Too general and rambling.

Why invite guests on the show if you’re going to constantly interrupt them. It’s maddening.

The male host constantly interrupts the female host mid-sentence. Why have her as a host if you’re just going to trample her? I would love to hear this guy shut up long enough for her to get a full thought out.

I have listened to the first 14 episodes and I love it. Each episode goes into some depth and inspires me to look for further reading. One small quibble: when a word ( usually a place name, tribe name or person’s name, is likely to be unfamiliar to the listener, it would be helpful to hear it spelled out.

I’m loving this show so far.

I love this guys style. Just cruises through, with some good enthusiasm. It’s fun to listen too!

As a former school teacher and a bilingual American I found the casual yet academically strong and intellectually stimulating format a good blend as a listener. Travis is unassuming about his talent as a podcaster and engaging as he shares with his podcast listeners the history of places and subjects dear to him. I recommend it.

Used to post once a month but no signs of life for about 8 months.

The enthusiasm is nice a d it’s an interesting subject. Unfortunately, the quality isn’t very good. The dialogue is unscripted and this is really a problem. The presenter is not very objective and seems to have a clear German bias. Worse, the show is plagued with inaccuracies and misleading statements.

After a few minutes of banter with guests or rambling if alone he gets to the topic. This plays like a guy (or 2) discussing his/their favorite topic on the patio. Woven in with the unscripted (presumed) discussion is a lot of interesting stuff. The occasional crude language keeps it from being family friendly. With some editing and focus this could be a great podcast.

Although never a really focused, polished history podcast, it started out okay and could even be quite enjoyable. Travis tends to ramble a bit and to often repeat himself, though. And when he doesn’t remember a detail, he guesses, says “whatever,” and moves on. In several instances, after listening to an episode I’d visit Wikipedia to learn more about a topic, only to read the same thing I’d heard on the podcast. Later on, after Judith joined the show, there was no attempt to disguise that she was just reading the Wikipedia article in German and translating on the fly. It’s really the introduction of Judith that drove the show into the ground. Not that I have anything personally against her, although her heavy German accent and mispronunciation of common English words don’t help. Travis doesn’t seem to correct her off mic, so she makes the same mistakes show after show. But having two people doing the podcast like they do simply ruins the flow of the narrative. Listening used to be like having a buddy tell you everything he knows about Charles the Great or some other topic, but now it’s just listening to Travis and Judith taking turns reading their notes or Wikipedia articles to each other, and with the starts and stops, the jokes and side comments, and trying to understand Judith, by the time the show’s over I hardly remember what it was about.

I was enjoying the series until you started using foul language curse words and things like that period I do not expect to find that in an academic podcasts , especially the GD words and other such nonsense, which should be saved for the bar room!

Really interesting and compelling, but the narrator tends to go off on tangents that can make it hard to follow. Would have gone 4 stars, but he mentioned the game crusader kings 2 on one of the tangents so i had to bump it.

This is your stop for a long form podcast on Deutschland.

I would really love to find a history of Germany podcast in the same vein as History or Rome or England, but this is not it. Neither in the sense of mastery of the subject matter or talent for telling a story. The dropping in of American-accented German pronunciation of Germanic words during the podcast is like fingernails on a chalkboard for me. My advice would be to concentrate on one podcast, and do it well, rather than making half-efforts with a number of them. The author never misses an opportunity to remind us that he is doing the podcast in two languages, and my question is: why make it so unnecessarily hard on yourself?

I'm giving up. Such an interesting subject, such a missed opportunity. Travis uses so many pet words all the time that are annoying to listen to and the whole approach to every topic sounds very superficial.

Excellent detail across a broad spectrum of the history of Germany.

Good podcast with a lot of good information and when he sticks to the facts and stories start to come together the podcast is really enjoyable, but the host’s tendency to ramble and the sound quality are frustrating to say the least and tend to rip the listener out of the story of the lesson. When the polish is applied to this podcast and the small tendencies that prevent it from being a top podcast I will be impressed and pleased. Otherwise, very informative.

Not only does this clown play loose and fast with facts (“whatever, don’t sue me”), he excuses Luther’s murderous and devastatingly destructive anti-Semitism as a simple character flaw. Only his pronounced anti-catholic bias is more palpable than his mealymouthed hero worship of Luther. He seems to be unaware that Germany is substantially Roman Catholic (split more or equally between Protestants and Catholics.) But worse than all that is his sloppy disregard to accuracy and facts. C’mon man, get serious!

Travis makes the history of Germany before the 20th century super accessible and fun for English speakers. I also like how he describes some of his own experiences growing up in Bavaria. Looking forward to more episodes of later medieval Germany!

I love Travis's calm delivery and find the medieval and pre-medieval content fascinating. I also particularly like that Travis often makes note of other people's podcasts that cover related topics or that have full episodes on a topic that otherwise Travis would have spent more time on. As someone who listens to a lot of history podcasts, it's nice to think that we're building a body of knowledge.

I love the information on the podcast, the narrative thread can get lost sometimes in giving asides about why coverage is being presented in the order it is, but that does add the authentic feel of an academic conversation. Of all the podcastnik podcasts I think I’ve enjoyed and learned the most from this podcast.

I loved this podcast, loved the German history. I don’t have much to complain about until he brought in the lady (Judith), she stumbles all over her English words and feels disjointed. They don’t have good transitions together and makes it nearly unbearable to listen to. If they want to work together they need to plan better transitions and she needs to figure out words before they record so she’s not trying to figure it out during. 5 stars before she joined, 1 star since.

This is a well-made, engaging and well-researched podcast. I really appreciate the episode on East Germany as an introduction for Americans. I hope you do more episodes on this topic. Just started listening to the episode on Antisemitism and I am learning a lot.

