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PODCAST

History of the Germans

Dirk Hoffmann-Becking

A narrative history of the German people from the Middle Ages to Reunification in 1991. Episodes are 25-35 min long and drop on Thursday mornings. "A great many things keep happening, some good, some bad". Gregory of Tours (539-594) So far we have covered: Ottonian Emperors (# 1- 21) - Henry the Fowler (#1) - Otto I (#2-8) - Otto II (#9-11) - Otto II (#11-14) - Henry II (#15-17) - Germany in 1000 (#18-21) Salian Emperors(#22-42) - Konrad II (#22- 25) - Henry III (#26-29) - Henry IV/Canossa

history

All Episodes

38:07

Ep. 232: The Ottomans – From Mehmet the Conqueror to...

History of the Germans ·

2026/04/09

These last dozen or so episodes we have examined the genesis of two of the three major strategic preoccupations of the Habsburg empire, the rivalry with the French kings and the relationship with the imperial princes. Today we will look at the build-up of the third major strategic challenge to the rulers of the Holy Roman Empire, the Ottomans. One can argue, and many have, that the threat of an Ottoman invasion in the 1520s and 1530s prevented the emperor Charles V from clamping down on the

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41:17

Ep.: 231 – Maximilian I (1493-1519) - Marrying...

History of the Germans ·

2026/04/02

You have almost certainly seen the image in today’s episode artwork before. It is a family portrait showing Maximilian, his first wife Marie of Burgundy, his son, Philip the Handsome and three children. When Bernhard Strigel painted this image in around the year 1516, Philip the Handsome was already dead for 10 years and Marie of Burgundy had gone more than 30 years before. Then there are the inscriptions over the heads of these well-known and easily identifiable figures. There is a lot of Habsburg

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43:55

Ep.230: Margaret of Austria (1480-1530) - The League...

History of the Germans ·

2026/03/26

Another Thursday and another episode dealing with another epic fail of our hero, Maximilian I. But despite a military campaign that once again failed for all the usual reasons, no money, no strategy, no luck, this time he is rescued not by a marriage or imperial princes suddenly inflicted with an unlikely case of backbone, but by his daughter, Margaret, archduchess of Austria, dowager duchess of Savoy and governor of the Netherlands. In an age that featured a number of impressive women, from

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48:20

Ep. 229: Joanna the (not?) Mad (1504-1555) - How the...

History of the Germans ·

2026/03/19

“Bella gerant alii, tu felix Austria nube" – ‘Let others wage war; thou, happy Austria, marry’ is one of the few terms that almost anyone with a cursory interest in European history knows, only rivalled by the Voltaire quote thou shall not utter in my presence ever. It evokes the image of a handsome alpine boy full of charm and apple strudel wooing some princess into peacefully handing over the richest lands is Europe. And this narrative of peaceful transition to a benign dynasty is another one of

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26:18

Ep. 228 – Maximilian I (1493-1519) - The Princes and...

History of the Germans ·

2026/03/12

If there was one group that consistently thwarted Maximilian’s grand plans for world domination, it was the princes of the Holy Roman Empire. He had given in to their demands for Imperial Reform, had granted the Reichstag far reaching powers, had established the Reichskammergericht as a law court independent of imperial authority and had announced the much longed for ban on feuding. But did the princes, counts, knights and cities hold up their end of the bargain and paid him taxes to raise the

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38:24

Ep. 227: Landsknechte vs. Swiss Mercenaries – The...

History of the Germans ·

2026/03/05

Why are the Swiss called the Swiss? After all, Schwyz in only of 26 cantons, and not one of the largest ones. How did the proud and prosperous citizens of Zurich or Berne, mighty city states in their own right, decide they wanted to be named after a mountainous region largely inhabited by peasants tending to their gorgeous brown cattle, the Braunvieh. They even called their national airline Swissair, until my former colleagues at McKinsey let the air out of that one.So, why Swiss? The answer goes

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36:29

Ep. 226: Maximilian I (1493-1519) - A Grand Plan for...

History of the Germans ·

2026/02/26

Europe's political landscape is shifting fundamentally. No longer are wars fought between kings and their vassals, and emperors against popes - it is all about the balance of power. and this balaance is firmly out of whack. The largest, richest and most populous part of Europe, the empire that still formally included Italy, the Low Countries, the Swiss Confederation, Bohemia and Burgundy, was also its politically weakest entity, whilst the kings of France leveraged their smaller but more coherent

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01:03:24

The Imperial Reform of 1495 with Prof. Duncan Hardy

History of the Germans ·

2026/02/19

Prof Duncan Hardy is one of the leading experts in the history of the Holy Roman Empire and one of his main topics is the Imperial reform of 1495, making him the ideal guest for our show.In his first book, Associative Political Culture in the Holy Roman Empire he tries to define what the Holy Roman Empire was a question we will almost certainly spend quite some time discussing today.His forthcoming book, which he had so kindly sent me an advance copy, should be familiar to you all, since I do use it

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36:36

Ep. 225: Imperial Reform - The Ewige Landfrieden...

History of the Germans ·

2026/02/12

Let me start today’s episode with some outrageous national stereotypes. If an Englishman is disappointed with the way the affairs of state are conducted, he writes a letter to his member of Parliament. A Frenchman in that same situation rents a tractor and dumps manure outside the Palais d’Elysee. A German threatens to file a lawsuit with the constitutional court, the Bundesverfassungsgericht.Where did the Germans pick up the belief that courts and the law will protect them against government

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41:39

Ep. 224: Imperial Reform– The Reichstag of the Holy...

