German Ancestors and History

          After reading chapters one and two of Hagen Shulze: Germany A New History, I found the whole beginning of the Germanic tribes and how the Roman empire became Germany interesting. According the Shulze, “The conception of a german nation had cultural as well as political undertones, and in this respect the “nation” gained considerably after the Italian humanist Poggio Bracciolini rediscovered the lost texts of Tactitus Germania and published it in Italy in 1455.” Germanians were a distinct people even in ancient times, and one worthy interest. A German tribe from which a German nation had developed did not exist in the same way the Franks and the given rise to France. “Tactitus Germani were the ancestors of a present-day Germans, and the Germania of the Romans was equivalent to a contemporary Germany.” In the beginning, the Roman Empire ruled all. They dominated so much land during the middle ages. In fact they might have had too much land that they could not handle. Today Germany is Europe’s most popular nation. It wasn’t always a unified nation in the past. The past was known as a loose association of 39 German states known as the German league. Today Germany is the fourth largest country and has 26 different regions.

            I find ancestors and past history very interesting. I always like reading the old biographies and comparing them to today’s world and seeing the similarities and differences. I can tell Germany went through a lot to build up to who they are today. They first came to Rome as the Gauls and Franks, and eventually built up around Rome to add to more areas. I just find all of this interesting just because like in America, we are split into different areas and different rulers. The only difference I see is how they lived and what laws were taken into affect. American people are called americans, but have different nationality background of where their ancestors are from. In the book I read that people that lived around the area of Germans were considered German, but they did not except themselves as Germans. Eventually the term was accepted, but took time. As did Christopher Columbus who supposedly helped discover America. Everything took baby steps in Germany to work up to where they were, as in America where we have to take baby-steps to where we are. 

         I noticed many different people through the book that went down in history. One who was Martin Luther, and at first I thought it was Martin Luther King today. They both changed the world they lived in, and they held meetings and would argue for the better. They were both men of faith and were leaders of their time. According to a pbs documentary, “Both struggled with laws and doctrines of their time, Luther King worked to eradicate segregation in America, Luther nearly brought down the Roman Catholic Church.”  Without the help of Martin Luther back in the day, I feel the Germans might have been stuck under the power of the Roman Catholic Church. I found all of this interesting because it was again about our ancestors who made a difference in Germany, and helped them become a united nation.