Hello and welcome to the History of the Germans, episode 94, questions and answers.

Here we are. Two years of the History of the Germans podcast, 93 main episodes and 102,

if we count the bonus episodes, interviews and the like.

That makes 3,223 minutes, or two days, 5 hours and 43 minutes of recorded history.

At the last count, you have downloaded 914,413 episodes, which means if you had all listened

to all of the episodes, which obviously you haven't, you would have

spent a cumulative 20,000 days listening to me. Wow. So it's only fair that I listened to you

for once. And that is what this episode is all about. So thank you all for your comments and

questions. It was great to see how much you care about the story we've gone through. And I really enjoyed reading them, and I think I'll attempt to answer all of them,

except for one which literally came in five minutes before I started recording.

I did organize them by topic, going from general to specific, so the podcast in general,

the sources, German history in general, the Hounstaufen,

and then Frederick II and his sons. So, let's start with questions on the podcast.

Justin Lee asks, could you explain your choice of opening theme, please? Excellent. Let's start

with what every episode starts with, the flute sonata in E-flat

major H545 by Carl Philip Emmanuel Bach, or some claim it was BWV1031, Johann Sebastian

Bach. But what we do know is it's performed and arranged by Michel Rondeau. It actually

took me a long time to find this theme.

I had the first four episodes written down and all ready to go before I knew which music I would use.

I wanted it to be German, though not overly familiar to people.

And I excluded the 19th century just because I did not want a sort of nationalistic vibe that always comes with Richard Wagner.

German pop music was out for all the good reasons, or actually just one, taste.

...