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Bundesrepublik Deutschland

Flag of Germany Germany: Coat of Arms (In Detail)
National motto: Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit (German: Unity and Justice and Freedom)
Official language	German
Capital	Berlin
Largest City	Berlin
Chancellor	Gerhard Schröder
President	Horst Köhler
Area - Total - % water	Ranked 61st 349,223 km² 2.416%
Population - Total (2004) - Density	Ranked 13th 82,531,700 242/km²
Formation Unification	Treaty of Verdun (843) January 18 1871 May 23 1949 October 3 1990
GDP - Total (2003) - GDP/capita	Ranked 3rd $2.271 trillion $27,600
Currency	Euro (€)
Time zone - in summer	CET (UTC+1) CEST (UTC+2)
National anthem	Das Lied der Deutschen
Internet TLD	.de
Calling Code	+49
Danish, Low German, Sorbian, Romany and Frisian are officially recognized and protected as minority languages per the ECRML. Prior to 1999: Deutsche Mark.

The Federal Republic of Germany (German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland) is one of the world's leading industrialized countries, located in the heart of Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark and the Baltic Sea, to the east by Poland, and the Czech Republic, to the south by Austria and Switzerland, and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands.

The Federal Republic of Germany is a member state of the United Nations, NATO, the G8 nations and a founder member of the EEC, now the European Union.

History

Main article: History of Germany

Introduction

The German language and the feeling of "Germanhood" go back more than a thousand years, but the state now known as Germany was unified as a modern nation-state only in 1871, when the German Empire, dominated by the Kingdom of Prussia, was forged. This was the second German Reich, usually translated as "empire", but also meaning "realm".

Holy Roman Empire

The first Reich – known for much of its existence as the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation – stemmed from a division of the Carolingian Empire in 843, which was founded by Charlemagne on December 25th, 800, and existed in varying forms until 1806. During these almost thousand years, the Germans expanded their influence successfully with help of the organization of the Catholic Church, Northern Crusades and the Hanseatic League. In 1530, the attempt of Protestant Reformation of Catholicism turned out to have failed, and a separate Protestant church was acknowledged as new state religion in many states of Germany. This led to inter-German strife, the Thirty Years War (1618) and finally the Peace of Westphalia (1648), that resulted in a drastically enfeebled and politically disunited Germany, unable to resist the stroke of the Napoleonic Wars, during which the Reich was overrun and dissolved in 1806. After that, France was for long perceived as Germany's arch-enemy. In the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, Germany took revenge, but also during World War I, the invasion of France (1914) was a chief objective.

The lasting effect of the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire came to be the division between Austria, formerly the leading state of Germany, from the more western and northern parts. Between 1815 and 1871 Germany consisted of dozens of independent states, thirty-nine of which formed the German Confederation (Deutscher Bund).

German Empire

The second Reich, i.e. the German Empire, was proclaimed in Versailles on January 18th, 1871, after the French defeat. This was mainly the result of the efforts of Otto von Bismarck, Germany's most prominent statesman of the 19th century, among other things known for an anti-Catholic "Kulturkampf" and for fighting Socialists with social reforms.

The Second Reich ended with World War I, and Germany's emperor was forced to abdicate.

Weimar Republic

After a revolution the democratic Weimar Republic was established. Economic hardship due to both harsh peace conditions and the world wide Great Depression contributed to making the democracy unpopular: German voters increasingly supported anti-democratic parties, both right-wing and left-wing. In the two extraordinary elections of 1932, the anti-democratic Nazis got 37.2% in July and 33.0% in November. On 30 January 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany, and by the Enabling Act on 23 March 1933, a wide majority of the parliament effectively disbanded the constitution of the Weimar Republic.

Third Reich

The Third Reich was that of the National Socialists or "Nazis," which lasted 12 years, from 1933 to 1945. In 1934, Hitler affirmed total control of government, when he also succeeded the President of Germany. His policy of annexing neighbouring territories ultimately ignited World War II in Europe on September 1, 1939. Initially, the Third Reich had many military successes, and gained control over most of Europe's mainland. After attacking the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, which meant a two-front war for the Third Reich, the momentum in the war switched; a development which was reinforced by Hitler's declaration of war on the United States 11 December 1941. From 1941 to 1945 the Nazis and their accomplices systematically murdered six million Jews in the Holocaust and significant numbers of Sinti, Roma, homosexuals, political opponents, Roman-Catholics and mentally and otherwise disabled individuals. On 8 May, 1945, Germany surrendered after the Red Army had occupied Berlin where Hitler had committed suicide.

