We know relatively little about the religion of the Germans. In principle, the problem begins with the fact that it is actually not correct to speak of “the” religion “of the” Germans. Because here we are talking about beliefs that have been cultivated over many centuries and by different tribes, some of which live far away from each other. In contrast to Christianity, for example, there were no written religious texts; the entire tradition was thus exclusively oral. This means that the beliefs of the Germanic tribes were subject to both spatial and temporal changes, and it is therefore not possible to speak of a single, uniform religion.
Another problem is the sparsity of archaeological finds, which can be clearly assigned to the religious area and also be interpreted in the context of our further knowledge. For example, there is no doubt that there were Germanic temples. So far, however, only a very few finds have been made that clearly indicate such.
However, some of what has been unearthed during excavations most likely testifies to the religious customs of Germanic tribes. For example, sacrificial offerings such as weapons or animals have been discovered in rivers and moors, as well as metal figures, which are probably images of gods, and other cult objects, such as vessels. The presence of grave goods always indicates that it is a pagan grave. Rich dead people in Scandinavia were sometimes buried with their ship, or stones were used to form the shape of a ship over the grave. Also bracteates, metal discs stamped on one side, which are often provided with runic inscriptions or images from mythology, provide important information for today’s research.
But there is one difficulty with all these finds: their mythological interpretation. Because a metal figure cannot be assigned to a specific god without other background knowledge, a ship grave could symbolize the belief that the deceased needed the ship for the journey after his death, but it could also just be a representation of social status. And how a cult object was used cannot be deduced from archaeological sources – written sources are required here.
Written Sources
With the exception of the runic inscriptions, which are often difficult to interpret, the pre-Christian Germanic tribes left no written evidence. Only with the introduction of Christianity did the Latin book culture come to them and thus the possibility of recording more extensive texts.
The most important surviving source on Germanic mythology is the so-called Prose Edda or Younger Edda by Snorri Sturluson . Snorri, who lived in Iceland from 1197 to 1241, came from the most powerful local family. He was a scholar and politician, and served as law speaker on several occasions. His Snorra Edda, created around 1220, is actually a textbook for prospective skalds and consists of three parts: In the first part, Snorri provides a comprehensive account of Old Norse mythology. The second deals with the so-called Kenningar, in the skaldic poetry and also in the Edda frequently occurring paraphrases for expressions that only a connoisseur of mythology can understand. So this part is also interesting from a mythological point of view. In the last section of his work, Snorri explains the complicated meter of skaldic poetry using more than 100 different stanzas. However, since Iceland had already been Christian for 200 years at that time, it should not be forgotten that the Snorra Edda is by no means a contemporary testimony of pagan culture, but a textbook from the 13th century.
In addition to the Prose Edda, there is also the so-called Older or Song Edda, which has long been incorrectly attributed to the Icelandic scholar Sæmundr (1056-1133). This so-called “Codex regius” (it has been in the Royal Library in Copenhagen since 1662 and was returned to Iceland in 1971) contains more than 30 poems and song fragments, some of which probably date back to the Viking Age. In terms of content, the Nordic world of gods is described and the deeds of great kings and heroes are reported. However, this body of text also includes some poems that are not contained in the Codex regius but have been handed down in other manuscripts, such as “Baldrs draumar” or “Rígsþula”. According to current knowledge, the Codex regius was only written down in the second half of the 13th century and not, as originally assumed, before the Snorra Edda.
Only a few contemporary written sources have survived from the Viking Age itself. One of them was written by Adam of Bremen, a cleric who described, among other things, a pagan temple in Uppsala around 1076. This was adorned with an enormous amount of gold and to the gods Odin , Thor dedicated and Freyr. Depending on the occasion, sacrifices were made to the responsible god, for example Odin, in order to achieve good fortune in war. Adam also describes a great festival of sacrifice that was reported to him. Numerous animals and also people were said to have been slaughtered and hung in the trees near the temple; in addition, obscene songs were sung.
Another clergyman whose work provides information about pre-Christian mythology was the Danish scholar Saxo Grammaticus (ca. 1150-1220). He wrote a sixteen-volume history of Denmark (the “Gesta Danorum”) in Latin. His work even contains some sagas of gods and heroes that have not been handed down anywhere else. But Saxo was very free with the sources available to him and embellished them imaginatively; Translation errors probably also caused the original meaning to be lost.
The oldest written report on the Germanic religion comes from the Roman scholar Tacitus (ca. 55-117 AD). In his “Annales”, “Historiae” and “De origine et situ Germanorum” he also processed older reports, especially from Caesar and Pliny, which gives information about the life of the Germanic peoples at the beginning of the Christian era. Tacitus does not provide a main description of the religious customs of the Germanic peoples, but mentions some interesting details, for example about cultic activities and the worship of sacred groves.
From romance to today
Since the Romantic period (around 1800 to 1830), Germany has been increasingly concerned with pagan mythology, which was, among other things, a return to its own history as a reaction to the hated Napoleonic foreign rule. Attempts were made to process the “mystical” in painting, music and poetry.
Also worth mentioning is the work of the Brothers Grimm, whose collection of fairy tales should be familiar to everyone. Jakob Grimm also founded the academic study of Germanic religious history by publishing his book “Deutsche Mythologie” in 1835.
Most famous, however, was the Nibelungen saga, the material of which has been artistically processed several times since 1780 and finally became unexpectedly popular through Richard Wagner’s “Ring des Nibelungen”. However, Wagner interpreted the mythology in a very idiosyncratic way and changed the main features of the Siegfried saga, for example by introducing Wotan (Odin). Even today, Wagner’s versions of the Nibelungen saga are more present in the public consciousness than the medieval texts to which he drew. During the National Socialist period, Wagner’s works were greatly admired.
Hitler himself not only dealt with Wagner’s operas, but also read the so-called “Ostara” booklets (Ostara was probably a Germanic goddess of spring), which Adolf Josef Lanz (who also called himself “Lanz von Liebenfels”) had published since 1905 and wanted to convey the results of racial studies to their readers. Also popular was the theory that the “Nordic race” came from the legendary island of Thule, which – comparable to Atlantis – had sunk into the sea.
Alfred Rosenberg, the main ideologue of the NSDAP, also held such views. Research into Germanic religious history was strongly promoted under National Socialism and made accessible to the public through numerous publications.
With the collapse of the Third Reich, this area of research became a certain taboo, some of which continues to this day – repeatedly reinforced by the conspicuous “cult” of today’s neo-Nazis. For example, you can order t-shirts with the inscription “Odin instead of Jesus” or “Walhalla” from “Patria-Versand”.
The growing number of those who call themselves “pagans” today and are increasingly concerned with past religions also does little to break down prejudices. Because although many are certainly seriously dealing with the topic, there still seem to be more people who primarily use “paganism” as an excuse to spread their racist views or who want to earn a lot of money with dubious offers in the esoteric field.
Most people today know very little about the pre-Christian concept of gods and the heroic sagas. In school, these topics are usually not dealt with, or only very briefly. There seems to have been an increased interest in this in recent years, and this among people who are far removed from any suspicion of ideology or esotericism and who want to deal impartially with Germanic religious history and mythology.
These pages are intended to help facilitate and stimulate dealing with these topics.
