Table of Contents
The World History Channel follows a manuscript, not a biological claim. It asks why Heinrich Himmler wanted the oldest copy of Tacitus’s Germania. Rome’s disaster in the year 9, when three legions were lost and Augustus halted the advance, is the backdrop. Tacitus, writing about ninety years later in a lavish age, described northern kings, weapons, hospitality, and the hard training of youth in terms later admirers treated as praise. Himmler read the book young and spent years hunting the earliest surviving copy, then held by an Italian noble family. Mussolini’s government was pressed to obtain it. A photographic stand in was made and still was not enough. In the Italian campaign, troops searched the family’s houses and missed the hiding place. After the war the book was called a national treasure, was damaged in the Florence flood of 1966, was repaired, and went to the national library in Rome. Tacitus also listed vices, had probably never seen the people he described, and Himmler’s scholars kept only the passages that fit their politics.
Key points
- The film asks why Himmler wanted the oldest copy of Tacitus’s Germania.
- The Roman backdrop is the disaster of the year 9 and Augustus stopping the advance.
- Tacitus is presented as a leading historian who wrote the book in a lavish later age.
- An Italian noble family held the oldest copy, and wartime searches failed to seize it.
- The book was later a national treasure, was hurt in the 1966 Florence flood, and went to Rome.
- The closing argument is that the Nazi reading kept only the lines that served its politics.
Short quotes
not by a German but by the Roman Senator and orator Cornelius tacitus
World History Channel, Why Himmler hunted Tacitus Germania
The film says the book came from the Roman senator Cornelius Tacitus, rather than from a German author. Watch at 7:36
a single perfect copy of the original text had been made
World History Channel, Why Himmler hunted Tacitus Germania
The search then turns on one complete copy of that lost original. Watch at 20:18
blatantly misinterpreted misread and misquoted particular passages
World History Channel, Why Himmler hunted Tacitus Germania
The closing argument is that chosen passages were twisted and lifted out of their place. Watch at 45:57
Video by The World History Channel. Watch on YouTube.