The Rest Is History - 67. Anglo-German Relations

Episode Date: June 28, 2021

With England and Germany set to do sporting battle once again, Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook explore the historical events which have shaped the relationship between two or Europe’s super powers. A Goalhanger Films & Left Peg Media production Produced by Jack Davenport Exec Producer Tony Pastor *The Rest Is History Live Tour 2023*: Tom and Dominic are back on tour this autumn! See them live in London, New Zealand, and Australia! Buy your tickets here: restishistorypod.com Twitter:  @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thank you for listening to The Rest Is History. For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, and membership of our much-loved chat community, go to therestishistory.com and join the club. That is therestishistory.com. The Germans are a good people. On the whole, the best people perhaps in the world. An amiable, unselfish, kindly people. I'm positive that the vast majority of them go to heaven. Indeed, comparing them with the other Christian nations of the earth, one is forced to the conclusion that heaven will be chiefly of German manufacture.

Now that was the comic writer Jerome K. Jerome in his book Three Men on a Bummel, published in 1900. And I'll try to remember those words when, in this week's titanic footballing clash between our two great nations, the last German penalty screams into the net and it is heartbreak for England yet again. Tom, Tom Holland, it is just as well, isn't it, that the Germans don't play cricket. Imagine that. Well, actually, Dominic, they do. Yeah, they do. Probably the most humiliating moment in last year's lamentable performance on the COVID front in England was when Germans came out of lockdown before we did. And as a result, they were playing cricket when it was banned in England.

So I think that's the only time probably in history that cricket's been legal in Germany and banned in England. And that's a bad moment, isn't it? It was a terrible moment. I still haven't read it. It's probably the end of days. Yeah, that's what it felt like. I mean, that's when it really hit me.

Have we ever, obviously, we've played Germany multiple times in different arenas. Have we ever played them at cricket? I don't think we have, but it's obviously a matter of time. Yeah. They're clearly plotting their path to greatness. Imagine that moment when they win at Lords or something. I know, I know, on penalties.

I'm sure they'll find a way to do it. Yeah, in a super over. That's exactly what it will be. That's exactly what it will be. All of which I'm aware will be total gibberish, perhaps, to people who have no interest in football or cricket or anything. But essentially, Dominic, as you say, the reason for the theme of this podcast, which is Anglo-German relations, is that yet again, England have been drawn against germany in a huge international tournament um yeah and we know how it's going to end but before england lose let's let's let's look at the whole theme of anglo-german relations which of course um is is

founded if you follow the opinion of the terraces uh on the idea that England have won two World Wars and one World Cup, ignoring the fact... How many World Cups have the Germans won? Four. The four we've won in 1966, one of the tabloids, I think it was the Mirror, I might be wrong, said, if England lose on Saturday, we should remember that they may have beaten us once

at our national sport, but we've beaten them twice at theirs, which is the sort of commentary that now is frowned upon yes but in the 1960s was regarded as very jolly badinage well i mean obviously we we do tend to um see anglo-german relations through the prism of the two world wars yeah i mean that's you know we've just recorded a two-part episode with um in kershaw and Hitler so that obviously does very much kind of dominate perspective but I think it it clouds the degree to which actually over the course of the centuries and indeed the millennia relations between the English and the Germans have been closer well there's an argument isn't there that the English are the Germans I mean some people

Victorians kind of thought that didn't they well in that the English are the Germans? I mean, some become England. And that sense of kinship, whether it's true or not, whether it's a myth or whether it's rooted in historical fact, is certainly one that the Angles and the Saxons themselves believed. They had a very strong sense of kinship. And that's why the great apostle of the Germans, the man who is credited by the Germans themselves converting them to Christianity, is a man from Devon, St. Boniface. That's interesting. So he was the sort of man who would be drawn

into one of those abstruse arguments about scones with the Cornish. I imagine that's why he left. I imagine that's why he left I imagine that's why he left he left Wessex behind and went off to uh to convert the uh the Saxons of course who were pagan at the time and it's interesting because what the reason that the um the Pope wants to convert the English why he sends the missionaries with you know Augustine to Canterbury is because he sees Britain as having originally been part of the Roman Empire. And therefore, because they were Romans, therefore, they should probably be Christian. He's not

really interested in people beyond the limits of what had been the Roman Empire. But the Angles and the Saxons aren't bound by that. They feel a strong sense of kinship with their pagan cousins across the waters. And so that's why they cross the sea, um they go into the kind of the dank dripping forests of saxony yeah to tremendous effect and um boniface ends up being um martyred in frisia and his body is then taken to fulda um where it becomes a massive center of pilgrimage and so to this day he's the patron saint i think of europe of of Germany and of Devon, which is quite a record. That is a record, the big three. Yeah, absolutely.

So I think that as England and Germany take the field at Wembley, we should keep St. Boniface in mind. I think we should. Because he's something that we all share in common. But isn't the weird thing, though, Tom, I was thinking about this, that for much of our medieval history, I for one thing germany isn't germany right i mean germany is is the empire and it's this patchwork of territories as it remains until the 19th century but also england is so sort of orientated towards france that germany doesn't really seem to feature as much as you know you can sort of read a book about england in the middle ages and germany, apart from sort of Hanseatic traders or something, Germany barely seems to feature

at all. It's all about France, isn't it? Yeah. And in terms of kind of national rivalries, obviously England's traditional enemy is France. Yes. But it's interesting that that doesn't translate into football. No, but partly because the French weren't very good at football until relatively recently.

