History of Germany

Records start around the 6th century, when the Merovingian kings of themselves dynasts of the Germanic Franks, conquered several other German tribes and placed them under control of autonomous dukes of mixed Frankish and native blood.

Roman provinces north of the Alps had been Christianised since the fourth century, with missionary work revived in the 6th century by Irish-Scottish monks.

Located in the heart of Europe, the German lands underwent the usual European bloody history of power struggle.

In the early 16th century, there was much discontent in Germany due to the abuses of the Catholic church, with Martin Luther nailing his call for reformation onto the church door in 1517. In 1545 the counter reformation began by the Spanish Jesuit order, dividing Germany into central and north-east protestant areas, and western and southern Catholic areas. In 1618 the Protestant nobility in Prague exercised its interesting invention of defenestration, which is a form of execution by simply pushing someone out the window of a high tower. However, the fact that this time it was the emperor of Europe sparked a major war, the main theatre of which took place in Germany, wiping out one third of its population and laying the country to waste. After this Thirty Years' War, the country was divided up among the waging powers, and Germany grew weaker as the controlling powers each exercised their rights.

Over time Prussia grew into a great European power, as did Austria, under the Habsburgs, and thus started their rivalry for control over Germany. And as is akin to European history, various wars moved boundaries, with parts of West Germany going to France under Napoleon, parts of Poland going to Prussia with the Partition of Poland, and then both moving back in the original power's favour.
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