I would be content if "German" and its derivatives were banished from all but linguistic discourse on this subject. - Walter Goffart

My central concern in the present book is... to liberate barbarian history from the German nationalism that has suffused it ever since the sixteenth century and, in whatever disguises, continues to do so today.

The prehistoric Germans never existed... they are an illusion of misguided scholars. The nonexistence of ancient Germans is perhaps the most important thing one can say about the barbarians of late antiquity... The "Germanic world" is a damaging modern invention and usage that badly needs to be abandoned.

Germanic collectivity exists in linguistics but never existed anywhere else... [A]n "early Germanic world"... had no existence anywhere until it took form in the minds of scholars in sixteenth-century Europe and was thoughtlessly espoused by everyone else.