But they are now, aren't they? They're going to win. They are good, but I don't think football has... I mean, this is a whole different subject, but I don't think football is as deeply embedded in French culture as it is in some of its neighbours' culture. I mean, they care about cycling and stuff. But, I mean, it's interesting that Ich dien, I serve, which is the motto of the Prince of Wales.

Yes. Supposedly comes because John, the blind King of Bohemia, which of course is Czech Republic now, but it was part of the German empire. He, he fought at the battle of Cressy. And when it became obvious that the,

the English were winning, he demanded to be led into the heart of the melee. You know, he was blind and cut down, but it was a kind of heroic end. And whose side was he on? He was fighting with the French. He was fighting with the melee. You know, he was blind and cut down, but it was a kind of heroic end. Hold on, whose side was he on? He was fighting with the French. He was fighting with the French.

And Edward the Black Prince, you know, he won his spurs at Crecy. He's supposed to have taken this motto as his own. Like all brilliant stories, I think it's not true. So that's never stopped us before. No, exactly. But you're right. I mean, that's basically in in terms of relations between germany and england and the high middle ages that's about it for me i mean it's sort of yeah i suppose it says something about um

yeah the sort of dearth of stuff that i that i did some had to do some online digging what about richard of cornwall so i very vaguelyuely knew about this. We've talked about him. We've talked about him and King Arthur. Well, he's King John's son, is that right? And he's elected King of Germany. Now, this is one of the strange things about German history in the Middle Ages,

that the King of Germany was called King of the Romans. Yes. It's all incredibly confusing. So he was elected King of the Romans, which meant he was the ruler of Germany in 1256. He was crowned in Aachen, in this sort of place where Charlemagne had been crowned. But he only went to Germany four times.

So he's like a sort of reverse Richard the Lionheart or something. As in, instead of going on crusade, he just spends all... He died in Hertfordshire, very disappointingly, for the King of the Romans, who was also the King of Germany. But he also built Tintagel. Did he? Yes, we did talk about this. Yes, so we talked about him. So this was his sort of...

I mean, if I was German, I wouldn't be best pleased with this kind of conduct. Well, the whole thing about kind of electors and palatinates coming from the palace at arkan and palatinate obviously has echo of palatine in rome there is there is a kind of the the um the the way in which basically the guy who rules the patchwork of kingdoms and territories and bishoprics in what becomes germ. He's the emperor of the Romans. And that's the incredible confusion of it and the mess up of it. Whereas England, obviously, you know, the national history is much simpler

because the borders are fairly coherent. And there's a kind of consistent national story that you can tell there. And I think, I guess you mentioned the Hanseatic League. I mean, that actually is quite significant because that's a kind of a well it's a kind of proto uh common market isn't it of of yeah of traders and and cities um and they uh they're always forcing unequal trade deals on england yeah i think you care a lot about the hanseatic league don't you if you live in ipswich or something um Yeah, or Lubeck.

Yes. Or Hamburg. Yeah, places with stepped gabled roofs. Exactly, and Marzipan. Yeah, yeah. This is profound historical fundatory, Tom. Okay, but on that theme, the Reformation, of course. Well, I was about to say, this is the way it all kicks off, really, isn't it? I mean, it does kind of.

I mean, obviously, without Luther, there is no Reformation, and therefore there is no Reformation in England. So clearly, that generates a lot of communion, as it were. Yeah. But it's telling that England's form of Protestantism is not Lutheran. So unlike the Protestantism in, say scandinavia which is lutheran england's isn't england's is essentially calvinist and calvin of course is french oh so yeah we've the old francophilia rearing it yeah well yet again you see the way in which the the continental power that is has the greatest influence on us is invariably france so even in

the reformation because Germany is still divided I suppose I'll tell you a good fact in everybody in their wallet if they look in their wallets those people who still have kind of cash on your pound coin you have two letters which is a kind of little emblem of Anglo-German antagonism because it's the FD Fidei Defensor which was awarded to Henry VIII wasn't it after he his book, the first book published by an English monarch in which he attacked Martin Luther. Yes. So this is Henry coming out against Luther. You know what Luther

said about Henry after Henry VIII wrote that? Remind me. He said he was a pig, an ass, a dunghill, the spawn of an adder, a basilisk, a lying buffoon, and a mad fool with a frothy mouth. So I'll put him down as undecided then.

Yeah, I've had reviews like that, to be fair. But even when Henry chucked the Pope out, Luther was still incredibly suspicious of him and accused him essentially of trying to make himself God. Yeah, well, he wasn't entirely wrong. Yeah, it's a lot of unfair criticism um but at that stage the interesting thing is tom that there doesn't seem to be a sense in england of sort of german-ness i guess of of a german is there i mean germany is still very divided obviously henry then goes on to marry the

anne of cleves who's from what is effectively, I guess, sort of Dutch-German borderlands. But there's no sort of sense of the Germans having a distinct identity and a kind of national temperament and all those things that we would associate with the French in this period. I think there's a sense that the Germans are drunkards, which I think coming from the English is a bit rich. Yeah. But I agree. there's a sense that the germans are drunkards which i think coming from the english is a bit rich yeah but i think i agree i mean that i i don't think that there is a kind of strong sense of of you're right about that and i think but i think that changes in the 17th century