Division of Germany

The war resulted in large losses of territory; ethnic cleansing of 15 million Germans from what had been Eastern Germany; occupation and 45 years of division, during which the remaining parts of the country were split up into West Germany and East Germany. After the war, the Germans have tried to come to terms with the genocide committed in their name.

In 1949, during the Berlin Blockade, Western forces airlifted food and supplies into West Berlin, that now in the wake of the Cold War had become a Western exclave separated from Soviet-controlled East Berlin. The people of West Germany became increasingly pro-American, in part due to strong German anti-communism. The American Marshall Plan for the reconstruction of Europe after the War, and later the foundation of the European Union, contributed together with the generally supporting attitude of the occupation forces in West Germany.

The reconstructed West Germany once again became one of the world's major economies. Rule of law and democracy was restored, with human rights and international law in West Germany widely perceived as fundamental. East Germany, by contrast, became one of the most repressive of the socialist satellite states of the Warsaw Pact. The increasingly tense relations between the Superpowers of the Cold War influence was also evident in Germany, and led on August 13, 1961, to East Germany erecting the Berlin Wall and a fortified border to West Germany in order to prevent all contacts and migration over the inter-German border. Willy Brandt, West Berlin's mayor 1957–1966 and West Germany's Chancellor 1969–1974, attempted to soothe the tensions, but particularly his acceptance of the loss of former Eastern Germany caused much controversy.

Reunification

In January 1988, on the 69th anniversary of the murder of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxembourg, there are clashes in East Berlin between party officials and members of peace and human rights groups.

In the summer of 1989, large numbers of GDR citizens take refuge in West German embassies in Central and Eastern European countries in the hope of emigrating to the West. Thousands of people cross the frontier into Hungary, and later into Czechoslovakia. On September 30th 1989, The East German authorities allow refugees in Poland and Czechoslovakia to travel to the West, but on October 3rd, the East German government introduces a visa requirement for entry into Czechoslovakia; on October 4th, there are disturbances in Dresden when the railway station is closed during the transit of refugees from Prague to the West. On November 9th, the East German authorities unexpectedly allow East German citizens to enter West Berlin and the Federal Republic. Hundreds of thousands of people take advantage of the opportunity; new crossing points are opened in the Berlin Wall and along the frontier with the Federal Republic.

On July 1st 1990, the achievement of economic, currency and social union between the two German states prepares the way for a full union. The reunification of the two Germanys comes into force on October 3rd, which is declared a national public holiday (German Unity Day). Five new Länder are established in the former territory of the GDR: Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Brandenburg, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia. The first all-German parliamentary election is held on December 2nd 1990.

Politics

Introduction

Germany is a constitutional federal republic, whose political system is laid out in the 1949 constitution called Grundgesetz (Fundamental Law). It has a parliamentary system in which the head of government, the Bundeskanzler (Chancellor), is elected by the parliament.

Parliament

German Parliament is made up of the Bundestag and the Bundesrat. The supreme legislative body is the Bundestag (Federal Assembly), the lower house of Parliament, which is elected every four years. It in turn elects the Federal Chancellor (Bundeskanzler). The Bundesrat (Federal Council), the upper house of Parliament, represents the 16 federal states (Bundesländer) and cooperates in law-making and administering the federation. Its members are appointed by the individual Länder, or states. Lately, there has been much concern about the Bundestag and the Bundesrat blocking each other, making effective government very difficult.

Head of State

The function of head of state is performed by the Federal President (Bundespräsident). He is elected every five years by the Federal Assembly (the Bundestag plus the corresponding number of Länder representatives), and his powers are limited mostly to ceremonial and representative duties.

Federal Constitutional Court

The Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht), located in Karlsruhe, acts as the highest legal authority and ensures that legislative and judicial practice conforms with the Basic Law, the German constitution. It acts independently of the other state bodies but cannot act on its own behalf.

Social Welfare

Germany's social welfare system has deep roots, which go back to the strong bonds between individual and society which grew out of the Reformation, to the revival of the Prussian state after the 30 Years War, as well as to the early industrial revolution; and the welfare system remains one of the aspects of the German society of which most Germans are quite proud. The system provides for universal (but not government-run) medical care, unemployment compensation, child benefits, and other social needs. As in other Northern/Western European countries with similar systems, many economists consider a reform process of the Social security system to be necessary and this is currently (as of 2005) a major theme in domestic politics.

