Hello and welcome to the history of the Germans, the prologue, part one.

So this is the very first episode of what I hope will become a weekly podcast on German history.

What I'm planning to do is to take

you from the year 919 AD when the first real king of the Germans, a gentleman by the name of

Henry the Fowler, was crowned in Fritzla, all the way down to the day of German reunification

on October 3 3, 1990.

I have no idea how long this will take me.

But given there is an unbelievable amount of material to get through,

it will take me a while before you hear the words,

Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall.

I initially wanted to start the podcast with the invasion by the Kimbray and the Teutonis in around 110 BC,

and then work my way up from there.

But there's a problem with that.

There are actually two problems.

First, I'm old and I'm slow. So if I want to get to the post-war period during my lifetime,

I have to cut something out.

And secondly, the Germanic tribes that invaded the Roman Empire

are by definition not the ancestors of the modern Germans, right? These barbarian

haunts have actually left Germany and they settled in Italy and in Spain and in France and

in North Africa. And that means the descendants of these fierce Teutonic warriors, there are today's

fashionable Milanese and the sophisticated Parisians and the food-obsessed Catalans.

On the other hand, the ancestors of your sausage-eating Berliners and my ancestors,

...