why because of the 30 years war or because of i think yes well but but also because James I's daughter, Elizabeth, who is, of course, Charles I's sister, marries into German dynastic politics. And therefore, England becomes enmeshed both in the dynastic politics of it, but also in the religious divide. And there's a sense in which in the 17th century, kind of Puritan opinion in England is following the fortunes of Protestants in the German empire, perhaps in the way that the left now follow the fortunes of, say, the Palestinians. There's this passionate of passionate committed engagement with what is going on in in the german empire and it's it's much more intense and in a sense i mean it's it's it's crucially important for england in all kinds of ways because it feeds into the

civil war and then in the long run it feeds into the um the dynastic um transformation that happens with the expulsion of james ii yeah and the arrival of the hanoverians i love all that tom i remember doing it at school this is a sort of slightly pitiful memory but um at school uh we were talking about you know james i and his battles with parliament and our teacher said you know what you now have to bear in mind is the reaction to the battle of white mountain at the beginning of the 30 years war and that was one of the first moments studying history that i really appreciated how events in one sphere could have a massive political impact on events that appeared to be in an so in other

words people were following exactly as you say people politicians and people interested in politics were following events in germany with the same passion that they followed say the spanish civil war in the 1930s and they saw it as a sort of reflection of english politics or english politics as a reflection of it yes because um elizabeth marries frederick um who is the elector palatine of the rhine which is one of those kind of classic titles that they very much have in germany at this this period and he inevitably gets elected um king of bohemia and he it's not a great success because he's protestant and the catholic powers are not keen on having a protestant king in prague and so he's derisively called the winter king because he basically rules for the span of a winter. And so he loses the Battle of the White Mountain in 1620, I think it is.

Yeah, it's something like that, isn't it? And he's forced to flee and he nicks the Bohemian crown jewels and scrams him and his wife and his children. And they end up in the Dutch Republic, which is like England, is one of the great power centers of Protestantism. And there is huge, huge sympathy for them. And people in England are kind of raising money for them and hoping that he will get his fortunes restored. But it kind of plays out in an interesting way for Puritan opinion because Frederick and Elizabeth's third son is Rupert.

Yeah. Comes to be known as, of course, Rupert of the Rhine because he's the son of the Elector Palatine of the Rhine. But as Charles I's nephew, he's the great dashing exemplar of the cavalier in the Civil Wars. He's the guy who's rushing around kind of burning down birmingham and leading the attack at marston moore he's a great character i mean he is one of the great characters in all anglo-german history indeed in all english history i think the great one of the there's so many things to talk about prince rupert so one of them is he's he's famous as this great dashing commander but he basically never wins an important battle he loses but he loses with such dash but he does with the dash right the dash he's come

from germany so the 30 years war is going on and and one thing that i think english sort of people even if they're quite interested in history never really appreciate is just how unbelievably ghastly and apocalyptic the 30 years war is so germany loses i don't know a quarter of its population or something some colossal yeah there was a poll i think taken five years after the second world war where germans were asked to vote on on the worst thing that had happened in german history this is five years after the second world war and they voted for the 30 years war yeah i mean it's absolutely sort of engraved in german in the german historical imagination, isn't it? And in England, I mean, people obviously followed it, as we said at the time.

But now it's kind of forgotten, just seen as utterly impenetrable, which it kind of is. But Rupert was used to the atrocities and the sort of terrible behavior of the Thirty Years' War. And he brought some of that to England and got a very bad reputation with the parliamentarians. Because, as you say, he went around burning towns and massacring people and stuff because he thought this was completely reasonable I mean I hope the Germans don't bring this to cricket if this if you know in similar terrible if they did well he's he's let's let's he's Anglo he's Anglo-German but but but his his you're right his ethos is essentially you know he's essentially German and and so I would say that he's the first great German to impact on the English national consciousness.

And he's supposed to have had his dog boy. I mean, dogs have been a feature of this podcast in recent weeks. I think it would be wrong not to mention his dog. Who is supposed to be a white poodle. Yes. Supposed by his Puritan enemies to have been his witches familiar. And dies at Marston Moor, I think. He could find treasure.

He could foretell the future. And he could catch bullets in his mouth. Yes. Which for a commander's dog is an immense skill, I would say. But then he dies at Marston Moor. And from that point on, Prince Rupert's lost his superpower. Yeah. And everything goes wrong.

I was going to say he sticks around. So Prince Rupert is around for another... He's an admiral. He becomes... He's the third person to join the Royal Society, the Great Scientific Society. And he invents things. He invents kinds of guns and grenades and gunpowder.

Yeah, he's a remarkable man. Yeah, it's Prince Philip, basically. And he sponsors colonial expansion. So there are loads of places in Canada called Rupert after him. Is that so? So he's a very interesting man. One for the Canadian listeners there. Yes, absolutely.

We want to get Canada in as well. But really, I mean, he's a fascinating figure. And perhaps, I mean, it'd be good to do a whole episode on him, to be honest. But probably a more important figure for the future of Anglo-German relations is his sister, Sophia. So that's the Electoress of Hanover, or the Elector of Hanover's wife or mother or whatever. And so what happens after you have the restoration, Charles II comes back.

He was a kind of crypto-Catholic. His brother, James II, who succeeds Charles II, is an open Catholic. And that then precipitates a Protestant meltdown. And so you have the Glorious Revolution of 1688. William III comes from Holland, from the Netherlands. Yeah. With his wife, Mary. Mary's sister Anne then follows, but neither of them have children.

