IIRC a lot (all?) of these come from the names of specific Germanic tribes that these languages had contact with back before Germany existed as a unified entity, which then metathesized into a demonym for the entire cultural group and then the nation state. “Saksa”, for example, is a doublet of “Saxon”.
IIRC a lot (all?) of these come from the names of specific Germanic tribes that these languages had contact with back before Germany existed as a unified entity, which then metathesized into a demonym for the entire cultural group and then the nation state. “Saksa”, for example, is a doublet of “Saxon”.