The Germans

Editors’ Foreword -- A Tribute to Erich Kahler -- Introduction -- Medieval Germany -- The Uniqueness of Germany -- The Confrontation -- The Early Frankish Kingdom -- Charlemagne -- The Feudal System -- The Growth of the French Nation -- Imperium et Sacerdotium -- German Feudalism and Its Disintegration -- The Territorial States -- Provincialism in the Territorial States -- The Origin of the German Cities -- The Ascendancy of the Craft Guilds -- The Innovations of the Inland Cities -- The Beginnings of Capitalism -- The German City and the German Character -- The Reformation -- The Decline of the Catholic Church -- Heresy and Mysticism -- Wycliffe and Hus -- Luther’s Early Years -- The Ninety-Five Theses -- The Debate at Leipzig -- The Three Major Treatises and the Edict of Worms -- The Spread of Protestantism -- Münzer and the Anabaptists -- The Peasants’ War -- Luther’s Influence on the German Character -- The Modern Age -- German Literature and the German Language in the Period of Transition -- German Philosophy -- The Rise of Prussia -- The Hohenzollerns -- Goethe and German Classicism -- The Struggle for National Unification -- World War I -- The Nazi Assumption of Power -- The Literature of Nihilism