The Battle of Teutoburg Forest in the Year 9 AD

The Death of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, 1190

In 19th century Germany two figures in particular were highly revered as national founders: Arminius (Hermann), the tribal leader of the Cherusci, and the Hohenstaufen emperor Frederick I Barbarossa. During the turbulent process of building the nation they exerted their marked influence on the self-image of the Germans at different moments in time.

In the year 9 AD the Cheruscian chieftain Arminius had joined with other allied Germanic tribes to defeat the legions of the Roman governor Varus. This brought an end to Roman expansion into the territories to the right of the Rhine. From the perspective of the 19th century Arminius was seen as the first German and a symbol of patriotic rebellion against foreign rule. The myth of Hermann took on great importance during the struggle against Napoleon. Artists like Caspar David Friedrich or Karl Friedrich Schinkel drew direct parallels between the Battle of Teutoburg Forest and the Battle of the Nations near Leipzig (1813).

The artists, like the schoolbook authors, loved the dramatic concentration of victory in battle. The bestknown representation, which was constantly reproduced in schoolbooks, is Friedrich Gunkel's "Battle of the Teutoburg Forest" ("Hermannsschlacht"). Hermann is shown in full command of the battlefield. By concentrating on the commander Gunkel anticipates the outcome of the struggle.

In the person of Frederick I the Germans revered a mediaeval ruler who was praised even by his contemporaries as a paragon of chivalry and as the restorer of the empire. A legend grew up around his tragic death during a crusade in 1190. It was said that the emperor did not really die, but was only asleep in a grotto in the imperial castle of Kyffhäuser and waiting there to prepare for his return. This mythical transfiguration was connected in the 19th century with nationalist aspirations for the restoration of the lost glory of emperorship and empire. After the German Empire was founded in 1871 the Barbarossa myth became extremely popular. Emperor Wilhelm I was exalted as »Barbablanca« (White Beard), the successor to Barbarossa. Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld shows in his painting the salvaging of the body of the drowned emperor from the Saleph River in the Near East, depicted after the motif of the Descent from the Cross. With this Christian metaphor the artist gives expression to the hope that Barbarossa will rise again.

Faith and War

Luther Burns the Papal Bull Threatening Excommunication, 1520

In the 19th century Luther was honoured to a lesser degree as the founder of a religion than as a national hero – at least in the Protestant parts of Germany. There he was celebrated as the man who liberated Germany from the domination of Rome, while in Catholic Bavaria or Westphalia he was seen and vilified as the divider of the nation. The celebration of Luther crystallises around the burning of the papal bull threatening him with excommunication in December 1520. In the eyes of the protestant nationalists of the 19th century this act represented a symbolic separation from Rome.

Paul Thumann depicts the reformer in his painting as a raging revolutionary. Luther adulation reached a climax during the celebrations in Wittenberg on the occasion of his 400th birthday in 1883. Many souvenirs in the form of cups, lanterns or flags printed with Luther's portrait or his words were manufactured to celebrate the occasion.

Freedom

The Call-Up of Volunteers in 1813

The idea of a popular uprising against Napoleon had been smouldering in Germany since 1809. But it was not until the French defeat in Russia that the resistance to Napoleon turned into a mass phenomenon. When the Prussian king Friedrich Wilhelm III after long hesitation finally let it be known in his famous appeal »To My People« that he had formed an alliance with the Russians against Napoleon and called the people to arms, it was the longed for proclamation of a national alliance between the king and the people.

»The king called and all, all came,« was the slogan of the wave of national enthusiasm that now set in. The victory over Napoleon at the Battle of the Nations near Leipzig, as recorded in a painting by Johann Peter Krafft, was achieved by the regular troops of the allies (especially Russia, Austria and Prussia). But in German national consciousness (of the 19th century) the view became firmly entrenched that it was the patriotic readiness to contribute, the self-sacrifice of the volunteers and the glowing patriotism of the Germans, as called for by the Prussian king in his proclamation, that had guaranteed the victory.

This national enthusiasm, which had gripped all classes of German society, was symbolised by Gustav Graef in his - especially in Prussia - popular painting »Ferdinande von Schmettau Sacrificing her Hair at the Altar of the Fatherland«. The story of Ferdinande von Schmettau was extraordinarily popular in the 19th century. In 1831 a Prussian schoolbook described the event as follows: »A truly noble young lady in Silesia, too poor to give anything from her personal belongings, sold her beautiful long hair in order to contribute her mite to the fatherland from the earnings.«