As neighbors since the ninth century, the German and Czech inhabitants of the Austrian and Bohemian Lands have experienced substantial political, economic, social, and cultural changes. In the Holy Roman Empire, Premyslides, Babenbergs, Habsburgs, and Luxembourgs founded abbeys and towns and promoted settlement based on German law. In 1526, Ferdinand I began common Habsburg rule. Under his successors, confessional conflict erupted in the Thirty Years'...