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Frederick I Barbarossa was elected King of Germany at Frankfurt on 4 March 1152 and crowned in Aachen on 9 March 1152.

Frederick was born in 1122. In 1147 he became Duke of Swabia, and shortly afterwards made his first trip to the East, accompanied by his uncle, the German king Conrad III, on the Second Crusade. The expedition proved to be a disaster, but Frederick distinguished himself and won the complete confidence of the king. When Conrad died in February 1152, only Frederick and the prince-bishop of Bamberg were at his deathbed. Both asserted afterwards that Conrad had, in full possession of his mental powers, handed the royal insignia to Frederick and indicated that Frederick, rather than Conrad's own six-year-old son, the future Frederick IV, Duke of Swabia, succeed him as king. Frederick energetically pursued the crown and at Frankfurt on 4 March 1152 the kingdom's princely electors designated him as the next German king. He was crowned King of the Romans at Aachen several days later, on 9 March 1152. Frederick I was of the Hohenstaufen family on his father's side and of the Welf family on his mother's side. These were the two most powerful families in Germany. The Hohenstaufens were often called Ghibellines, which derives from the Italianized name for the Weibling castle, the family seat in Swabia. The Welfs, in a similar Italianization, were called Guelfs.

The reigns of Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor and Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor left the status of the German empire in disarray. Power had waned under the weight of the Investiture controversy. For a quarter of a century following Henry V's death in 1125 the German monarchy was largely a nominal title with no real power. The king was chosen by the princes, given no resources outside those of his own duchy, and prevented from exercising any real authority or leadership in the realm. The royal title was furthermore passed from one family to another to preclude the development of any dynastic interest in the German crown. When Frederick I of Hohenstaufen was chosen as king in 1152, the royal power had been in effective abeyance for twenty-five years, and to a considerable degree, for more than eighty years. The only real claim to wealth lay in the rich cities of northern Italy, which were still within the nominal control of the German king. The Salian line had died out with the death of Henry V in 1125. The German princes refused to give the crown to his nephew, the duke of Swabia, for fear he would try to regain the imperial power held by Henry V. Instead, they chose Lothair III (1125–1137), who found himself embroiled in a long-running dispute with the Hohenstaufens, and who married into the Welfs. One of the Hohenstaufens gained the throne as Conrad III of Germany (1137–1152). When Frederick Barbarossa succeeded his uncle in 1152, there seemed to be excellent prospects for ending the feud, since he was a Welf on his mother's side. But the Welf duke of Saxony, Henry the Lion, would not be appeased. He remained an implacable enemy of the Hohenstaufen monarchy. Barbarossa had the duchies of Swabia and Franconia, the force of his own personality, and very little else to construct an empire.

The Germany that Frederick tried to unite was a patchwork of more than 1600 individual states, each with its own prince. Few of these, such as Bavaria and Saxony, were large. Many were too small to pinpoint on a map. The titles afforded to the German king were "Caesar", "Augustus" and "Emperor of the Romans". By the time Frederick would assume these, they were little more than propaganda slogans with little other meaning. Frederick was a pragmatist who dealt with the princes by finding a mutual self-interest. Unlike Henry II of England, Frederick did not attempt to end medieval feudalism, but rather tried to restore it. But this was beyond his ability. The great players in the German civil war had been the Pope, Emperor, Ghibellines and the Guelfs. None of these had emerged the winner.