Faust’s Metropolis: A History of Berlin. Alexandra Richie

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СКАЧАТЬ since Augustus. In 800 he was confident enough to proclaim himself imperator et augustus, the ancient title of the victorious empire, and he was crowned in St Peter’s Basilica by the pope in a dramatic ceremony on Christmas Day.

      Despite his ferocity on the battlefield Charlemagne proved himself an admirable administrator, sponsoring the arts and education and dividing the conquered territory into administrative regions called Marken (marches), which were governed by loyal counts or dukes known as Markgrafen or margraves. Charlemagne also favoured the establishment of bishoprics in the conquered lands and made Hamburg the first diocesan seat east of the Elbe. In the end Charlemagne created a new boundary down the centre of Europe called the Limes Sorabicus or Sorbian Wall, which effectively separated Christians from the heathen. It ran from Regensburg through Erfurt, and along the Elbe to Kiel. Berlin still lay a hundred miles beyond the border but Christianity was drawing ever closer. The nearest outpost was a settlement founded on the Elbe. It was called Magdeburg.

      The first thing one sees when journeying towards Magdeburg is the great cathedral which rises up from the centre of the small city, its great spires dwarfing everything else around. The building is a mere hint of the city’s role as a beacon on the edge of the Christian world, a stronghold which once lay between ‘Europe’ and the wilderness. Like Trier under the Romans and like West Berlin during the Cold War Magdeburg became a splendid showcase meant both to dazzle and intimidate the poor pagans to the east. The cathedral itself, which started as a small Romanesque church, was regarded as so important that it was endowed by the English king Alfred the Great’s grand-daughter with eighteen casks of gold. Even in its earliest incarnation, it served as a base for missionaries determined to convert the unenlightened Slavs to the east.

      Magdeburg continued to be a frontier post under Charlemagne’s successors but it was not until the reign of Henry the Fowler, who ruled from 919 to 936, that a fresh attempt was made to push the borders of Christianity eastward. Like his son Otto I, Henry believed that Magdeburg should be a metropolitan see ‘for all the people of the Slavs beyond the Elbe and the Saale, lately converted and to be converted to God’, and from his palace in the Harz mountains he ordered the creation of bishoprics at Havelberg and the foundation of Quedlinburg and Merseburg.³² The desire to create new strongholds was not simply the result of religious zeal; Henry and his contemporaries felt – quite legitimately – that Christian Europe was under constant threat and that such outposts were essential to its defence. In 845 the Norsemen had decimated the newly founded town of Hamburg and in 875 wiped out a great Saxon and Thuringian army on the Lüneburg Heath while the Magyars from Hungary, the ‘scourge of Europe’, attacked regularly and fought their way as far north as Bremen.²⁵ The new church settlements were built not only as religious centres but also as fortresses to protect the duchy of Saxony against the Hungarians. When Henry died in 936 his son Otto I, who reigned until 973, was determined to continue in his father’s footsteps and expand eastward. This was evident in the ceremony of his investiture as duke of Saxony: ‘I bring before you Otto, chosen by God, designated by Henry, formerly lord of the kingdom, and now made king by all the princes,’ boomed the archbishop of Mainz. ‘Accept this sword with which you are to eject all the enemies of Christ, barbarians and bad Christians. For all power over the whole empire of the Franks has been given to you by divine authority, so as to assure the peace of all Christians.’³³

      Until now the Slavic Hevellians had been spared the Christian onslaught but the peace ended suddenly in 948. In that year Otto I crossed the Elbe and attacked their capital Brennobar. The heathen settlement was overrun, Slavic protestors were killed, the celebrated pagan shrine was levelled and a bishopric was put in its place. The town was given a new name: Brandenburg.