Foreign Affairs

Together with France, the united Germany is playing a leading role in the European Union. Germany is at the forefront of European states seeking to advance the creation of a more unified and capable European political, defense, and security apparatus. After having kept a notably low profile in international relations for generations, Chancellor Schröder recently also called for a permanent seat for Germany in the United Nations Security Council.

Germany and France were protagonists in the coalition of nations opposing the 2004 military intervention in Iraq, a war that was purportedly initiated by the United States and a "Coalition of the Willing" (including Poland, Spain, Italy, the United Kingdom, Japan, Mongolia, and Vanuatu) to secure weapons of mass destruction which were never found.

Geography

Main article: Geography of Germany

States

Main article: States of Germany

Germany is divided into sixteen states (in German called Bundesländer, singular Bundesland). It is further subdivided into 439 Kreise (districts) and cities (kreisfreie Städte) (2004).

Territory

Since reunification of the two parts of the country Germany has resumed its traditional role as the major centre between Scandinavia in the north and the Mediterranean region in the south, as well as between the Atlantic west and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.

The territory of Germany stretches from the high mountains of the Alps (highest point: the Zugspitze at 2,962 m) in the south to the shores of the North Sea in the north-west and the Baltic in the north-east. In between are found the forested uplands of central Germany and the low-lying lands of northern Germany (lowest point: Neuendorfer/Wilstermarsch at 3.54 meters below sea level), traversed by some of Europe's major rivers such as the Rhine, Danube and Elbe.

Thanks to its central situation Germany has more neighbours than any other European country; these are Denmark in the north, Poland and the Czech Republic in the east, Austria and Switzerland in the south, France and Luxembourg in the south-west and Belgium and the Netherlands in the north-west.

Climate

The weather offers a variety of prevailing conditions. In the middle of summer it could be warm and sunny one day and then cold and rainy the next. Sudden and extreme weather changes that are typical of continental climates, however, are rare in Germany, where particularly the northern and western regions have a much more maritime climate with mild and moist conditions quite frequently. Truly extreme weather conditions, like severe droughts, tornados, destructive hailstorms, severe frost or heat etc. are all very rare. There have been several large-scale river floodings in the last few years; while floods of such severity are quite rare in the long term, their frequency has been increasing lately, partly due to changes in land use in the flood plains. Damaging earthquakes are unheard-of.

Economy

Main article: Economy of Germany

Introduction

Germany is the world's third largest economy measured by gross domestic product, placed behind the United States and Japan. As of 2004, Germany was also the world's largest exporter for the second year in a row, despite the skyrocketing strength of the euro. Its major trading partners include France, the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy and the Netherlands. A major issue of concern remains the persistently high unemployment rate - especially in the eastern Länder -, and partly as a result of it, weak domestic demand which slows down economic growth.

Agriculture, fishery

For many years now agriculture in Germany has been in a state of decline. Poor earnings and lack of profitability are counted to the main reasons for the failure of many medium and small concerns. The main crops grown are potatoes, wheat, barley, sugar beet and cabbage. Germany ranks among the world's largest producers of milk, milk products and meat.

Income from fishery has also declined in recent years.

Industrial sector

As in most other large economic nations, Germany's industrial sector has declined in favour of the service sector. Germany is among the world's largest and most technologically advanced producers of iron, steel, cement, chemicals, machinery, motor vehicles, machine tools and electronics, as well as a world leader in the shipbuilding industry. Major automakers like DaimlerChrysler and Volkswagen, and huge international corporations like Siemens rank among the world's largest firms.

Service sector

The service sector has grown steadily in recent years and now contributes the largest share of GDP. This sector includes tourism. As of 2004, the largest numbers of foreign visitors to Germany came from the Netherlands, followed by the United States and the United Kingdom.

Minerals

Germany is lacking in natural raw materials, if one disregards the hard coal deposits in the Ruhr area, in the Aachen district and in the Saarland, where mining is profitable only thanks to state subsidies. Brown coal from mines in the Leipziger Bucht and the Niederlausitz is still the major energy source in the eastern Länder, while mineral oil enjoys this position in the western Länder. The current red-Green coalition government is pursuing a long-term strategy of phasing out nuclear power in favour of renewable sources of energy.

