Latest / The History of Germany: Kingdoms, War, and Rebuilding Europe — Fexingo History / The Charlemagne Legend: How a Frankish King Forged German Identity
Transcript
- Lucas: If you've been stepping into history with us episode by episode, you'll know we've spent a lot of time in the twentieth century — the Wall, the Stasi, the hyperinflation. But Germany's story doesn't start in 1871, or even in 1848. It starts, in a way, with a Frankish king who never spoke a word of German. Luna: Charlemagne. Lucas: Exactly. Karl der Große, Charles the Great. He's this towering figure in European history, but for Germans especially he became a kind of founding father — even though the Germany we know didn't exist for another thousand years. His empire covered most of modern France, Germany, Italy, and the Low Countries. And his legacy was so potent that every major German ruler after him tried to wrap themselves in his cloak. Lucas: The thing is, the real Charlemagne is much messier than the legend. He was a warlord first and foremost. His most famous campaign — the Saxon Wars — lasted thirty years, from 772 to 804. The Saxons were a pagan Germanic people living in what's now northwest Germany. They refused to convert, they raided Frankish territory, and Charlemagne decided they needed to be subdued, not just militarily but culturally. Luna: What did 'subdued' look like in practice? Lucas: Brutal. He issued a law code called the Capitulatio de partibus Saxoniae that made baptism mandatory and imposed the death penalty for things like eating meat during Lent or burning a church. And then there's the Bloody Verdict of Verden in 782. After a Saxon rebellion, Charlemagne allegedly ordered the execution of forty-five hundred Saxon captives in a single day. The number is debated, but the scale is terrifying. Lucas: The Saxon leader Widukind eventually surrendered, accepted baptism, and became a loyal Frankish count. But the cost was enormous. Tens of thousands dead, mass deportations, forced conversions. This wasn't a gentle unification of Germany — it was a conquest. Luna: And yet later Germans turned him into a national hero. How does that work? Lucas: It took centuries. Charlemagne died in 814, and his empire fractured within a generation. But the memory of a single Christian emperor ruling a vast territory never died. In the tenth century, Otto the Great — Otto der Große — revived the imperial title and had himself crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 962. He deliberately used Charlemagne's capital at Aachen as his power base. He even held his coronation feast in Charlemagne's palace. Lucas: Aachen became the symbolic heart of the empire. The Aachen Cathedral — the Dom zu Aachen — was built by Charlemagne himself, modeled on Byzantine churches. His throne is still there, a simple marble slab with six steps. For centuries, German kings were crowned sitting on that throne. They were literally claiming his authority. Luna: So the link between Charlemagne and the German nation was crafted deliberately. Lucas: Completely. And it got turbocharged in the nineteenth century. As German nationalism was rising, intellectuals looked for a founding father. They found Charlemagne. Never mind that he spoke a Frankish dialect, not Old High German. Never mind that his empire was more Roman and Frankish than German. The nationalist narrative needed a hero, and Charlemagne fit the bill. Lucas: If today was actually useful to you, the way these stay ad-free is listener support. If you find value in episodes like this, you can help keep them going at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Luna: Yeah, it's a small way to say this matters to you. And it really does keep us independent. Lucas: Anyway — back to the mythmaking. In 1867, a massive statue of Charlemagne was erected at the Aachen town hall. And in 1871, when the German Empire was proclaimed at Versailles, Kaiser Wilhelm I staged a deliberate echo: he had the crown of Charlemagne brought to the ceremony. The message was clear: this is the new Charlemagne. Lucas: Then in the twentieth century, the Nazis got in on the act. They portrayed Charlemagne as the first German Führer, a warrior who united Germanic tribes. Heinrich Himmler even created a think tank called the Ahnenerbe to research his supposed Aryan roots. They renamed the town of Verden — site of the massacre — as a sacred site. It was all ahistorical nonsense, but it served their racial ideology. Luna: Did anyone push back against that? Lucas: Some historians did, quietly. But the propaganda machine was too powerful. After the war, the Charlemagne myth faded in Germany. The country needed a different identity. But the monuments remain. In Aachen, the cathedral and the throne still draw pilgrims. And every year, the city awards the Charlemagne Prize to individuals who contribute to European unity — a nice irony, given that Charlemagne's empire was built on war and forced conversion. Lucas: So the real Charlemagne is a complex figure. He promoted education — his court scholar Einhard wrote a biography, the Vita Karoli Magni, that's our main source. He standardized writing, encouraged church reform, and built roads. But he was also a brutal conqueror. The legend has been used to justify everything from monarchy to fascism. And the truth is far more interesting than any single myth. Luna: I guess every nation needs a founding story, even if it's a little uncomfortable. Lucas: Exactly. And Charlemagne's story is especially powerful because it's been retold so many times for so many different purposes. It's a reminder that history isn't just what happened — it's what we choose to remember.