Two Notes on Germanic Antiquity Today

Abstract

The history of the early Germans is controversial terrain. This is known, though not invariably admitted. A few years ago, Klaus von See summed up the underlying predicament: Germans (Deutsche) have it hard with the origins of their national past. The oldest texts are not indigenous; they stem from Latin and Greek authors — Tacitus, Ammianus Marcellinus, Procopius. If stone vestiges are sought, one mostly has to be content with Celtic and Roman remains…. Supplementary efforts are made to unearth authentic Germanic monuments in large parts of Old Norse [literature]… — it being readily overlooked that the Edda and the sagas bear witness not to Germanic antiquity, but to the Scandinavian early and high Middle Ages, [and were] only written long after Christianization. As a result, studies of the early Germans are a difficult terrain for historical science….

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