First, let’s look at the effect of the relative balance of power (economic, military, cultural, etc) determines how one perceives history. We have an excellent example from the German approach to the “Origin of the Slavs” question.
Second, we will look (again) at how different assumptions about history translate into different interpretations of facts that might – absent such assumptions – have resulted in entirely new theories. Here the example of the Suavi-Slavi incongruity being ignored or molded to fit preexisting notions about the past will be of interest. Another example will have to do with the heavily politicized (strange, isn’t it!?) question of the ethnic nature of the Aesti.
Third, we will look at the final refuge of the scoundrels – the redefinition of the debate. Here we have an excellent example of linguistic prestidigitation when we ask the mainstream historians and archeologists to tell us what do they mean exactly by “Slavs”.
Fourth, we will ask about the implication of answers that differ from the ones that we are regularly being served up – both in the context of German self-perception and in the context, to come full circle, of today’s status of the “European project” – a project that the Germans (but also many others) hold near and dear – at whatever price.
This view of Germans and Slavs was picked up on by the Nazis (although whole heartedly only after it become clear that Poles and Czechs would not be drawn into a crusade against the Soviet Union). It was a view whose strongest expression, therefore, occurred in times of relative German strength. Put simply, whenever Germany was strong it could define history however it liked to and exclude others from its past just as it was actually excluding others from the present