Hermannsdenkmal

About

In 9 AD, Arminius, a chieftain of the Cherusci people and an auxiliary cavalry commander, turned against his Roman allies and led an alliance of Germanic tribes to ambush three legions under the leadership of provincial governor Publius Quinctilius Varus. The vast majority of the Roman legions were destroyed. To Rome and its Emperor Augustus the loss was a catastrophe and called the " Varian disaster ".

This event later came to be seen as a vital turning point in Middle-European history as it may have been instrumental in limiting the advance of the Roman Empire into Germania. In the 1520s, Arminius was equated with the name "Hermann", perhaps first by Martin Luther.

Germany was among those countries where nationalism became a rising force in the 19th century as opposition to aristocratic rule increased. Equating the nation with all of its people rather than just with its rulers was a revolutionary idea at the time. In Germany, it became entwined with the hopes of many for an end to the disunity that had ruled the Holy Roman Empire at least since the Peace of Westphalia. Nationalists wanted one of the German princes to unite all of Germany under a single rule. In this regard,…