ABSTRACT
The Scandinavian peoples unquestionably belong to the Teuton group, yet no one has dreamt of including in German history the history of the Scandinavian peoples. German history can only begin from the time when the united German stocks freed themselves from the Frankish empire and formed a separate unit. Burgundy into the German realm and the Frankish-speaking Flemings into the French. More unmistakable evidence is the fact that in 911, when the Germans seceded from the Carolingians, the population of the left bank of the Rhine, the so-called Lotharingia, did not join in the movement. The German races were brought together by no inner necessity, no want felt by themselves, but by the external pressure of conquest and subjection. Scarcely had the German Reich come into existence when it was on the point of dissolving into its component parts, its racial groups. The old German king was constitutionally anything but an absolute ruler.
