The Germans: Victims of Geography

Germany has acquired a widespread reputation as an aggressor. But this is largely a case of historical myopia. Certainly in the mid-20th Century Germany was guilty of major aggression under the leadership of the Nazis. But during the 1000 years prior to Hitler the Germans were more often the victims of aggression rather than the perpetrators.Settling in the middle of the North European Plain is like camping out in the middle of an inter-state freeway. The Germans have been attacked again and again usually from the West or the East, but also from the North and the South. They have no defensible natural borders except the Alps in the South and the seas in the North.The once proud German Empire of the 13th Century was pummeled into a shattered collection of some 380 sovereign states by the 18th Century. There really was no Germany from the 13th Century to 1871.This brief study is the authors reflection on German history after 30 years of university teaching. It attempts to look at the tempestuous history of Germany in the perspective of 1000 years of history, from Pepin the Short to Kohl the large. This perspective reveals the Germans to be indeed victims of Geography. They, like the Poles, have suffered from a tremendous geographic disadvantage.