It was, he said, a burden and an expense, and he would like to saddle someone else with it. Before this, Germans had traditions of foreign sea-borne trade dating back to the Hanseatic League ; a tradition of German emigration that existed eastward in the direction of Russia and Transylvania and westward to the Americas ; and North German merchants and missionaries showed interest in overseas engagements.

The Hanseatic republics of Hamburg and Bremen sent traders across the globe. These trading houses conducted themselves as successful Privatkolonisatoren [independent colonizers] and concluded treaties and land purchases in Africa and the Pacific with chiefs and or other tribal leaders.

These early agreements with local entities later formed the basis for annexation treaties, diplomatic support and military protection by the German government.

The German Colonial empire got its start around , and in those years they acquired several territories in Africa: German East Africa including present-day Burundi , Rwanda , and the mainland part of Tanzania ; German South-West Africa present-day Namibia , German Cameroon including parts of present-day Cameroon , Gabon , Congo , Central African Republic , Chad and Nigeria ; and Togoland present-day Togo and parts of Ghana.

Germany was also active in the Pacific, annexing a series of islands that would be called German New Guinea part of present-day New Guinea and several nearby Island groups.

The northeastern region of New Guinea was called Kaiser-Wilhelmsland, the Bismarck Archipelago to the islands east, this also contained two larger islands named New Mecklenburg and New Pomerania, they also acquired the Northern Solomon Islands.

These islands were given the status of protectorate. The rise of German imperialism and colonialism coincided with the latter stages of the " Scramble for Africa " during which enterprising German individuals, rather than government entities, competed with other already established colonies and colonialist entrepreneurs.

With the Germans joining the race for the last uncharted territories in Africa and the Pacific that had not yet been carved up, competition for colonies thus involved major European nations and several lesser powers.

The German effort included the first commercial enterprises in the s and s in West Africa, East Africa , the Samoan Islands and the unexplored north-east quarter of New Guinea with adjacent islands.

In eastern Africa the imperialist and "man-of-action" Karl Peters accumulated vast tracts of land for his colonization group , "emerging from the bush with X-marks [affixed by unlettered tribal chiefs] on documents As Bismarck was converted to the colonial idea by , he favored "chartered company" land management rather than establishment of colonial government due to financial considerations.

He reluctantly acquiesced to pleas for help to deal with revolts and armed hostilities by often powerful rulers whose lucrative slaving activities seemed at risk.

German native military forces initially engaged in dozens of punitive expeditions to apprehend and punish freedom fighters, at times with British assistance.

At that time, the German penchant for giving muscle priority over patience contributed to continued unrest.

Several of the African colonies remained powder kegs throughout this phase and beyond. The transition to official acceptance of colonialism and to colonial government thus occurred during the last quarter of Bismarck's tenure of office.

In the first years of the 20th-century shipping lines had established scheduled services with refrigerated holds and agricultural products from the colonies, exotic fruits and spices, were sold to the public in Germany.

The colonies were romanticized. Geologists and cartographers explored what were the unmarked regions on European maps, identifying mountains and rivers, and demarcating boundaries.

Hermann Detzner and one Captain Nugent, R. There were also suspicions and reports of colonial malfeasance, corruption and brutality in some protectorates, and Lutheran and Roman Catholic missionaries dispatched disturbing reports to their mission headquarters in Germany.

German colonial diplomatic efforts remained commercially inspired, "the colonial economy was thriving The use of forced, unpaid labor went on the books as a criminal offense.

Subsequent historians would commend German colonialism in those years as "an engine of modernization with far-reaching effects for the future.

This led to the local tribes and natives losing their influence and power and eventually forced some of them to become slave laborers.

Although slavery was partially outlawed in by Germany, this caused a great deal of resentment and led eventually to revolts by the native population [ further explanation needed ].