And so Britain faces the problem of what king do we get? Where do we get a Protestant monarchy? And so they turn to Sophia, whose son, George, who is the elector of Hanover, comes over and becomes George I. Yeah, this is absolutely seismic moment, isn't it? So the 18th century, the Hanoverian age, the relations of Britain and Germany are completely intertwined. And one thing that surprises me about this is that we always think of the Georges as terribly stolid, and in many ways they were the early Georges. But when George I pitches up, there are colossal riots all across England. So on his coronation day, 20th of October 1714,

you mentioned Birmingham. So clearly Birmingham has rebuilt itself after being attacked by Prince Ruber, but perhaps it's not forgiven the Germans for this behaviour because there's these massive riots in Birmingham. People are going around shouting, kill the old rogue, kill them all, down with the roundheads. Now, the roundheads, they're obviously not talking about Germans. That's the squareheads, isn't it?

The First World War mockery of the Germans. George I has been championed by the square heads, isn't it? The First World War, mockery of the Germans. But they're talking, George I has been championed by the Whigs, by the sort of inheritors of the revolution of the mid 17th century, by the sort of descendants of the parliamentarians, I suppose. And there's these colossal, and George, they actually don't really manage

to clamp down on it. So they don't, a lot of people don't get punished because the rights are so widespread. But George just sort of ignores them in his stolid Teutonic way. And you know what, George, something that greatly surprised me, he was a big admirer of double entendres. Was he? Yeah.

But not in English, obviously, because he didn't speak German. No, in German. Well, I think this is contested, actually. Some people say he actually spoke a bit more English than was previously thought. But he did like bawdy humour. He was a very... And there was a lot of talk that he was sort of bringing over all these German mistresses and things.

So I think maybe he's a sort of German Sid James. Maybe that's the way... Is that your Sid James laugh? I like down with the roundheads as a chant. Yeah. I wouldn't chant that because I'm a roundhead. I can imagine you on the terraces shouting that at the German team. Yeah, of course.

Historically informed chant. Yeah. And he, of course, brings over Handel, the great, you know, the sort of… The great slaver. Well, yes. The titanic figure of English music, George Frederick Handel. And these sort of great moments of English 18th century music are, of course, German.

So that sort of kickstarts a romance. And it's George II, isn't he? He stands, he listens to the Messiah and he hears the Alleluia Chorus and he's so struck by it that he stands up and applauds. That's a nice story. Yeah, and I think that

it's now the tradition when you go to the Messiah that you stand up. Really? The Alleluia Chorus. You don't want to get that wrong, do you? You don't want to stand up

and applaud and no one else. But if you're the king, you can do that. And also, of course, George II, the other great famous thing

about George II is that he's the last British monarch to lead an army. In Germany at the Battle of Dettingen, isn't it? Yes, where he almost loses. I mean, he's a terrible general.

Well, that's obviously a theme because there must be something Germanic in that because that's Prince Rupert as well. But that's an interesting story in itself. So that obviously often – we did the Seven Years' War podcast, didn't we? And one thing that's often lost from all of this sort of story of 18th century britain as it becomes and britain's expansion um is that we are involved in europe the whole time and for the hanoverian kings the protection of hanover and their involvement in german affairs was immensely important to them so all this time in a way that we've now forgotten britain was enmeshed in the sort of incredibly arcane politics

of the Germanic world. And George II is very, very effective at ensuring that British arms and money is used to defend his territories in Germany. Yes. I mean, actually, this is something that some scholars, so there's a guy called Brendan Sims who's written a massive, colossal book about this, arguing that for all that we're now fixated with empire

and with colonial expansion, that actually this was merely a means to an end and that what mattered to the monarch and most of the elite was exactly as you say, the balance of power within Central Europe and all the other stuff, the acquiring of colonies and the ships and was just a weapon site was was a just a

weapon in this war largely against the french for control of their sort of continent and so we took we talked about that in the seven years war podcast that that britain and prussia kind of become natural allies um yes and that is obviously something that then carries through into the napoleonic era yeah that exactly Prussia, the usual alliance becomes Britain and Prussia, doesn't it? And I think it's at that point, certainly by the 19th century, that this idea of the ancestral, you know, friendship, that there's sort of ties of kinship.

I mean, that's obviously something Victorian. It's embodied in Wellington and Bucha kind of meeting each other amid the carnage of Waterloo. And that is the kind of foundational image for the way that the Germans and the British see each other, certainly in the first years

of the 19th century. So Blucher and Frederick the Great and the idea of Prussian arms is obviously something that we might back project because we know where it's going to lead. But away from Prussia, you've still got all these kind of electorates and palatants and bishoprics and things. And then Napoleon gets rid of them and then coming out of the Napoleonic era

you've got the problem of what should Germany be Well at that point you've got two things I think Tom one you've got Prussia expanding so Germany is going to become which has never really been a sort of a particularly

potent political concept is going to become a political concept in really been a particularly potent political concept, is going to become a political concept in the 19th century. But also you have the decline of France. And I think the British relationship with Germany changes once France starts to decline. Because our friendship was spaced so tightly on a shared loathing of the French. But I think there's another dimension to this kind of what should Germany be that comes out of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, which is that it generates a kind of kind of militarists, but of almost the precise opposite, kind of dreamers and thinkers whose head are lost in the cloud. It's the sort of Goethe and Caspar David Friedrich paintings

of people looking at valleys and feeling very miserable. Yes, on mountains and gazing at mist and things. And so you've got someone like Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the great poet, you know, with William Wordsworth writing the lyrical ballads, one of the great romantic figures who goes to Germany and learns German and then basically comes back and regurgitates all this idealist philosophy that he's picked up. And that's hugely, hugely influential on how the British see the Germans. So I think, you know, we haven't had 45 minutes, but the whistle should blow and we should go and have a brief interval.

