Massacre of Verden - Legacy

Legacy

Historian Alessandro Barbero says that, regarding Charlemagne, the massacre "produced perhaps the greatest stain on his reputation". In his survey on scholarship regarding Charlemagne, Barbero comments on attempts at exonerating Charlemagne and his forces from the massacre:

Several historians have attempted to lessen Charles's responsibility for the massacre, by stressing that until a few months earlier the king thought he had pacified the country, the Saxons nobles had sworn allegiance, and many of them had been appointed counts. Thus the rebellion constituted an act of treason punishable by death, the same penalty that the extremely harsh Saxon law imposed with great facility, even for the most insignificant of crimes. Others have attempted to twist the accounts provided by sources, arguing that the Saxons were killed in battle and not massacred in cold blood, or even that the verb decollare (to decapitate) was a copyist's error in place of delocare (to relocate), so the prisoners were deported. None of these attempts has proved credible.

Barbero comments that the incident would be little more than a footnote in scholarship were it not for controversy in German circles due to Nationalistic sentiment during World War II in Germany. He concludes that "in reality, the most likely inspiration for the mass execution of Verden was the Bible", citing the biblical tale of the total extermination of the Amalekites and conquest of the Moabites by David (after the Moabites were defeated, two out of three are recorded as having been stretched out and killed). Barbero says that, in turn, Charlemagne likely "wanted to act like a true King of Israel". Barbero further points out that a few years later, a royal chronicler, commenting on Charlemagne's treatment of the Saxons, records that "either they were defeated or subjected to the Christian religion or completely swept away."

In 1935, landscape architect Wilhelm Hübotter was commissioned to build the Sachsenhain (German "Grove of the Saxons") in Verden, a monument to commemorate the massacre consisting of 4,500 large stones. The monument was used as both a memorial to the event and employed as a meeting place for the Schutzstaffel.