Hello there!

I just recently moved to Düsseldorf and would like to better understand the history of Germany starting around 500CE onwards. I know it's expansive and I'm asking a very broad question, but I have an audible subscription and would like to understand more of my new (hopefully permanent) home. As my new home is Düsseldorf, any novels that even briefly cover the Battle of Worringen would be huge bonuses.

I'm not too particularly eager to learn about WW2 - I think it's a dick move to move here and then study the Nazis. That being said, I would be interested in understanding the liberation of Düsseldorf better, as it looks to have been seized and surrendered by the resistance on the eve of a large bombing run with a lot of twists along the way. Besides that, more Feudal era upto the transition into the industrial era is what I'm looking for.

Please feel free to suggest books that only cover a brief timeline of that if you find it to be particularly engaging, important to the forming of Germany as we know today, or a story stranger than fiction. Maybe something on Otto von Bismarck? Overarching book on the impact of the Reformation across the country? Podcasts also welcome (so long as it's in English).