But I think it's a good point to leave it. A very happy point, yeah. Seeing the Germans as ineffectual, incompetent dreamers who are very good at philosophy. So this podcast is going to turn out like Sven-Joran Eriksson's verdict on English performances. First half good, second half not so good. I'll see you after the break.

I'm Marina Hyde. And I'm Richard Osman. And together we host The Rest Is Entertainment. It's your weekly fix of entertainment news, reviews, splash of showbiz gossip, and on our Q&A we pull back the curtain on entertainment and we tell you how it all works. We have just launched our Members Club. If you want ad-free listening bonus episodes and early access to live tickets head to therestisentertainment.com. That's therestisentertainment.com. Welcome back to The Rest Is History with me Domin Dominic Samrook, and Tom Holland.

And we are talking England and Germany, or Britain and Germany, I suppose, since we're into the 19th century. And Tom, I think an absolutely central figure in all this is Prince Albert, who we haven't discussed yet. Yes, who, of course, ends up marrying Queen Victoria. victoria and again we were talking before the uh before the break that the image of germany is is um they're ineffectual they're basically not very rich um and that's that's very much the kind of opinion on prince albert isn't it he's he's not quite seen he's seen as punching above his weight i think he is in victoria he is the paradigmatic example of the consort who arrives and everybody despises him and they say who is this jumped up foreigner and why should we listen to him? So a lot of people say Saxe Coburg, which is where he's from, is smaller than an English county.

And of course, what makes this sort of worse is two things. One, that Queen Victoria is utterly devoted to him. You know, if you read her sort of diary entries, you know, oh, what a night I spent in his arms and all this kind of business but also prince albert is prince albert is in many ways an immensely admirable man but he's also i imagine incredibly annoying because he arrives he arrives from germany and you can imagine him speaking you know perfect german accented english and he sort of says your child labor is very unacceptable you know you should clean up this you should do that. You should have a great exhibition. You should all this. But that's all great, Dominic.

That's all great stuff. Yeah, but he's got all these improving ideas. You're the voice of Flashman. I mean, that's the worst thing, you see, that he's got all these brilliant, very good ideas, very admirable ideas. And coming from this guy from Saxe-Coburg, a lot of people sort of shake their heads grumpily.

But over time, I think he wins people over because he's sort of aggressive, modernising ideas. You can't argue with them. I mean, their child labour is hard to defend. But also the Great Exhibition, which is essentially his scheme, is a great success. It is. And it ends up funding all the museums,

Victoria and Albert Museum most obviously, but others as well in South Kensington. And that's a permanent memorial to him. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's memorials. It's got that kind of massive gold statue of him surrounded by emblems of the empire, which I'm amazed hasn't been cancelled yet.

And when he died, I mean, people put up memorials all over the country. There's a memorial in Wolverhampton, Tom, you'll be pleased to hear. Yeah, Prince Albert on a horse in the middle of Wolverhampton. It's good to see the Midlands getting reconciled at last to Germany. Yes.

After Prince Rupert. Yeah, after Prince Rupert and after the riots in Birmingham and George I, the Midlands finally, exactly, discovered its inner Teuton. But also the Christmas tree. The Christmas tree is Albert's lasting legacy. Because I think there have been Christmas trees before, but he really popularises the idea of the Christmas tree.

So we owe him so much, Tom. So it's all good looking good, isn't it? For Anglo-German relations. It's great. And actually right up to 1870. A little bit beyond that, but I think 1870 is the key turning point. Because that, of course, is the moment when Bismarck,

basically, I mean, we talked about this with Katja Hoyer in our Second Reich podcast. She manoeuvres the French. Sorry, she. Katja. Katja doesn't. Yeah. She's got a Bismarckian side to her, I think, Katja. Anyway, Bismarck manoeuvres the French into war.

The Prussians wipe the floor with the French. And it's then that they create the second then by they create germany the thing i think from 1870 onwards you can see this growing disquiet but at the time there's quite a lot of enthusiasm for germany's victory isn't there there's all this kind of press reports we are glad to see sober industrious moral germany triumph over yeah catholic fame gloriousious cockerels of France. Yeah, but I think then, sort of about a week later, it's like the hangover.

They kind of wake up and think, oh, God. They're going to be beating us at football soon. Yes, and I also said this moment, that once Germany's unified, the tremendous engines of German capitalism really start to roar. And so by the end of the 19th century, German manufacturing has caught up with and it is indeed is overtaking british manufacturing and then you

get this moment these moments which we talked about before of um you know this sort of slightly paranoid fantasies i mean you could argue they don't turn out to be so paranoid after all that the germans are about to invade that the germans have overtaken us. Through the Dorking Gap. Yes, exactly. We talked about the invasion of 1910 and all these kinds of things. But I think it's more than that as well. I mean, it's not just military, is it, or even industrial. It's also the sense that the Germans are more civilised. Yes. That they are kind of beating us pretty much in every cultural field.

