The Nazis were of course socialists first in the authoritarian (as if there's any other) sense. Their view of history was flawed like everything else, preferring to rewrite history rather than acknowledge it. As I understand, the Celts and Saxons came first, overwhelming the indigenous Europeans due to their advancements in iron working, agriculture, as well as physical size. Sort of like what happened in America but much earlier, since Europe wasn't separated by a couple thousand miles of ocean.
Much later came the Huns, Goths, Lombards, Vandals, Slavs, all wanting to get away from wherever they were, to somewhere better. Sort of like what's happening now in America. Not overwhelming them with technology, but with numbers.
As I understand, the Celts and Saxons came first....Much later came the Huns, Goths, Lombards, Vandals, SlavsThat's incorrect
- Saxons (or rather the group before Saxons), Vandals, lombards and Goths were all Germanic people. They separated from each other only around 100 AD -- even as late as 500 AD their languages were mutually intelligible and they were essentially different clans or groupings of tribes/clans in the same nation
- Saxons appear only around 300 AD. Prior to this, you can find out about the different germanic tribes in the various tribal groups like the Allemannia, Suebian etc. groups -- the Saxons were a group of different Germanic tribes that used the Saxe (scyth like weapon)
- Huns were not Indo-European by language or by "race" - they were Xiongnu (at least when they started moving out of Mongolia around the time of Christ
Into Europe you have three main "migrations" of homo homo sapiens:
- "Ancient Europeans" or hunter-gatherers that were widely distributed but had largest numbers (in the thousands) in Spain and to some extent Greece (Pelasgians) - Italy was not heavily populated until after 1100 due to volcanic activity)
- Middle Eastern farmers who came around 3000 BC with the domestication of wheat/barley and sheep/pigs/goats
- Indo-europeans starting around 2000 BC
The different Indo-European people who migrated spoke proto-IE and were the same ethnicity/race/nation.
proto-Celts developed in the Panonian valley at the same time as Proto-Germans developed in the Denmark-Scandia region, proto-Balto-Slavs in the Pripet marshes, Illyrians in the Albanian mountains into north-eastern Italy, proto-Greeks in the Greek valleys and also Indo-Iranians in what is now Central Asia. This was about 2000
Around 2000 BC you have a group of Indian Indo-Europeans go through the southern coastline of Iran into Sumeria, setting up the short-lived Gutian empire before they move to the north-west and set up the Mittani and hittite confederations (both of these worship Vedic gods like Varuna,indra, Agnis)
At 900 BC you have
- Greeks (Ionians) in Greece and Western Anatolia
- remnants of the Hittites: Phyrgians, Lydians (like Croesus) etc. in what is now Turkey
- Illyrians in Yugoslavia-Albania-ne italy
- Italic tribes in Italy
- Celts in southern Germany and north-eastern france
- Germanics (ancestors of Saxons, Suebians, Nordics, Danes, Vikings, Vandals, Goths, Lombards, Burgundians) in Scandia
- Baltics in the foggy lands of the Baltics
- Slavs in the Pripet marshes
- Tocharians in Xingjian/East turkestan/uighuristan Tarim basin
- Iranians (ancestors of Medes, Persians etc.) in north-east Iran
- indic groups in northern India
all of these people even as late as 900 BC have langauges that are somewhat mutually intelligible (as you can see comparing Sanskrit, Avestani, Old Greek, Old Armenian, SAmnite) and have similar Vedic gods (two "families" of Gods, a god fo Thunder indra/Inder/perun/Thor and Dyaus Pitar (Sky father) / Jupiter / Zeus etc. They have similar culture
But things change by 300 BC - by this time the Greeks have merged with Iranians with Anatolians, with Illyrians and the Celts invaded Italy, spain (forming Celtiberians) and Anatolia. The language branches were solidifed by 500 BC but now get merged
The Germanics only start ("start") to differentiate around the time of Christ and this isn't solidified until 500 AD due to Christianization
Ditto for the Slavs who only really separated around 800 AD into southern Slavs and western-eastern Slavs, thanks to the Magyar creating a separating "band" between them. The East Slavs as we see haven't separated well now. And they themselves separated from teh West Slavs only around the 11th century
As to the "Age of migrations" - they were majority about different Indo-European groups.
But to really see this in the wider picture:
- Go back to 500 BC:
- Iranian (Persians, but also Medes, Mazdani etc.) conquer various Anatolian peoples (Lydians, Phyrgians etc.) - the Anatolians are IE too. The Iranians are spread from iran to the borders of what are now Kazakhstan, Sindh and Punjab
- The IE Persians also try to conquer the IE Greeks - the do conquer the Macedonians who are a mix of Greeks and another IE people, the Thracians/Dacians
- c 300 BC The IE Greeks invade the IE Persians
- Celtic peoples move towards the south in large bands of people - probably overpopulation as they move to a more agricultural lifestyle. So Celts in norhtern Italy (Cisalpine Gaul), Brenner and his Gauls sack Rome, and
- Celts invade Anatolia, fight the Greek (rather macedonian) overlords ruling over the Anatolian people (so that's 3 different IE groups :)
- Not Indo-european but critical, around 200 BC to 100 BC, the Han Dynasty in China defeat the Xiongnu, proto-mongolic, proto-Turkic people and push them to the north-west
- 60 BC to 10 AD - the IE Latins conquer the IE Greeks, Illyrians, Celts, Anatolians etc.
- 200 to 500 BC - the IE Germanics invade the Italics, Celts (NOTE: the Germanics had invaded the Celts earlier around 100 BC but were pushed back by the Belgae, Germanized Celts and later by the Romans), Greeks
- the first of the terrors from the east arrive around 400 AD - the Huns arrive in the pannonian basin, they are warrior rulers and have proto-Germanics, proto-Slavs and proto-turkics in their armies. They make a loud bang and then disappear decades later
- Their subject peoples, the Goths and Vandals then trouble the Roman Empire, setting up kingdoms inside the Empire
- Later in 600 AD the Avars and Bulgars, both proto-Turkic people come in as warrior elite and conquer and take Slavic peoples on their conquering journeys. The Bulgars and Avars are assimilated by the IE Slavs
- 800 AD the Magyar come - these are an Asian people who conquer Slavs in teh pannonian basin (earlier Great moravia) and impose their language -- modern day hungarians have little Magyar blood but a lot of Slavic, Germanic etc. blood
So, it's a wild ride and the fact is that people all over eurasia mixed -- we find continuous interaction between peoples from India to Ireland and including North Africa and the horn of Africa - they exchanged genes, religions, cultures, languages etc. which is why the Ethiopians and Somalis and Arabs and Jews and Berbers all speak branches fo the same lagnauge family and have genetic markers similar to each other.