The result was several military and genocidal campaigns by the Germans against the natives. Both the colonial authorities and settlers were of the opinion that native Africans were to be a lower class, their land seized and handed over to settlers and companies, while the remaining population was to be put in reservations; the Germans planned to make a colony inhabited predominately by whites: a "new African Germany".

The established merchants and plantation operators in the African colonies frequently managed to sway government policies. Capital investments by banks were secured with public funds of the imperial treasury to minimize risk.

Dernburg, as a former banker, facilitated such thinking; he saw his commission to also turn the colonies into paying propositions. Every African protectorate built rail lines to the interior, [37] every colony in Africa and the Pacific established the beginnings of a public school system, [38] and every colony built and staffed hospitals.

In the years before the outbreak of the World War, British colonial officers viewed the Germans as deficient in "colonial aptitude", but "whose colonial administration was nevertheless superior to those of the other European states".

Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey , considered still a moderate in , was willing to "study the map of Africa in a pro-German spirit". Once war was declared in late July Britain and its allies promptly moved against the colonies.

The public was informed that German colonies were a threat because "Every German colony has a powerful wireless station — they will talk to one another across the seas, and at every opportunity they [German ships] will dash from cover to harry and destroy our commerce, and maybe, to raid our coasts.

In the Pacific, Britain's ally Japan declared war on Germany in and quickly seized several of Germany's island colonies, the Mariana , Caroline and Marshall Islands , with virtually no resistance.

By only in remote jungle regions in East Africa did the German forces hold out. South Africa's J. From November 8 to November 9, , Adolf Hitler and his followers staged the Beer Hall Putsch in Munich, a failed takeover of the government in Bavaria, a state in southern Germany.

Since , Hitler had led the Nazi Party, a fledgling political group that Paul Von Hindenburg was a German World War I military commander and president.

He fought in the Austro-Prussian War and in the Franco-German War, and retired as a general in Recalled to duty at the start of World War I, Hindenburg shared power with Erich As a university student, Karl Marx joined a movement known as the Young Hegelians, who strongly criticized the political and cultural establishments of the day.

He became a journalist, and the radical nature of his writings would eventually get him expelled by the Blitzkrieg is a term used to describe a method of offensive warfare designed to strike a swift, focused blow at an enemy using mobile, maneuverable forces, including armored tanks and air support.

Such an attack ideally leads to a quick victory, limiting the loss of soldiers and General Erich Ludendorff was a top German military commander in the latter stages of World War I.

Educated in the cadet corps, Ludendorff was named chief of staff to the Eighth Army after the outbreak of war and earned renown for the victory at the Battle of Bauhaus was an influential art and design movement that began in in Weimar, Germany.

The movement encouraged teachers and students to pursue their crafts together in design studios and workshops. The school moved to Dessau in and then to Berlin in , after which A master strategist, Bismarck initiated decisive wars with Denmark, Austria and Live TV.

This Day In History. HISTORY Podcasts. History at Home. Shows This Day In History Schedule Topics Stories. Weimar Constitution On August 11, , the Weimar Constitution was signed into law by President Ebert.

Two German printers, Konrad Sweynheim and Arnold Pannartz , who had settled there, soon moved to Rome , where the church encouraged the production of inexpensive books.

In Italy as in Germany, however, it was the great commercial towns that became centres of printing and publishing. By , Venice had no fewer than presses; and two Venetian printers exercised a decisive influence on the form of the book: Nicolas Jenson , an outstanding typographer who perfected the roman typeface in , and Aldus Manutius , the greatest printer-publisher of his time.

Aldus published his first dated book in , the Erotemata of the Greek grammarian Constantine Lascaris. Beginning in and continuing with six titles a year for the next five years, he issued a series of Latin texts that were models of scholarship and elegance.

To keep down the cost, Aldus printed editions of 1,, instead of the more usual ; and to fill the page economically, he used an italic type designed for him by Francesco Griffo.

The Aldine editions were widely copied, by pirating i. The way in which printing came to France is of special interest because it shows a publisher rather than a printer-publisher in command from the start.

