Ep. 43: Welf vs Staufer - Lothar III (1125-1137) - All Change, All Change

History of the Germans from the Middle Ages to Reunification

Dirk Hoffmann-Becking

Education, History, Society & Culture

4.9 • 551 Ratings

🗓️ 20 January 2022

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

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 Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Historyofthegermans

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome back to Season 3 of the History of the Germans, the Hohenstaufen.
0:11.8	I hope you had an enjoyable festive season and you feel reinvigorated to dive into another
0:16.5	period of German history. I definitely am. I know that six weeks is a long break, but I have
0:22.9	not been idle. Books had to be read, podcasts and radio shows needed to be listened to, and
0:28.4	scripts had to be written. I hope you'll find that the weight was worth it. Halfway between
0:37.1	Berlin and Frankfurt stands the Kifheuser mountain.
0:40.3	In a grotto underneath it, legend says, the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa sleeps with his army of knights and his horses ready to strike when the right hour comes.
0:51.3	Above him are the ruins of the castle of the Kifheuser. One of the largest fortresses
0:56.8	built in the High Middle Ages, and over these ruins again stands an 81-meter-tall tower,
1:02.8	the Kifheuser Memorial. It was inaugurated on June 18, 1896, to commemorate not Barbarossa, the red beard, but Barberlanca, the white beard,
1:15.1	Emperor William I, who together with his Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, had reunited Germany.
1:21.5	On this, the third largest German memorial you find the Emperor Barbarossa shown in his
1:27.2	grotto.
1:28.3	His red beard growing through the table whilst above him on his mighty horse, writes
1:32.9	the new emperor who fulfilled the dream of national unity of the German people, allowing
1:38.6	Barbarossa to finally get his well-deserved eternal rest. Most historically interested Anglo-Saxons have heard the word Barbarossa before, even if
1:49.0	they have no interest in medieval history at all, thanks to Operation Barbarossa, the codename of
1:55.0	Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union.
1:58.0	Now after the war, the medieval rulers of Germany were too tainted with nationalism and the instrumentalization by the Nazis to feature highly in a national narrative.
2:07.6	But not the Hovunstaffin.
2:10.6	Between March and June of 1977, 675,000 people visited the Altus Sch Schloss in Stuttgart to see an exhibition entitled
2:21.8	The Cite de Stauffer, the time of the Hoenstaufen.
	...

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