Yeah, their laboratories, their universities. Their universities set the template um and i think it's the for the first time the english feel an inferiority complex and so they respond in the obvious way by building huge massive phallic warships yeah well of course there's the dreadnought race there's the dreadnought race before they i mean i think the um the sort of obsession with national virility is is shared on both sides so i mean we talked think the sort of obsession with national virility is shared on both sides. So, I mean, we talked, obviously, the Kaiser and his boating shoes. Yes, a cow.

For the third time, I get to mention them. He gets laughter. So that's one thing where we do uphold is that we have proper yachting etiquette. And the Kaiser is lamentably gauche at such issues. So there at least, Britannia rules the wave you you have formed yourself on this don't you i mean terrible yes didn't mean you sympathize with the kaiser i mean you're quite similar people in many ways i think and um well yeah well let's not pursue that analogy but yes before the first world war i think there were two things going on one is the anxiety and

one is the sort of the fear of the pompous strutting Kaiser and his dreadnoughts and Germany trying to get its own colonies and German manufacturers overtaking our own. But there also is this continuing fascination with Germany. So there's a guy called Haldane, Lord Haldane, who is the guy who builds up the British army before the First World War.

And Haldane is a Germanophile, as many people were. And Haldane has spent lots of time in Germany. And actually, he then gets drummed out of office in the First World War because people say, oh, he's been spending all his summers in Germany. He's got all these German friends and he reads German books. And as a lot of intellectuals did in the Edwardian period. Absolutely. I mean, but even before that, you think of George Eliot and her crisis of faith

because the sense that theologians in Germany are radically rewriting the basis for our understanding of Christian history. Absolutely massive impact. And that is across pretty much every academic discipline. It's Germany who's blazing the path. And I think that that does generate a kind of mixture of kind of fascination, inferiority, all of which obviously feeds into the swirl of opinion that helps push Britain into war against Germany in 1914. And then I think also slightly, I think slightly feeds some of the propaganda during the war. So obviously there's lots of the sort of stuff about the Germans have raped Belgium. They are, you know, Crucified Canadian soldiers. Crucifying people.

They are raping nuns. They are bayoneting babies and stuff. A lot of which, you know, there's a grain of truth in that, as in the Germans do proceed with great sort of ferocity through Belgium. I thought that the revisionism of the revisionism was that actually there were terrible atrocities in Belgium.

I think there are atrocities, but I don't think they're quite the atrocities that are. So the Germans do shoot civilians. They do burn the Great Library in Louvain. They do behave very ferociously as an occupying force. I mean, actually, the comparison, Tom, is Cromwell in Ireland. It's exactly from the same motive. So the Germans, when they set off into Belgium, and the Belgians resist, the Germans are quite shocked that the Belgians are resisting. And their commanders basically say, you know, we have to do this incredibly

fiercely, and we will, you know, win the war, and we will impose order by fear. And we make them scared, otherwise they will shoot at us, and all this sort of thing. So it's done quite deliberately. But I don't think it's quite as savage as the sort of British newspaper coverage suggested. But I do think that what then happened, which is all these sort of people,

you know, all these writers, the sort of Kiplings and, I don't know, HG Wells and Joseph Conrads or whatever, venturing into print and saying, oh, the Germans are just philistines and barbarians and blood drinking monsters. I think some of that is motivated by, oh, great. Now we don't have to worry about them being so clever anymore. Well, Kipling definitely, Kipling was massive. I mean, he hated Germans. Some of his short stories are terrible.

There's one with Mary Postgate, where there's a German aviator who is dying and she kind of leaves him to die in the garden. Yeah, really chilling stuff. And actually, it's often coming from people, I think, who 30 years earlier would have been all about Teutonic Brotherhood. And now they've just sort of turned that on its head. The Recessional, the famous poem that Kipling wrote at the Jubilee of Queen Victoria, saying, you know, lest we forget, lest we forget,

whether we end up one with Nineveh and Tyre. He notoriously talks about lesser breeds, and I think the lesser breeds in that are the Germans. Lesser breeds without the law? No, I don't think they're the Germans. I think they're the colonised peoples. I think there is debate. Is there?

I'm not au fait with Kipling's scholarship. I think there are people who think i'm not i'm not okay with kipling scholarship i think i think there are people who think that he may be referring to the germans there but anyway but but kipling there is voicing a kind of um a kind of horror really at the idea at germany as and and it's there that you're starting to get the idea that that because they they come to be called the Huns. Yes. Who obviously are actually Hungarians. But I mean, the idea that there is a kind of primal barbarism,

it's essentially the kind of the Roman idea. Yes. That beyond the Rhine. Well, people use the word barbarian. They use it all the time. All is, all is savagery and darkness.

I mean, it's absolutely, it's kind of whole repudiation of that thing that had begun with, with Boniface. But then the interesting thing, Tom, is that that disappears so quickly so that by the 1920s it's all like you know um let's go and conclude some arms treaties with the germans um they're rebuilding there's a look there's a great sort of

don't let's be beast i mean the don't let's be beastly to the germans is a later phrase but there's a sense of that in the 1920s and 30s isn't there i mean that's what lies behind a lot of appeasement that the maybe we were a bit harsh on the germans they're not quite so bad they're trying to get back on their feet i'm not sure i i mean obviously that that um weimar berlin has a kind of hypnotic appeal for for british artists and writers and intellectuals so i think for us in england we we see weimar through the the the eyes of the people who did that. You know, Cabaret would be the kind of exemplification of that. Yeah, Christopher Isherwood type people.

