Germanic peoples

“ Those German peoples who had continued to live outside of the Roman Empire, or who, during the invasions, had not settled far enough within its bounds to be led, like the Franks in Gaul, to adopt the tongue of those they had conquered, naturally adhered to the language they had always used, namely, the particular Germanic dialect which their forefathers had spoken for untold generations. From the various languages spoken by the German barbarians, modern German, English, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, and Icelandic are derived. ”

“ The various Germanic groups of tribes now presented themselves, followed by other warlike races, Huns, Slavs, Magyars, etc., alternately driving and being driven. The Germans first came into contact with Christian elements in the second half of the 3rd century, and toward the end of the 5th a whole series of powerful German peoples are found professing the Christian faith, and each successive century far down into the Middle Ages brings always new trophies from these nations into the treasure-house of the church. ”

“ In mediaeval times the part played by them south of the Balkans was an important one, and to this day they still linger in considerable numbers on either side of the range of Pindus. (For a short dissertation on the Vlach peoples, see Finlay, "History of Greece," volume 3, pages 224-230.) THE GERMANIC BRANCH. The Germanic nations of modern Europe are England, Germany, Holland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden. The Germanic races also form the major part of the population of Switzerland, the Cis-Leithan division of the Austrian Empire, and appear in isolated settlements throughout Hungary and Russia. ”

“ The Germanic genius loves unique objects, rich in curves and quirks, and points of peculiarity.
The mediterranean genius, more precocious, got historically the earlier right of way in artistic matters, and in that field has usually kept the prestige and authority. A century ago the great literary Germans themselves almost forgot, in their admiration of the classic spirit, what they owed to their own Northern character. It was in the philosophic and scientific field, and in poetry, that the greatness of the German genius first came to be acknowledged. ”

“ As a people made up of the most extraordinary mixing and mingling of races, perhaps even with a preponderance of the pre-Aryan element as the "people of the centre" in every sense of the term, the Germans are more intangible, more ample, more contradictory, more unknown, more incalculable, more surprising, and even more terrifying than other peoples are to themselves:--they escape DEFINITION, and are thereby alone the despair of the French. It IS characteristic of the Germans that the question: "What is German?" never dies out among them. ”

“ They had lived for many centuries in the wild districts of central Europe north of the Alps and beyond the Danube and the Rhine. This home land of the Germans in ancient times was cheerless and unhealthy. Dense forests or extensive marshes covered the ground. The atmosphere was heavy and humid; in summer clouds and mists brooded over the country; and in winter it was covered with snow and ice. In such a region everything was opposed to civilization. Hence the Germans, though a gifted race, had not advanced as rapidly as the Greek and Italian peoples. ”

“ The Germanic part, indeed, triumphs in us, we are a Germanic people; but not so wholly as to exclude hauntings of Celtism, which clash with our Germanism, producing, as I believe, our humour, neither German nor Celtic, and so affect us that we strike people as odd and singular, not to be referred to any known type, and like nothing but ourselves. ”

“ And so he sees in the works of this Germanic race, and more particularly in the works of the later development of it when it is specifically the German race, the ideals of a sturdy people carried out in a sturdy way,—less refined than some, less delicate than some, but lacking never in the power of virility,—the favorite materials for the expression of these ideals being the homely substances by which they were surrounded in their daily life—iron, stone, wood and leather. ”

“ AS a general rule the Germanic, or Gothic, stock has not only held its own area from the earliest time, but has encroached on that of others, so that although there are many parts of Europe, which, once the occupancy of non-Germanic populations, have now become more or less German, the converse rarely, if ever, can be shown to have taken place. ”

“ Precisely such elements as we have described were found among the Germanic Races, as if they had been expressly reserved for this great purpose. I mention only these; for the devastating inroads of other Races had no enduring results; and those kingdoms of other origin, which are incorporated with the Republic of Nations now existing in Europe, have for the most part received Christianity and Culture by means of the Germanic tribes. ”

“ The Germans form one of the most important branches of the Indo-Germanic or Aryan race—a division of the human family which also includes the Hindoos, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Celts, and the Slavonic tribes. ”

“ But by focusing on the achievements of prominent individuals, we risk understating the overall importance of the German heritage to our Nation's strength and development. Today, nearly one-quarter of all Americans can trace their ancestry to Germany, just as our English language finds its roots in the Germanic tongues of centuries past. German Americans honor the traditions of their lineage in the way they live, reflecting the sense of personal honor and strong work ethic passed down to them by their forebears. ”

“ Another circumstance contributed to Latinize the German races outside of Germany. After the invention of a Gothic alphabet by Bishop Ulfila, and his translation of the Bible, we hear no more of a written German language until the eighth century. There was at least none which was accessible to the people, and the Latin continued to be the language of government and religion. The priests were nearly all Romans, and their interest was to prevent the use of written Germanic tongues. Such learning as remained to the world was of course only to be acquired through a knowledge of Latin and Greek. ”

“ High Germans of the Roman period.—Alemanni, Suevi (?) , Burgundians (?) .
The spread of the Teutonic populations, as contrasted with the Keltic, Slavonic, and Roman, in general, combined with the numerous displacements of particular portions of the German tribes themselves, makes the question of descent excessively complicated. Perhaps the best present representatives of the High-Germanic division are the modern—
HESSIANS.
Locality.—Hesse, conterminous with the Franks, Saxons, and Thuringians. ”

“ The languages of the Germanic and the Neo-Latin races, as compared with the pure German tongue, are lifeless and mechanical. No people which had not a free and original national feeling could have taken up and worked out to a glorious termination the great idea of the Reformation. ”