In Paris in , the rector and librarian of the Sorbonne invited three German printers to set up a press on university premises.

The scholars chose the books and supervised the printing, even to specifying the type. Their preference for roman type greatly helped the eventual defeat of black-letter, or Gothic, type.

After , when the full force of the Renaissance began to be felt in France, a brilliant group of scholarly printers, including Josse Bade, Geoffroy Tory , and the Estienne Stephanus family, who published without a break for five generations — , carried France into the lead in European book production and consolidated the Aldine type of book—compact, inexpensive, and printed in roman and italic types.

The golden age of French typography is usually placed in the reign of Francis I —47 , one of the few monarchs ever to take a keen personal interest in printing.

He was the patron and friend of Robert Estienne. In he ordered Estienne to give a copy of every Greek book he printed to the royal library, thus founding the first copyright library.

The abbot is a complex man who actually sees that printing also offers advantages. He expands the library of his abbey from around fifty items to more than two thousand, many of them printed.

His own treatise also is printed since that is the most cost-effective way to spread the message. It is illustrated with hundreds of woodcuts, many of them portraits.

These portraits are all imaginary and the same block is often used to depict different persons. Das Narrenschiff The Ship Of Fools by Sebastian Brant is published in Basel, Switzerland.

This satire about the state of the church is illustrated with woodcuts from the great Renaissance artist-engraver Albrecht Dürer.

It quickly becomes extremely popular, with six authorized and seven pirated editions published before Until then books are large and heavy, meant to be read while standing at a lectern or reading stand.

Manutius is also the first to use Italic type, designed by Venetian punchcutter Francesco Griffo. It is considered one of the masterpieces of Renaissance publishing.

I have in my possession, a rather unusual print which came out of Nurnberg. I have been searching for years to find someone who could tell me more about it.

Could anyone here perhaps assist? I am an Italian born Australian illustrator for reproduction. And a great fan of Albrecht Durer.

His career and broad range having much in common with mine. Thank your for your informative site. What would we do without the Printing Press?

Best Wishes. Reading this for the very first time because I was given as an assignment in a Printing Technology Class really makes me more interested in knowing more about Printing.

Nordic Germanic? Harpstedt-Nienburger Germanic? Przeworsk culture. Oksywie culture. Main articles: Germanic languages , Proto-Germanic language , and List of Germanic languages.

Further information: Pytheas , Bastarnae , and Scirii. Main article: Cimbrian War. Further information: Gallic Wars. Further information: Roman Iron Age , Early Imperial campaigns in Germania , and Year of the Four Emperors.

Further information: Marcomannic Wars. Further information: Crisis of the Third Century. Main article: Migration Period.

Main article: Gothic War — Main articles: Crossing of the Rhine and Radagaisus. This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources.

Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Further information: Decline of the Western Roman Empire and Barbarian kingdoms.

Main article: Early Middle Ages. Further information: Germanic culture and Early Germanic culture.

Compare also to the influential old definition in German by the Grimm brothers for "der Germane": "germane, m.

Germanus, eine bezeichnung der Deutschen und der ihnen stammverwandten völker bei Kelten und Römern, die sich bei letzteren mit sicherheit nicht über den sklavenkrieg 73—71 v.

Burns , p. Similarly, French scholars use the term Germains , distinct from Allemands. For criticism of using "Germans" see for instance Wolfram , pp.

Such a modern definition, however, does not equate with the classical idea of the Germani. The G-word can be dispensed with.

Lautverscheibung, die Entstehung der germanischen Sprache n definieren und grob zeitlich und räumlch einordnen.

Selbst wo sich dabei beachtliche Überschneidungen mit dem Verbreitungsgebiet einer archäologischen Kultur ergeben können wie der eisenzeitlichen, vorrömischen Jastorf-Kultur mit Zentrum an der Unterelbe , kann diese Bevölkerung archäologisch nicht ohne weiteres als 'Germanen' definiert werden.

