Ep. 20: What People thought about the Ottonians - A Blank Canvas

History of the Germans from the Middle Ages to Reunification

Dirk Hoffmann-Becking

History, Society & Culture, Education

4.9 • 552 Ratings

🗓️ 10 June 2021

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Ottonian period (919-1024) has been a key reference point in German history ever since. Having only very few and not necessarily very enlightening documents to work from the period became a blank canvas on which historians and the population as a whole projected their own hopes, political beliefs and expectations. In the 19th century the German speaking people who felt humiliated by the defeats against Napoleon and disenfranchised by the political rearranging of their homelands and so latched on to the few unifying historical heroes to refer to - the mighty emperors of the early and high middle ages. Viewing them – depending on political belief – into either mighty rulers of a coherent state who wasted blood, treasure and the whole empire in a fateful entanglement in Italian affairs, or were they benevolent managers of a supranational polity ruling by consent. The falsification of history peaked when the Nazis turned Henry the Fowler into their poster boy. Now, after nearly 200 years of scholarship we aim to see them in the context of their own times, but are we really?

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to the history of the Germans.
0:08.2	Episode 20, A Blank Canvas.
0:11.8	I know, I know.
0:12.8	It's been two weeks since the last episode, and you might have been wondering whether I had
0:16.5	given up.
0:17.5	No worries.
0:18.9	I mean, I went on holiday to Portugal with a family for a week, which is lovely,
0:23.3	and then I spent the last few days getting the History of the Germans podcast website going.
0:28.4	Check it out. It's under www.historyof the Germans.com. There are maps, their images and transcripts,
0:36.2	as well as blog posts that hopefully make the podcast more enjoyable and easier to follow.
0:42.5	But now I'm back and raring to go.
0:45.6	In this episode, as announced, we are going to take a look at how the Otonians were perceived by their successes, and in particular in the 19th and 20th century.
0:56.0	Why does it matter, you ask? Isn't that something for the History Seminar at university?
1:01.6	Well, German history is always, always contentious. And even the Otonians, reigning
1:07.5	a thousand years ago, are still extremely contentious. Just to give you an example,
1:13.3	I had a comment on one of my social media posts accusing the podcast of being nationalistic
1:18.3	and suggesting that nobody should listen to it. I think once you've listened to this episode,
1:24.3	you will understand that this person was not your average social media troll, but was
1:28.7	coming from a perspective I can understand, though I fundamentally disagree with it.
1:34.3	Okay, so let's get going.
1:36.9	The first and probably most important point to make is that the time of the Otonians is a blank
1:42.5	canvas. There are very few written sources.
	...

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