Massacre of Verden
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.
[5] He continues: "the most likely inspiration for the mass execution of Verden was the Bible", Charlemagne desiring "to act like a true King of Israel", citing the biblical tale of the total extermination of the Amalekites and the conquest of the Moabites by David.
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.
[6] The German historian Martin Lintzel argued that the figure of 4,500 was an exaggeration, partly based on the theory of Hans Delbrück regarding the small size of early medieval armies.
[10] He further argues that the Saxons were probably unable to mount another serious revolt for several years after Verden, since they had to wait for a new generation of young men to reach fighting age.
[13] The Capitulatio de partibus Saxoniae, a law code promulgated by Charlemagne, has traditionally been dated to 782–85, in response to Widukind's rebellion.
[14] More recently, Yitzhak Hen has suggested a later date (c. 795), based on the influence of Islamic theology of jihad through the Spaniard Theodulf of Orléans.
[15] Janet L. Nelson calls the massacre "exemplary legal vengeance for the deaths of [Charlemagne's ministers] and their men in the Süntel Hills".
According to her, even if the Frankish leaders at the Süntel were at fault for the disaster, as the Annales qui dicuntur Einhardi imply, Charlemagne as their lord, according to the standards of the time, owed them vengeance.
[17] According to Barbero, the incident would be little more than a footnote in scholarship were it not for controversy in German circles due to nationalistic sentiment before and during the Nazi era in Germany.
"[20] In 1935, landscape architect Wilhelm Hübotter was commissioned to build the Sachsenhain (German 'Grove of the Saxons') in Verden, a monument commemorating the massacre consisting of 4,500 large stones.
[22] In the same year the annual celebration of Charlemagne in Aachen, where he is buried, was cancelled and replaced by a lecture on "Karl the Great, Saxon Butcher.
The historian Ahasver von Brandt referred to it as the "official rehabilitation" (amtliche Rehabilitierung), although Goebbels acknowledged in private that many people were confused by the about-face of National Socialism.
A Sicherheitsdienst report of 9 April 1942 noted that: There were many voices to be heard saying that only a few years ago one had counted as an unreliable National Socialist had one left Karl der Große with so much as a single unblemished feature and not spoken also in tones of loathing of the "slaughterer of Saxons" and "pope's and bishops' lacky".
