Gottingen Goose Girl

/http://www.cs.pdx.edu/~harry/Photos-Europe-2004/photos-Pages/Image16.html

Back when Europe was truly Europa (beloved of Zeus and transmogrified to protect her from her jealous enemies), and universities were universities, and men were men were men were men (and they thought nothing of vicious, fratericidal war every generation), little traditions like this still flourished, amazingly enough, in the heart of the devestation: Germany.
Germany was annihilated multiple times in her existence.
Germany matured relatively unhampered during das Mittlealter, combining Tuetonic barbarism secured at the Battle of Teutoburger Wald (the Prussian heathern) with Charlemagne's hallowed remains at Salzburg and the new city of Aix-la-Chappelle (Aachen where Alcuin taught) with Roman fringe civilization at the Lime forts (like Cologne). Then cam the Reformation.
The first phase was the Thirty Year's War, which depopulated Germany. Intermittent plague and famine helped, which was endured during the Middle Ages as well.

http://www.radio.cz/en/article/41652 (White Mountain, Battle of)
http://www.radio.cz/en/article/41652 (Thirty Years War)
They also managed to stave off the Turks, as well as participate in some Crusades. They were blessed with immunity during the Viking raids, but had had many last minute, leftover Dark Age migrations such as the Magyars.

Germany survived the Reformation as a welter of related, princely states, until the Reunification
under Bismarck, so long opposed by Richelieu's policy. Germany overnight became a juggernaut, a nascent threat that quickly united both England and France (longtime enemies) into staunch allies. Germany was the China of the early 1900s. Young, strong, and looking for more resources and land.

Ultimately, it ended rather poorly. There was no Golden Age of Europe. Europe had been at each others' throats for centuries, including the brutal Hundred Years War, culminating in the Napoleonic Chaos (everyone thought), only to relapse finally into the First and Second War to End all Wars.
With Germania Triumphant in Europe, it quickly became apparent that Medieval Europe and Augustine's City of God was (unltimately) an untenable idea. The wonderful dream of TS Eliot's Christian culture had ended at Verdun, Auschitz, and Stalingrad. The great experiment was over.
The successor to this experiment is America. We have yet to see if we shall succeed at outfoxing the devil where our ancestors succeeded. It is ours to do or to die, to roll the dice, and to endeavor to avoid the tragedy of Europe, ancient, medieval, and modern.
The tragedy of Europe is that she is more peaceful now in her degeneracy than in her glory.
The Angst of Germany can be traced mercilessly and ineluctably in her poetry. First comes Von Logau's "Authority can shut down all the churches, but never the church in a man's conscience." A very Lutheran position. Then comes Klopstock's "Does not God now keep silence, withholding His guidance? And can you alone, terrible silence, save us?" This is the Weimar Golden Age of Goethe, who is himself an exception to the rule of secularism opposing Faith. Until finally, you have the terrible prophecy of Georg Heym's Der Krieg (1911) - Aufgestanden ist er, welcher lange schlief... (He is uprisen, who has long slept...)
One could look long and hard to find a more modern and more perfectly tragic nation, as well as a more intelligent and Christian, than Germany and her twin Austria. Baron Ledhin blamed it on Luther at first, and then Protestant liberal democracy. But the fault lines go deeper than that. It is up to us to read the bones in order to steer America upon her maiden voyage.