer Hall Putsch in Munich Nov 1923 had chg'd the political landscape. Himmler was then living in Landshut in S Germany as 'an unemployed half-starved shrew' but promoting 'volkish' values to anyone who'd listen, living 'at a chilly distance from family and former friends, who disapproved of his activities on the political fringes' (234, not well-adjusted, a loner). His father Gebhard was a classics teacher and wannabe aristocrat who more of less lived in the past, sitting in his ahnenzimmer basking in the twilight of historical fantasies. His diary listed 270 bks he read between Sep 1919 and Feb 1927 (Tacitus was #218)! Hitler named him Riechsfuhrer SS on 6 Jan 1929, and he tranformed it 'from 270 loosely linked louts to a fine-tuned machinery of terror numbering 50k in 1933' (235). The SS had originally been Hitler's personal bodyguard, but Himmler turned it into 'the vanguard of the great Germanic empire'. Himmler's rivals (Goering, Goebbels) were [like Hitler] 'little enthused w/Nordic ideology'. But among the cynical, opportunist, power-hungry Nazi ldrs, Himmler was 'the genuine believer' (w/Rosenberg, but he had only prominence, not real power). 'Unperturbed, [Himmler] walked his ideological slowly and steadily' (systematic v. impulsive, longterm v. shortterm). He shaved the sides of his head to look more 'long-headed' v. the 'wide-head' he was (pic p236). He set up the Lebensborn in 1936 for pregnant moms (to make Nazi babies). His own wife was the motherly Margarete Boden (!) w/whom he had a dau, his mistress was Hedwig Pothast (2 kids). Both were blue-eyed blonds. But at 5' 11", dark-haired, near-sighted and flat-chested he himself hardly met the Nordic ideal. One smark-aleck (Albert Forster, gov of Danzig-Westpreussen province) quipped 'if I looked like Himmler, I wouldn't even talk about race' 237 :-). CBK notes the irony of Nazi 'obedience' (added by Nazi's, not mentioned by Tacitus) with Tacitus' 'will for freedom' (240). Then he recounts the story of Himmler's attempt to recover the Tacitus original in Italy (see Intro).

Epilogue: Another Reading, Another Book (245)

Water accomplished what Himmler couldn't; after WWII Count A B G Balleani put the codex in a safe-deposit box in Florence, but when the Arno river burst its banks in Nov 1966 (spilled more water than since the 1550s) it was damaged along w/many other art objects. It was then taken to a monastery near Rome, where monks partially restored it. Harvard has a set of photos of the manuscript. When the Count d1992 it was given to the Italian govt and is now in the Natl Library at Rome catalog'd as Codex Vittorio Emanuele 1631. In 2009 it was loaned to Detmold, Germany for a 2kyr exhibition of Arminius' victory over Varus' Roman legions. After the Nazi collapse in 1945, talk of Tacitus went silent. Recent scholarship has peeled back the layers of ideology and tried to understand it 'as a product of its culture and time' (246). He closes by warning us to understand 'the past is a foreign country' and not try to directly apply history to our time. There were always critical voices over the centuries, but ideology won out til 1945. He closes w/'in the end Tacitus didn't write a MDB; his readers made it so'.

Note: He mentions [WWII] 'German ambassador in Rome GG-Gruppenfuehrer Hans Georg von Mackensen' on p244, perhaps the son of the FM of that name from WWI mentioned in 'A World Undone' (cf br-wow)?

Christopher B. Krebs

Note: Hmmm, perhaps T[h]ucs[sc]on, AZ fnd'd by Germans?!

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From the wiki file Johannes_Aventinus (1477-1534), Bavarian humanist historian, philologist, author (his name is Latinized version of his birthplace, Abensburg):

Early Germanic Rulers (hmmm, Ussher flood c2400 BC):
1 Tuitsch 2214-2038 BC
2 Mannus 1978-1906
[3 sons of Mannus: (coastal) Ingaevones, (inland) Herminones, (all others) Istaevones, MDB p102]
3 Eingeb 1906-1870
4 Ausstaeb 1870-1820
5 Herman 1820-1757
6 Mers 1757-1711
7 Gampar 1711-1667
8 Schwab 1667-1621
9 Wandler 1621-1580
10 Deuto 1580-1553
11 Alman 1553-1489
12 Baier 1489-1429
13 Ingram 1429-1377
14 Adalger 1377-1328
15 Larein 1328-1277
16 Ylsing 1277-1224
17 Brenner I 1224-1186
18 Heccar 1186-1155
19 Frank 1155-1114
20 Wolfheim Siclinger 1114-1056
21-3 Kels I, Gal & Hillyr 1056-1006
24-30 Alber (& six unnamed others) 1006-946
31-3 Walther, Panno & Schard 946-884
34-6 Main, Öngel & Treibl 884-814
37-9 Myela, Laber & Penno 814-714
40-1 Venno & Helto 714-644
42 Mader 644-589
43-4 Brenner II & Koenman 589-479
45-7 Landein, Antör & Rögör 479-399
48 Brenner III 399-361
49-50 Schirm & Brenner IV 361-263
51-3 Thessel, Lauther & Euring 279-194
54-5 Dieth I & Diethmer 194-172
56-7 Baermund & Synpol 172-127
58-60 Boiger, Kels II & Teutenbuecher 127-100
61 Scheirer 100-70
62-3 Ernst & Vocho 70-50
64 Pernpeist 50-40
65-7 Cotz, Dieth II & Creitschir c.40-13 BC