Why Should I Study German History?
Eight Lessons from the History of the Germans Podcast
You are cordially invited to enjoy another session of your favorite genealogy author geeking out on German history. This month I have been listening to the History of the Germans podcast. It covers the years from 919–1990 and I have made it 55 episodes in and am just at the year 1158. So this is only a partial review.
The podcast is dry, with just a little wry humor thrown in. It is one guy, Dirk, reading from a prewritten script about German history. It should be boring but it has had my attention since the first episode. Partly this is because of my family connections to Saxony and the Rhineland but also it is really interesting to me in its own right.
On my dad’s side, both families immigrated from Germany. Going back, before a certain point in the early 1800s, the document trail goes cold for these folks. This is the case for most of us who have ancestors from Europe. At that point, our best recourse to imagine our ancestors’ lives is to learn generally about the people who lived in the area where our ancestors are from.
German history in the Middle Ages is like Game of Thrones but without dragons and magic. There is so much intrigue and the empire seems to fall apart and get rebuilt every five years or so.