      Brandenburg was turned into a centre of evangelizing activity. Christians quickly moved in, rounded up the local Slavs and forced them to convert at swordpoint. Otto was so successful in his drive eastward that by the end of his reign he had reached the river Oder, dividing the new lands into Marks.³⁴ The area which would become the Nordmark or North Mark and which encompassed the territory of the Hevellians and the Sprewan Slavs extended from the Elbe to the Oder and from Lausitz to the Elbe – Peene line. Furthermore Otto finally defeated the troublesome Magyars at the Battle of Lechfeld in 955, a victory which brought him such fame that he was henceforth referred to as Otto the Great. Rather than protect his conquests in the north, however, Otto set out on three separate campaigns in Italy and in 962 marched to Rome, where the Pope placed the magnificent gold and gem-encrusted crown of the Holy Roman Emperor on his head. But his victory did not bring the desired peace. Otto I died in 973 and, rather than return to the north, his successor Otto II remained in a bid to drive the Greeks and Saracens from Italy. In 982 he faced a humiliating defeat at the hands of the Muslims of Sicily. It left him gravely weakened, and the newly won lands and new bishoprics at Havelberg and Brandenburg were left undefended. And it was then that the Slavs struck back.

      The Slavs of the North Mark had been resentful at the coming of the Christians and of the strange new religion which forbade the worship of their fertility goddesses and the shrines to the spirits of nature. Worse still, the new masters had forced them to pay tributes to the Germanic religious fortresses, payments which were extracted by sheer force if necessary. When the Slavs heard the news of Otto II’s disastrous defeat in Italy they were encouraged to take up arms. The response was the Great Slav Uprising of 983.

      The revolt was led by the Hevellians, who were determined to retake their holy capital of Brennabor. In a well-orchestrated attack they set upon the city, sacking the new Ottonian church and massacring the Christian inhabitants there. On 29 June 983 the bishopric of Havelberg was destroyed, and the small church at the Spandauer Burg was decimated three weeks later. The Slavs then swept through the Mark, killing monks and settlers. By July most German outposts had been razed to the ground, and although a handful of bishops dared to remain they were forced into hiding and lived without cathedrals or diocese.³⁵ The rest of the population reverted to their pagan practices. The Germanic Christian drive eastward had been halted and Magdeburg once again became the true boundary of the German Christian world. Otto was devastated and died in 983 in the knowledge that he had failed at his most important task – the defence of Christendom against the heathen. The unhappy emperor was buried at St Peter’s in Rome. Unfortunately for the Slavs in the North Mark, Otto’s death was not the end of the threat to their way of life. The leader of a completely different area had also recently undergone conversion to Christianity and was now eager to expand his territory in the name of the Church. This place lay not in German lands, but far to the east of the Spree and Havel in a place which would soon be known as Poland. The Slavs of the Berlin area were now sandwiched between two powerful Christian blocs. The race was on to see which side could conquer it first.

      The coming of Christianity to Poland was of immense importance not only to the Slavs of the Berlin area but to the unfolding history of the entire region. The presence of a vast Catholic kingdom to the east of Germany would shape the history of central Europe and of Berlin for centuries to come, not least because of the rivalry which even now emerged between the German Christians and their Polish counterparts.

      The Germans had hoped to Christianize all of northern Europe by pushing eastward from Magdeburg and on to Kiev Rus, knowing that under the Ottonian system the establishment of religious centres was inextricably linked to political conquest. The sudden emergence of Poland foiled their plans. The early history of the Piast dynasty remains obscure but by the third quarter of the tenth century the Polish ruler was rising to prominence as quickly as the Saxon rulers had in the west. The first Polish prince, Mieszko I, was keen to extend his power throughout the region.³⁶ This posed a problem for the Germans, and in particular for Otto I.

      When Otto made Magdeburg an archbishopric in 961 he had seen it as the base from which all territory from Saxony to Russia would be Christianized, a move which would in turn have brought all of east central Europe under German control. Mieszko objected. Not only did he want to prevent German meddling in his affairs; he also wanted to increase his own territory. The first Polish ruler was still relatively weak compared to his powerful Saxon rival and СКАЧАТЬ