ECB calls for European countries to 'give up sovereignty'

[Filuwaúrdjan]

What are they going to propose next, the Fourth Reich or something?

Er, yeah, that's pretty much what's being proposed here. Though honestly if you ignore the imperialism, authoritarianism, genocide, nationalism and military aggression, the German reichs weren't so bad at all. And this new one should be devoid of all of the above.

The First Reich was not any of those

You Fail History Forever.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

First Reich = Holy Roman Empire

I know that, but thanks.

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Is there only a single concept of imperialism, now? And must concepts only be used to describe things that happened after the concept was created? Of course after a certain point the Holy Roman Empire only existed as a bizarre technicality, but during its earlier centuries...

This is, of course, one of the things I was getting at. The other would be the one at the end of your list.

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I like that 'could' there. Amusing.

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Oh, now this is a deeply controversial area. Especially in the context of German history, for obvious reasons.

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Everything is specific to a time period. In the case of the Holy Roman Empire, that 'time period' to which you refer can, I think, be quite confidently measured in terms of centuries.

Not, incidentally, that I have any interest in engaging in sub-A.J.P. Tayloresque nonsense about some inherent will to dominate of all Germans, or any such related bollocks. I think it's a shame that so many have resorted to that kind of language recently as it isn't at all helpful, or enlightening.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I wasn't sure I was speaking with a historically literate person

It pays the rent, so I like to think that I am.

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I think that would mostly depend on the context.

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No, not in the same way. But you did have the expansions eastwards and also into Italy. You could also link in some of the Crusades in some way, I suppose. Of course you might wonder how much some of that had to do with the state that had that name, but certainly what happened in Bohemia during the Hussite Wars would count as foreign domination and so on, even if there was a massive religious subtext (or was it the other way round?). Won't go on about this in much more detail, because I'm not a Medievalist.

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About the only consistent thing to the Holy Roman Empire (not sure if you should use 'First Reich' outside some kind of punctuation) was that it was mostly in what we now call Germany.

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It would be difficult to argue that, yes. Didn't stop some Czech historians half-arguing that during the 1950s (I think it was the 1950s) though. lol.

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Yeah, but the objection was entirely focused on the earlier periods.