History of the Germans ·

2026/02/05

I am afraid today’s episode is not your usual swordplay and skullduggery. What we are looking at today is the Reichstag as it operated throughout the Holy Roman Empire from 1495 to 1803. Sounds a bit like dour constitutional law, but bear with me.We will look at a couple of classic tropes, like, whether the empire consisted of more than 300 sovereign states who could do whatever they wanted, whether the Reichstag was a talking shop hat never did anything except stopping the emperor from becoming a

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39:38

Ep. 223 – A Diet of Worms (1495 edition)

History of the Germans ·

2026/01/29

We are now 7 episodes into the action-packed life of emperor Maximilian and he is only 35 years old. We still have another 24 years to go and they will be again full of wars, outlandish schemes, including one where he wants to make himself pope and of course marriages that create an empire. But if you look into German history schoolbooks, the thing that Maximilian is most famous for is what we will discuss today, the Imperial reforms that start in earnest in 1495 and will go through some iterations,

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44:32

Ep. 222 – Italian Wars and Spanish Marriages

History of the Germans ·

2026/01/22

The world is a-changing. Maximilian I may still dream of the medieval universal empire where he will lead Christendom in an epic crusade to expel the Turks from the European mainland, even reconquering Jerusalem. Meanwhile his main adversary, king Charles VIII of France unleashed the fury of war in Italy, kicking off a struggle that would last for 50 years and replaced the medieval world of popes and emperors with a system based on the balance of powers.In the near term, this expedition to conquer

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37:20

Ep. 221 – Taking Back Control

History of the Germans ·

2026/01/15

After 13 years of fighting in the Low Countries, Maximilian, the newly elected king of the Roman, returns home to a rammed full inbox. There is his cousin, the dissolute count Sigismund of Tyrol who is about to sell out the family fortune to the dukes of Bavaria. The king of Hungary is still occupying Vienna – and there is a new heiress out on the market, Anne of Brittanny.Some of the issues he tackles together with his now seriously elderly father, the emperor Friedrich III, others are very much

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41:56

Ep. 220 The Burgundian Experience(s)

History of the Germans ·

2026/01/08

In this episode the 15-year long war over the Burgundian succession will come to its end. You may have thought it was done last time, but no. The revolutionary spirit of the Flemish cities is not yet broken and their most audacious move is still to come. And this time they are not going up against an archduke and regent, but against a newly elected king of the Romans.Maximilian of Habsburg’s experience in Burgundy swung between moments of utter delight and happiness and depths of death, destruction

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37:32

Where To Go in Germany - Part 2

History of the Germans ·

2026/01/01

One of the legacies of the Holy roman empire is that Germany does not have just one place where everything happens, where politicians, entrepreneurs, bankers, artists, and actors travel on the same underground trains and eat at the same restaurants. Berlin is the capital with its political class of members of the Bundestag, journalists and lobbyist and at the same time a major gathering place for artists, musicians and thespians of all stripes and home to many tech startups. But the bankers are in

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02:51

Announcement: The History of the Germans Tour is on!

History of the Germans ·

2025/12/30

Hello friends of the History of the Germans. Great news, the tour is on!We have set up a website where you can sign up. I have put a link in the show notes, as well as on my website History of the Germans in the Travel, maps and Books section. Sign up here: History of the Germans Podcast Tour - BikePlanetWe will be travelling on the passenger ship Iris, a converted classic Rhine barge. Travelling by boat is - unsurprisingly - one of my favourite ways to see the world. We do not have to get in and

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41:14

Where To Go in Germany - Part 1

History of the Germans ·

2025/12/25

As you are still awaiting your presents, mine has already arrived, which is the chance to make this show. Despite all my occasional moaning and groaning about how much work it is, I have never enjoyed anything as much this. Who could have imagined that digging through often dusty books and articles and trying to put together an interesting and compelling narrative together for a discerning audience was that much fun. And the reason I can do all this is you, the listeners and patrons of the History

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39:18

Ep.219 – The Fall of Ghent, or Why There Are No City...

History of the Germans ·

2025/12/18

The words High and Late Middle Ages conjures up images of fog rising up over a field where knights in shining armor are trading blows with double handed swords, mighty bishops overseeing the construction of monumental cathedrals and peasants toiling on the land as serfs. The reason we see it that way goes back to the chivalric literature that celebrated the aristocratic lifestyle where tournaments and poetry mattered more than the humdrum world of business.But let’s just take a look back at the High

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40:09

Ep. 218 – Hedgehogs and Herons, The War that Made the...

History of the Germans ·

2025/12/11

By 1477 the rules of war that had been enshrined in the laws of chivalry are gone. The contest between the French and the Habsburgs over the inheritance of the Grand Dukes of the West gives us a foretaste of the things to come. This war isn’t just fought between the opposing armies lining up for the decisive battle, but include wholesale starving out of the population, funding local uprisings and using propaganda and bribery to incite rebellions on the enemy’s homefront. No one in 15th century

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39:52

Ep. 217 – The Lucky Marriage of Maximilian and Marie

History of the Germans ·

2025/12/04

How often have you heard this phrase “Let others wage war; you, happy Austria, marry". It goes back to a whole string of marriages, first Maximilian of Habsburg married the heiress of the duchy of Burgundy, then his son married the heiress of Spain and finally his grandson married the heiress of Hungary and Bohemia. And bish bash bosh, an empire is created in the horizontal.That is nice and neat but not exactly true. Sure the marriages happened, but not in the way at least I have been told. There

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