The latter gives a detailed summary of some of the many proposals. Wolfram , p. Historian Wolfgang Pfeifer more or less concurs with Wolfram and surmises that the name Germani is likely of Celtic etymology, related in this case to the Old Irish word gair neighbors or could be tied to the Celtic word for their war cries gairm , which simplifies into "the neighbors" or "the screamers".

In contrast, the use of this word by Sidonius is apparently seen differently for example by Liebeschuetz , p. Similarly, the word hand could descend from a PGer.

It follows that our reconstructed PGmc was only one of the dialects spoken by peoples identified archeologically, or by the Romans, as 'Germans'; the remaining Germanic peoples spoke sister dialects of PGmc.

The northern part, North Sea Gmc or Ingvaeonic, is the larger one, but it is a moot point whether Old Saxon and Old Low Franconian really belong to it, and if yes, to what extent they participate in all its characteristic developments.

As a whole, there are arguments for a close relationship between Anglo-Frisian on the one hand and Old Saxon and Old Low Franconian on the other; there are, however, counter-arguments as well.

The question as to whether the common features are old and inherited or have emerged by connections over the North Sea is still controversial.

These people are likewise presented as conquerors of the Roman Empire, even though they constituted a vanishing minority within it. They had often encountered them and could not stand the sight of them or endure their gaze.

Great fear suddenly seized our whole army The illusion that there were can be outgrown. Also Harudes, Marcomanni, Tribocci, Vangiones, Nemetes, and Sedusii were listed.

See below. For the position of the Buri, there is also reference in Ptolemy 's Geography of Germany. Language Log.

Romer, 3. Anthony, David W. The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World. Princeton University Press.

Boatwright, Mary T. The Romans: From Village to Empire. New York: Oxford University Press. Burns, Thomas Rome and the Barbarians, B.

Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Chadwick, Munro Nationalities of Europe and the Growth of National Ideologies.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cassiodorus, Jordanes and the History of the Goths: Studies in a Migration Myth. Clements, Jonathan A Brief History of the Vikings: Last Pagans or the First Modern Europeans?

Cunliffe, Barry Europe between the Oceans, BC—AD New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Derry, T. A History of Scandinavia: Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland.

Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press. Fortson, Benjamin W. Bowersock; Peter Brown; Oleg Grabar eds. Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World.

Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Geary, Patrick J. The Myth of Nations: The Medieval Origins of Europe.

Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Goffart, Walter Rome's Fall and After. London: Hambledon Press. Barbarian Tides: The Migration Age and the Later Roman Empire.

Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Goldsworthy, Adrian Pax Romana. Green, Dennis H. Cambridge University Press. Green, Dennis Barnish; Marazzi eds.

Linguistic and Literary Traces of the Ostrogoths, The Ostrogoths from the Migration Period to the Sixth Century: An Ethnographic Perspective.

Studies in Historical Archaeoethnology. Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Willhelm , Deutsches Wörterbuch Hachmann, Rolf The Germanic peoples.

Barrie and Jenkins. Halsall, Guy Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West, — Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.

Halsall, Guy , Halsall, Worlds of Arthur: Facts and Fictions of the Dark Ages Halsall, Guy December German History. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 17 January Harm, Volker , " " Elbgermanisch", "Weser-Rhein-Germanisch" und die Grundlagen des Althochdeutschen" , in Nielsen; Stiles eds.

Heather, Peter , "Afterword", in Curta, Florin ed. The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians. Heather, Peter , "Merely an Ideology?

Empires and Barbarians: The Fall of Rome and the Birth of Europe. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Heather, Peter The Restoration of Rome: Barbarian Popes and Imperial Pretenders.

Heyd, Volker James, Edward Europe's Barbarians, AD Jones, Brian W. The Emperor Domitian. London: Routledge. American Journal of Archaeology.

Kaul, Flemming; Martens, Jes , "Southeast European Influences in the Early Iron Age of Southern Scandinavia.