But I think shadowing the whole time, there's the issue of what to do about Germany. And underlying that is the assumption that German power is inherently dangerous. And that's why britain maintain their alliance it's absolutely churchill's view and i think it's even there in in appeasement because the essentially it's kind of we might you know you it is maybe we push them too far maybe we we we exacted too much out of them but but i mean underlying appeasement is also the idea that you have to appease someone because if you don't they'll hit you well i mean i think i'm not i'm not sure about that but i think we should do a podcast just on appeasement and

actually i want to tell you one thing we haven't talked about is what the germans think of britain because there's no doubt that lots of germans still after the first world war think of britain as their natural ally and their natural friend including hitler yeah so during the first world war there had been ton i mean a lot of germans had been absolutely appalled and horrified that britain had entered at all they had assumed that britain would not enter and then when britain um does they feel betrayed because they feel that their cousin has turned against them, siding with the French. Well, there's the Kaiser's great joke when George V changes the house of Saxe-Coburg

to the house of Windsor. And the Kaiser wittily says, I'm off to see Shakespeare's play, The Merry Wives of Saxe-Coburg. To be fair, that's quite a good... It is a good joke. Yeah, the Kaiser did make one good joke. I think we can safely say that.

Wag. But you're right that for Hitler and the Nazis, England was not automatically an obvious enemy. And lots of senior Nazis did think, well, we can do a deal with the British. And, you know, sort of, I mean, Ian Kershaw said this, didn't he, when he was talking about how he got into

doing the history of the Nazis, that a German guy said to him in the 1970s, we could have divided up the world between us. I think there was quite a lot of sentiment along those lines in the 1930s. Yeah. And Hitler, I mean, he admired British rule over India and kind of saw that as an exemplification of what he wanted. So, yes, there were aspects of Britain that even the Nazis admired. I mean, we were never going to not mention the war, so we might as well.

I think what's interesting to me is that the propaganda, the British sense of Germany is, to my mind, actually not quite as intensely anti-German as it was in the first of all. It's more anti-Nazi. Yes. What is this? The Life and Times of Colonel Blimp? Yes. Which features an honourable Prussian figure who is seen as the best of Germany.

And Churchill hated it, didn't he? He wanted it banned. He thought that it was kind of basically kind of pro-German propaganda. But even Churchill, on the other hand, Tom, said, for example, of Rommel. And I think Rommel is actually a really important figure in how British opinion kind of rehabilitated Germany after the war, because Rommel is the sort of the paradigm of the good German in British eyes. And even during the war, Churchill said of Rommel, he's a very great general and a noble antagonist or something like this.

So, you know, there was always this sense, which I don't think really existed in the First World War, that there was another Germany, that the Nazis had suppressed, as it were, the real Germany. And there was another Germany that was noble and, you know, upstanding and virtuous and a sort of decent enemy, and that that had somehow been lost. Which is then terribly important when the war is over, and Britain is one

of the four occupying powers, and obviously plays a crucial role in deciding what will happen to Germany after the war. And actually, British policy after the war seems to me an incredible bright spot in Anglo-German relations. Well, it's a British officer who rebuilds Volkswagen, for example. Yes, yeah, yeah. And Britain plays a kind of crucial role in re-establishing German democracy and re-establishing German industry and actually kind of learning from problems that Britain has and ensuring that

Germany doesn't have them. Yeah, I think that's true. I mean, don't forget there were American policymakers, you said. The answer to this after two world wars is to break up Germany forever, to break it up, destroy its industry and just turn it into this sort of... Kind of forest. Yeah, into basically Switzerland, into lots of little Switzerland's so that it can never again menace europe and and i think one reason for not doing that was by this point fear of germany had been overtaken by fear of russia and having a strong germany was seen as an important bulwark against the soviet union

yeah so so obviously um going into um 50s 60s 70s there are so many ambivalences there but i guess you are as well qualified to trace as anyone because you've written about them. Oh, you're very kind, Tom. That's nice. I think, yes, I think the most interesting,

I mean, obviously, there are memories of the war. There are people who went by German cars. And you see that reflected in Dad's Army and obviously most famously in Fawlty Towers that don't mention the war. But Fawlty Towers, the joke is against Basil Fawlty. Well, that's exactly the thing.

It's not against the Germans, is it? So Basil, there are lots of people like Basil, but you're right. The Germans are progressive, decent, kindly people who come to stay at the hotel and are shocked by Basil's conduct. And certainly by the 70s, I think West Germany in British eyes was the exemplar of sort of European modernity. So there are tons of articles in the British newspapers in the sort of mid-70s saying German labour relations, German factories, German education system, we should learn from them, Germany is the perfect

kind of modern country. You know, Helmut Schmidt, the social democratic leader of Germany in the 1970s, is brought over to address the Labour Party conference to basically say, you know, we support you in your attempts to stop so many strikes and inflation and so on. And there is this absolute sense, you know, Germany is the future and we should be more like Germany. And I think that we still have that. I mean, I think that's still quite an important strain within British public opinion. Yes, I think certainly in what you would call

a slightly progressive opinion. But I think even the two World Wars and one World Cup, it's slightly embarrassing because, you know, I mean, Germans have won four times. Yeah, they've won lots of World Cups. And for us, you know, this fixture is massive. But for them it's actually not. For them it isn't.

