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Please visit this website hosted on Github Pages.
This website was inspired by my senior thesis as a undergraduate history student at SUNY New Paltz under the guidance of my professor and mentor Dr. Andrea Gatzke. Currently, I am pursuing a Masters in Computer Science, and I am using my thesis as a pet-project to experiment with HTML and CSS.
The SUNY New Paltz's History Department hosts a competition for the best seminar papers. This paper won the contest for the 2018-2019 academic year; you can view the pdf of this paper and the runner-ups on the department's website. A pdf is also available on the Github Pages website.
In the autumn of AD 9, Arminius, a German chieftain, led an ambush against the Roman commander Publius Quinctilius Varus and the three lower Rhine legions in Teutoburg Forest. In the aftermath, Emperor Augustus exclaimed this now famous line when news of the massacre reached Rome: “Quintilius Varus, give me back my legions!” This paper analyzes the legacy of Arminius and his role as an exemplar of German virtues. In the pursuit of an ancient heritage, German humanists of the Middle Ages scoured the writings of Roman historians and found Arminius and the Germani people. From language to culture, German intellectuals attempted to draw parallels between contemporary Germans and the Germani in the hopes of differentiating themselves from their Romanticized neighbours. As Arminius became a more recognizable figure, different groups co-opted him as an ideological figurehead. For example, Nazi propaganda posters depict Adolf Hitler striking similar poses to popular imagery of Arminius. To comprehend German reception of Arminius, I will focus on the Hermannsdenkmal (Hermann’s Monument) in Detmold to gauge the public’s reception of Arminius. The research will focus on three overarching themes – how Romans and Germans differed on their views of Arminius as the ideal German, how Arminius embodied the East-West divide as a symbol of anti-Roman sentiment, and the rise and fall of nationalistic spirit surrounding the Hermannsdenkmal in Germany from the nineteenth century onwards.