Archive notice: This article was originally published on September 26, 2008. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
For the first time on German television, an elaborate ten-part documentary series about the history of the Germans is being produced for prime time. It traces the historical arc from the beginnings under Otto the Great in the tenth century to Philipp Scheidemann’s proclamation of the first German republic in November 1918. It covers a millennium of eventful history, the origins of a “federal nation,” and unity and diversity.
Decisive turning points are reconstructed dramatically within documentary sequences. High-quality 3D graphics and computer animations—almost 500 in total—are combined with impressive footage of historical locations, historically significant buildings and characteristic landscapes. The titles of the ten episodes feature familiar historical names. The aim, however, is not to present biographical portraits, but to offer a personalised approach providing insights into the different eras and the respective lives of the German people.
The ten episodes:
Episode 1, “Otto and the Empire,” looks at the tenth century and uses the example of the monarch Otto I to show how territorial rulers and kings struggled for supremacy on German soil from the beginning, and how an external threat—at the time from the Hungarians—promoted the unification of the empire.
Episode 2, “Henry and the Pope,” documents how the dispute over secular and ecclesiastical supremacy also shaped German history. During the Investiture Controversy, the conflict between the Salian king Henry IV and Pope Gregory VII led to a decisive test of power: the famous “Walk to Canossa,” in which a monarch submitted to the pope for the first time.
Episode 3, “Barbarossa and the Lion,” uses the example of the mythical Hohenstaufen emperor Frederick I Barbarossa to show how German rulers were torn between the demands of German kingship and the Christian Roman imperial office. Rivals such as Henry the Lion repeatedly challenged the monarch’s power.
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Episode 4, “Luther and the Nation,” demonstrates how the Reformation both united and divided the Germans. Martin Luther’s translation of the Bible created a uniform German literary language for the first time, but the division of the Church led to severe wars of religion. Future conflicts could not be prevented without religious tolerance.
Episode 5, “Wallenstein and the War,” uses the controversial military commander to show how the violent struggle over faith and power descended into senseless slaughter. Only religious compromise and the territorial division of Central Europe brought peace after thirty years of war—and a new role for the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation.
Episode 6, “Prussia’s Frederick and the Empress,” shows how the rise of Brandenburg-Prussia culminated in the conflict between King Frederick the Great and the Habsburg empress Maria Theresa. The Prussian-Austrian dualism shaped German history into the nineteenth century and had a lasting effect on the formation of the nation.
Episode 7, “Napoleon and the Germans,” shows how the French emperor unintentionally propelled the Germans into their national age. As a reformer he spread the ideals of the French Revolution and awakened hopes of freedom; as a power-hungry warlord he stirred the desire for political unification in a nation fragmented into small states.
Episode 8, “Robert Blum and the Revolution,” portrays an unjustly forgotten democratic revolutionary whose fate exemplifies the failure of the first all-German parliament of 1848. Although the dual goal of “freedom and unity” was not achieved, the Paulskirche parliament laid foundations for the future unification of the Germans.
Episode 9, “Bismarck and the German Empire,” shows that the Prussian-German state founded after victory over France in 1871 came “from above,” but was also supported “from below.” The “Lesser German solution” created a German nation-state without Austria. Internal unification, however, lagged behind external unity.
Episode 10, “Wilhelm and the World,” illustrates how Hohenzollern emperor Wilhelm II—unlike Otto von Bismarck—wanted to elevate the German Empire to world-power status. The First World War demonstrated once again that Germany could endure not in opposition to Europe, but only in harmony with it—the founding fathers of the Weimar Republic faced the same challenge.
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