“ But in spite of the intellectuality of classic work, we may still believe in our Germanic spirit as being the more fruitful thing. Its productions are fuller-bodied and less abstract. Something indeed it misses,—universality, simplicity, and purity ”

“ Let us consider the common characteristics of the Germanic race, and the differences by which it is opposed to the Latin race. Physically, we have a whiter and softer skin, generally speaking, blue eyes, often of a porcelain or pale hue, paler as you approach the north, and sometimes glassy in Holland; hair of a flaxy blonde, and, with children, almost white; the ancient Romans early wondered at it, and stated that infants in Germany had the hair of old men. ”

“ Among those whose Aryan descent is generally recognized as beyond dispute are the Teutons, to whom the Angles and Saxons belonged.
The Teutonic or Germanic people, after dwelling together in a body, appear to have scattered in various directions, their language gradually breaking up into three main groups, which can be already clearly distinguished in the 4th century A.D., North Germanic or Scandinavian, West Germanic or Low and High German, and East Germanic, of which the only important representative is Gothic. ”

“ A whole literature has grown up around this mighty epic of old Germanic life, and men of vast scholarship and literary acumen have made it a veritable battle-ground of conflicting theories, one contending for its mythical genesis, another proving to his satisfaction that it is founded upon historic fact, whilst others dispute hotly as to its Germanic or Scandinavian origin. ”

“ A word entirely foreign to the Teutonic speech of northern Europe. Deutschland then, the country of the Deutsch—not Dutch, for they are really Netherlander. What do these words mean? What territories, what peoples do they comprehend? The Austrians speak as pure German as the Prussians; yet the defeat of Königgratz, barely a generation ago, left them outside of Germany. On the other hand, the Polish peasants of eastern Prussia, with their purely Slavic language, are accounted Germans in good standing to-day. ”

“ The present population of the German Empire is almost exclusively Germanic, the exceptions being the Slavic Poles of Posen, Pomerellen, southeastern Prussia and eastern Silesia, the remnant of the Wends of Lusatia and the French element in the recently acquired Imperial lands of Alsace and Lorraine. ”

“ The young German spent some years in Italy, enjoying the friendship of the foremost Italian scholars. He was an ardent student of the New Learning, and on his return was the first to make Greek thoroughly popular in Germany. But he was a still more ardent student of Hebrew, and it may almost be said of him that he introduced that ancient language to the peoples of Europe. ”

“ It is certain that even in ancient times the various Germanic stocks, according as they retained their purity of race, or became blended with the remains of a primitive population, or even with Roman blood, and in proportion as they led a savage or more civilized mode of life, differed in corporeal constitution, as well as in the formation of the face and head. ”

“ IN the third and fourth centuries, the Germanic tribes of central Europe had broken through the defences of the Empire that they might plunder Rome and live on the fat of the land. In the eighth century it became the turn of the Germans to be the "plundered-ones." They did not like this at all, even if their enemies were their first cousins, the Norsemen, who lived in Denmark and Sweden and Norway. ”

“ There are words of Goethe in which he condemns with impatient severity, as from a foreign land, that which Germans take a pride in, he once defined the famous German turn of mind as "Indulgence towards its own and others' weaknesses." Was he wrong? it is characteristic of Germans that one is seldom entirely wrong about them. The German soul has passages and galleries in it, there are caves, hiding- places, and dungeons therein, its disorder has much of the charm of the mysterious, the German is well acquainted with the bypaths to chaos. ”

“ Thus, with a heavy-footed Teutonic diligence, the Germans studied the Trivium and Quadrivium. They sweated at Latin grammar, reading also the literature or the stock passages. Their ignorance of natural science was no denser than that of peoples west of the Rhine or south of the Alps. Many of them went to learn at Chartres or Paris. Within the mapped-out scheme of knowledge, there was too much for them to master to admit of their devising new provinces of study. They could not but continue for many decades translators of the foreign matter into their German tongue or German selves. ”

“ Let us proclaim loudly to-day how truly we love the country where our cradles rocked. With tender yearning we see in memory the green waters of our native Rhine, where are reflected the castles gray with age, around which legendary poetry has woven its magic—where grows the precious grape—where man is gay, often without knowing why—where German song seems doubly poetic—where the victorious figure of Germania looks proudly from the Niederwald across the border. ”

“ The Deutschtum is sacred to the Germans. One cannot but have the deepest respect for the pride of Germans in their ancestry, in their language, in their church, and in the preservation of traditional customs. ”

“ For he who has sinned against the German language has desecrated the mystery of all our Germanity. Throughout all the confusion and the changes of races and of customs, the German language alone, as though possessed of some supernatural charm, has saved herself; and with her own salvation she has wrought that of the spirit of Germany. She alone holds the warrant for this spirit in future ages, provided she be not destroyed at the sacrilegious hands of the modern world. ”

“ Now, before you send me ill-wishes for arguing that the German were ‘right’, we should carefully examine the meaning of ‘righteousness’ in this “respective European context”. The Germans did the right thing, but not in a tactful manner. Order, discipline, submission for unity is Right, so is the unity of Europe led by its most populous, industrious and powerful people, the Germanic people. ”

“ The Germanic element in the race, however, being far less than the Gallic basis or the Roman accretions, naturally began to lose ground. The same thing took place in the language; Celtic and Latin advanced, Germanic retreated. That noble speech, which we know only at its highest stage, and which might have risen even higher, began to decline and become corrupted towards the end of the thirteenth century. In the fifteenth, it was no more than a patois, from which the Germanic elements had completely disappeared. ”