The guy was not only illiterate, but also brutal and ruthless: In his insatiable hunger for power, Charlemagne did not shrink from removing even the closest family members;
He is said to have blinded and mutilated competitors.
Nevertheless, NRW Prime Minister Armin Laschet (CDU) admires the most powerful emperor of the Middle Ages, a golden bust adorns his office in the Düsseldorf State Chancellery.
No wonder: Karl may have been an uneducated barbarian, but he had the brightest advisors, promoted science and culture and was already considered the "father of Europe" during his lifetime.
In addition, the emperor liked to stay in Aachen, where he died in 814 - exactly 1,147 years before Armin Laschet saw the light of day there.
Are the two related to each other?
The Laschet family see themselves "in all seriousness in direct descent from the great emperor", write the biographers of the politician in the new Laschet biography "Der Machtmenschliche" - and thus caused a stir.
In all seriousness?
Not really, says the politician's younger brother, Patrick Laschet, on the phone.
He researched the relationship and published it on his private website.
The Vodafone employee has traced back over 40 generations, created family trees and created detailed lists of ancestry.
A ten-year-old project that was started more for fun, says Patrick Laschet.
Nevertheless, we took him seriously and asked ourselves: could a relationship between the candidate for chancellor and the emperor be theoretically proven?
Genealogist Manuel Aicher knows the answer.
SPIEGEL:
Aren't we all somewhat related to Charlemagne?
Manuel Aicher:
The probability is of course given (laughs).
But proving it is complicated.
To person
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Manuel Aicher,
born in 1960, is a trained lawyer and head of the Swiss Central Office for Genealogy.
He has two offices for heir tracing and family history research in Berlin and Zurich.
The Zurich resident is the son of the designer Otl Aicher and the writer Inge Aicher-Scholl as well as the nephew of the resistance fighters Sophie and Hans Scholl.
SPIEGEL:
Why?
Aicher:
In Germany you can usually easily reconstruct the family relationships for the broader population up to the 17th century, based on the church records.
They contain entries on all persons, regardless of whether they are noble or not.
For the time before, however, it will be difficult: In the sources, above all people are mentioned by name who attracted particular attention - whether positive or negative.
And of course the nobles.
The following rule of thumb applies here: the higher the nobility, the further back you get.
In this respect, the entire European nobility can refer to Charlemagne.
SPIEGEL:
Are there any studies on the descendants of Charlemagne?
Aicher:
That has been researched relatively precisely, the medieval genealogy is quite extensive and on the whole reliable.
But, as I said, it only covers the nobility.
SPIEGEL:
Charlemagne belonged to the high nobility, Armin Laschet comes from a middle-class household.
Then the two can't be related, can they?
Aicher:
Yes, theoretically yes.
The problem is to find this interface, the transition between the nobility and the common people.
Illegitimate children in the family increase the chance.
SPIEGEL:
I beg your pardon?
Aicher:
Adel marries Adel, that's the way it was.
But that can go downhill gradually and over generations: the duke's daughter marries a count, his daughter a baron, his daughter a man from the simple nobility - and his daughter a rich townspeople.
In the case of illegitimate children, the bridge to the common people is built much faster.
Take the Duke of Württemberg, who fathered several children with maids, it is well known.
If you are descended from someone like that and can prove it, you have your foot in the door - then that goes up to Charlemagne without any problems.
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Title: The Power Human: Armin Laschet.
The biography
Editor: Klartext
Number of pages: 384
Author: Tobias Blasius, Moritz Küpper
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SPIEGEL:
The younger brother of Armin Laschet, Patrick, traced back 40 generations in order to understand the relationships over 1200 years.
Are you convinced by his listing?
Aicher: It
would take me a long time to check this in detail, it will be expensive.
But on the homepage he himself writes with a twinkle in his eye: "As a native of Öcher (Aachen) one would naturally like to descend from Charlemagne".
Because it's just nice: everyone likes to be related to Charlemagne.
SPIEGEL:
A prominent ancestry also legitimizes one's own rule.
A popular argumentation pattern in history: Julius Caesar appealed to the divine Venus, Saddam Hussein to the Babylonian ruler Nebuchadnezzar.
Aicher:
Of course, something like that radiates and gives shine.
But whoever was born around 1200 years after Charlemagne does not really have much of it in their gene pool, even if they are related.
Still, it's chic and there's an interest in docking there.
In Switzerland, for example, many actually descend from the mystic Nikolaus von der Flüe, who lived in the 15th century.
He fathered ten children and then left his wife to become a hermit.
SPIEGEL:
How did you get into genealogy as a trained lawyer?
Aicher:
I've been dealing with it since I was 14 years old.
This tinkering and combining has always attracted me a lot.
Others are passionate about puzzles.
SPIEGEL:
You head two offices for heir tracing and family history research in Berlin and Zurich.
Who comes to you
Aicher:
On the one hand, of course, people who want to enforce legal claims to an inheritance.
And then there are many who simply want to know where they come from.
SPIEGEL:
While genealogy tends to eke out a niche existence as a historical auxiliary science at the university, genealogy has become a popular hobby among laypeople.
Do you have an explanation for this?
Aicher:
The Internet makes it easier for laypeople to do research.
In addition, interest in one's own identity has increased.
In the United States, Alex Haley's novel "Roots", published in 1976, triggered an incredible genealogy boom.
In Europe, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, many people's need to explore their own roots has increased significantly.
SPIEGEL:
Why?
Aicher:
During the Cold War, the situation was clear - communism versus capitalism, good versus evil, black versus white.
This polarization had an enormous identity-creating effect.
When it fell away, people began to ask themselves individually: Where am I from?
That continues to this day.
SPIEGEL:
Finally - your most exciting case so far?
Aicher:
In the area of heirs, it was Nina Kandinsky, the childless widow of the famous painter Wassily Kandinsky.
She was strangled in her chalet in Gstaad in 1980 at the age of 84 and left a fortune of around 20 million francs.
I was part of a consortium of investigators who did research around the world.
Nina Kandinsky was a French citizen and came from a relatively low Russian nobility, we couldn't find her brother.
We found heirs in the maternal line, since many Russian aristocratic families had emigrated to Paris after 1917.
On the father's side, we came across people who pretended to be related - but we couldn't prove them.
The paternal inheritance fell to the French state.
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