We're in a way much more obsessed by German success than, I mean, we barely intrude on them. I think you're absolutely right. Maybe we don't. I don't know. Iude on them. I think you're absolutely right. Maybe we don't. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe that's not entirely true. But I think that we are more obsessed by Germany as an opponent than the Germans are by us.

I think that's right. In footballing terms. I also think, and also I think in political terms, actually, and I think the key moment is not going out to the Germans on penalties in Euro 96. It's going out to the Germans on penalties in 1990. And it's not just that. I don't mean that sort of facetiously just as a footballing point but obviously it's at that point the german unification is on the agenda and mrs thatcher who had been a great champion of west germany actually and had actually in the late 70s early 80s had explicitly said west germ is a model for britain to follow she completely changes her tune at the

end of the 80s early 90s because she is the great opponent of german unification because she basically recognizes i mean not not she's not wrong she recognizes that united germany will be the powerhouse of europe and she doesn't like it and she tries to stop it and she fails and chance the coal invites her over doesn't he for yes. To his hometown and treats her to traditional local delicacies. It's actually more moving than that. I mean, Chancellor Cole, who is, I mean, in Britain is seen as a comic figure, but elsewhere I think is seen as a genuinely sort of... Well, literally a giant.

Literally a giant, exactly. He has this sort of buried romantic side and he wants to, he takes her around and he sort of shows her the sights and he wants to show her the soul of Germany and how much Germany has suffered and how it has rebuilt and this sort of, this vision that he has. And all she can say when she gets back is, oh my God, that man is so German.

I know, I know, I know. Yeah. I mean, the thing is there, Tom, she's kind of speaking for the nation, isn't she? I mean, that's what a lot of British people think. Well, and she had to sack, is it Nicholas Ridley, who was kind of a very close political ally. He was employment secretary or something. And he wrote an article in The Spectator saying that the common market, whatever it was then.

It's a German plot. It's a German racket. A German racket. They gave it to Europe. racket german racket that's a very good and um i guess i mean i guess that that was that was kind of a motivating factor in the brexit campaign perhaps i mean i think that's still kind of slight well i think once germany and france i mean so much of this in this discussion france has been there and france is the antagonist. And a shared suspicion of France has allowed Germans and Britons to unite. Once France and Germany, as it were, buried the hatchet in a massive way in the sort of 50s and 60s and became the twin pillars of the European Union, then suddenly Britain was on the outside.

And I think that obviously played a huge part in the Brexit campaign, the sense that there's a Franco-German alliance, which had never really existed before. But also that the Franco-German alliance had been there from the beginning, and so therefore Britain was always having to adjust to Franco-German norms. Yes. And the cost of doing that proved too too high with yeah i mean i think

we know absolutely i think that's um but but having said all that i think i mean i i think that um for all the talk of um you know anglo-german hostility that uh this the football match will will generate um you know the very fact it's inspired us to do this podcast. I do think that actually, certainly in England, there is a huge admiration for Germany. That's true. I think that's something that, you know, we saw through the 90s, and I don't think anything has happened since then to change it.

I think there's a sort of respect for Germany, isn't there? There's a deep respect for germany for the way they've they've they've dealt with the traumas of the 20th century um for lots of things working i mean the one they don't get everything right they've got this dreadful airport in berlin which is the which they've been building for about the last three centuries and i think it's only well that's it but that's a kind of that's an entertaining throwback to to the germany of the 1820s. Yes, I guess so. Sort of shambolic and fragmented. Yes.

But you're right. I think, speaking purely for myself, I think Germany is an amazing country. I love German culture. And I think to go to a country that works as well is tremendous. And as much as the Germans beat themselves up, or we like to beat up the Germans, I think they're I'm a great Teutonic brotherhood man I mean I'm pure Victorian Anglo-Saxon fraternity and all that I really go in for that well I think I think I mean I do think another thing that that has um

Germany is inherited from you know the 18 early 19th century is this kind of slight sense of moral seriousness which yes which we tend to find risible. Yeah, that's true. That is very true. We're kind of... They mean what they say. We can't cope with... They say what they mean.

They do. They do. And I think it's impossible not to admire that from our island as we titter and giggle our way into the sea. We have some... My wife had a German student, and she stayed in touch with her, and she and her husband her husband they're both teachers they often come to visit us and um he uh the last time they came to visit us at the end of the evening i said coffee and he said i know

you all appreciate plain speaking here in england i would like a bottle of red wine which i thought was um admirably yeah very teutonic behavior but but uh dominic we we are here descending into the worst kinds of national stereotyping and i think before we disgrace ourselves yeah any further we should uh we should blow the whistle on this um this romp through the centuries and and you are you again they won't be watching the big match because you've got to go to your sons sports day pirates vs mermaids

I'm absolutely pumped so what I'm going to do is I'm going to record the game not talk to any parents yeah exactly and try to watch it afterwards I'm very excited about it I'm so looking forward to phoning you up, texting you.

Do not. I do not. If anyone out there would like to tweet Dominic or text him the result, much merriment will follow. Anyway, Dominic, thanks ever so much. I hope you managed not to find out the result and to watch it live, as it were. Thanks very much for listening. Enjoy the football if you're watching the football. We will be back soon with yet more.

Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Auf Wiedersehen. Thanks for listening to The Rest Is History. For bonus episodes, early access, ad-free listening, and access to our chat community, please sign up at restishistorypod.com. That's restishistorypod.com.