I honestly didn't mind Travis' rambling style in the beginning. I listen to podcasts while I'm doing things like cleaning, exercising, driving, etc. I'm not looking for a college degree in German history. I appreciate whatever German history information I can get on a topic other than WW2 and you can definitely tell Travis is passionate about this topic and enjoys it. If there are things in the podcast he doesnt cover, then I can go look it up. I don't need anything exhaustive. The sound quality is good. However, once the lady was added, I was hoping this was a one-time or occasional thing. For some reason, something that was somewhat disjointed has only gotten worse. Switching back and forth between the two narrators hasn't helped. There is a lot of repetition of the same information and way too many "yeah's" followed by awkward silence. What was once enjoyable has turned annoying and all I can remember from the pocasts now are the pauses, "yeah", and the mispronounced English words. Go back to the old format and use guest speakers occasionally, not just because they have a German accent. Then just ignore the haters about the rambling style, it was ok.

The German lady is fine, the poor english speaking guy is “like yea no yea i don't know maybe”...sounds very unsure and unprepared...

Dove into this today, starting with the first podcast from 2014 and am currently binge listenting. It's apparent the podcaster is fluent in both languages and has knowledge of the German culture, giving him credibility and authority. Looking forward to many more and have also tuned in to his other German podcasts and recommendations. Summer can come, I'm ready and have my podcasts lined up. a Vielen Dank für diesen genialen Podcast, es wird ein interessanter Sommer!

I came to this via Travis’ other shows and I really like it! German history is one of my favorite histories! It’s great to hear the early tales and then the progress to where the podcast currently sits. Worth a listen! Don’t know how Travis makes all these happen.

His enthusiasm and obvious intelligence (not necessarily on this subject) are the only reasons I'm not rating 1 star... as of episode #17 I've given it all I can and have to call it quits. Travis' description of the Swabians was maybe the most frustrating podcast segment I've ever gone through. His disorganization, free-associatiated descriptions around vaguely established subjects, often imperceptable transitions... feels like he's working out of a blender full of post-it notes. I've hoped it would get better, he'd better organize as the written history became more prevalent, but no he's getting worse as of #s 16-17. My advice is to save your time, find something else. A bit dissapointed, I was hoping to learn more in a comprehensive pre-20th century German podcast.

I do not like how he presents the history. Not as good of a history story as other pod casters. Just says he will talk about stuff later and seems to procrastinate about talking about stuff and then doesn't really get back to explaining it. He has a very good subject with the German history and could be done better

More than just hitler lol

Love learning about German history without it only pertaining to WW2. Germany has such a rich history and I’m glad Travis is bringing all of that to us!

Just found this and am starting from the beginning to listen to and learn.

thank you very much - been listenig in german and english - thanks

Good podcast subject but disorganized presentation,too much skipping around,hurriedly read. Has the host ever heard of editing or second takes?? After waiting six months without a new episode I have given up and am unsubscribing. If he doesn't have time to put out an episode in six months, I don't have time to continue following this podcast.

Started out strong, but gets scattered about 25 episodes in. He says he is working from a script, but the dietracted flow makes me doubt this. Return to the morre polished manner of the earlier episodes PLEASE!

It's great!!!!

The presenter has so many chops in his readback, it is a bit of a struggle to listen to. I enjoy the information, but the stammering is distracting. There are so many ya knows, sort-os, ums, that it makes it almost un-listenable. Perhaps it gets smoother later on, but I'm having trouble getting through enough episodes to find out. I almost wonder if he should write the copy and have someone else read it.

Really good podcast. Good speaker etc

Travis does an excellent job, I listen on bike rides and numerous errands. Thanks Travis! Will be traveling this summer to Neukirchen (Bayern) to live with my Aunt Helga and am fervently trying to finish.

I'm really enjoying this one!

I made it through 30 episodes of this podcast and I finally quit. I just got tired over hearing Travis say "who knows?" about a topic, when what he really meant was "I didn't adequately research this, but decided to shoot from the hip and record this episode anyway." He is obviously a very intelligent guy, but it feels like he's an A+ brain putting in a C- effort on this podcast.

I have listened and listened, but I cannot continue on. His train of consciousness way of presenting the subject loses much in translation. Too many times he will stop and say that he is not going to spend time on something, only to chase a rabbit around the Black Forest for no reason. It's sad. I really wanted to learn something of German history, but I feel I know no more than I did at the end of The History of Rome, or high school World History class.

There are few things in this world more complicated than German history, especially for people used to histories based on relatively clear "national" definitions. "Germany" is a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, and multi-national entity for the vast majority of it history. And it's often very difficult to figure it out. Travis Dow explains it _very_ well. This podcast is essential listening for those interested in European history, especially college students.

I'm enjoying the detail on this podcast. I have a background in German Literature so I'm familiar with some of the names and concepts, but since this author went to school in Germany he can provide the context to names and stories that every German knows but that foreigners don't. Appreciate his efforts to outline how the various groups viewed themselves (as Franks, Saxons, Germans, Romans, etc.). Sometimes long winded with digressions, I listen to it on Saturdays while doing yard work and it is growing on me.

Travis jumps around a bit, but he presents very good information in this podcast. Can't wait to get more.

Very refreshing to see the "dark ages" in a different light. It appears that what made this period gloomy is not the lack of innovation and progress, but rather the sunglasses we wore when looking at it. Thank you Travis for helping us remove our shades. I can barely await the epidodes on the Staufers. Keep it coming, Travis!

An intelligent and conversational exploration of German history. My new addiction.

Travis is seriously one of the smartest people I have heard. And one of the hardest working. You should check out all of his many endeavours.

I like all his podcasts, but after 2 years I don't understand how this podcast hasn't become more polished. The podcast has no direction. It's like it's being made up on the fly. Still hoping and waiting