Society

Demographics

Main article: Demographics of Germany

Germany has many large cities but only three with a population of one million or more (Berlin: 3 million, Hamburg: 1.5 million, Munich: 1.2 Million); the population is thus much less centralized and oriented towards a single large capital than in most other European countries. The largest cities are Berlin, Hamburg, Munich (München), Cologne (Köln), Frankfurt am Main, Essen, Dortmund, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf, Bremen, Duisburg and Hanover.

By far the largest urban conurbation is the Rhine-Ruhr region including the Düsseldorf-Cologne district. Leaving aside the metropolitan areas of the cities with over a million inhabitants, other large heavily populated areas are the Rhein-Main Region around Frankfurt/Main, Offenbach and Wiesbaden, the Stuttgart Region, the Rhine-Neckar region around Mannheim and Ludwigshafen, the Erzgebirge foothills around Chemnitz and Zwickau, the central Elbe valley around Dresden, the Halle-Leipzig area, as well as the catchment areas of Hanover and Nuremberg.

As of 31 December 2003, about 7.3 million non-citizen residents were living in Germany. By far the largest number came from Turkey, followed by Serbia and Montenegro, Italy, Greece, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Poland, Croatia, Austria, the United States, Macedonia and Slovenia . About 2/3s of these have been in the country for more than 8 years, 20% have been born in Germany; both groups qualify for citizenship after recent changes in immigration law (2002 data), if the individuals involved would choose to apply for it (which regularly involves renunciation of previous citizenship(s)). Germany is still a primary destination for political and economic refugees from many developing countries, but the number of asylum seekers has been dropping in recent years, reaching about 50,000 in 2003. A new immigration law recently took effect (1 January 2005), which provides a more systematic treatment of immigration issues as well as increased support for German language classes for immigrants.

An ethnic Danish minority of about 50,000 people lives in Schleswig, mostly close to the Danish border, in the north; a small number of Slavic people known as the Sorbs lives in the states of Saxony (about 40,000) and Brandenburg (about 20.000). The Frisian language is mother tongue to about 12,000 speakers in Germany, the rest living in the Netherlands. In rural areas of Northern Germany Low Saxon is widely spoken.

There are also a large number of ethnic German immigrants from the former Soviet Union area (1.7 million), Poland (0.7 million) and Romania (0.3 million) (1980–1999 totals), who are automatically granted German citizenship, and thus do not show up in foreign resident statistics; unlike the foreigners they have been settled by the government almost evenly spread throughout Germany. Many of them speak the languages of their former resident countries at home.

Education

Germany has one of the world's highest levels of education, technological development, and economic productivity. Since the end of World War II, the number of youths entering universities has more than tripled, but university attendance still lags behind many other European nations. In the annual league of top-ranking universities compiled by Shanghai Jiaotong University in 2004, Germany came 4th overall, but with only 7 universities in the top 100 (USA: 51). The highest ranking university, at no. 45, was the TU Munich.

Culture

Main article: Culture of Germany

Germany's contributions to the world's cultural heritage are numerous, and the country is often known as das Land der Dichter und Denker (The Land of Poets and Thinkers). Germany was the birthplace of composers such as Beethoven, Bach, Brahms, Schumann and Wagner; poets such as Goethe and Schiller as well as Heine; philosophers including Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Engels, Schopenhauser, Nietzsche and Heidegger, theologians like Luther, authors including Hesse, Mann, Böll and Grass; scientists including Kepler, Haeckel, Einstein, Born, Planck, Heisenberg, Hertz and Bunsen; and inventors and engineers such as Gutenberg, Otto, Siemens, Braun, Daimler, Benz, Diesel and Linde. There are also numerous fine artists from Germany such as the Renaissance artist Dürer, the surrealist Ernst, the expressionist arc, the conceptual artist Beuys or the neo expressionist Baselitz.

The German language was once the lingua franca of central, eastern and northern Europe, and remains one of the most popular foreign languages taught worldwide, in Europe it is the second most popular language after English. Many important historical figures, though not citizens of Germany in the modern sense, were nevertheless seen as Germans in the sense that they were immersed in the German culture, for example Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Franz Kafka and Stefan Zweig.

Since about 1970 Germany has once again had a thriving popular culture, now increasingly being led by its new old capital Berlin and the city of Hamburg, and a self-confident music and art culture. Germany is also well known for its many opera houses.

See also: Cuisine of Germany, German wine, Music of Germany, List of Germans, Public holidays: German Unity Day, Bundesliga, Goethe-Institut

Religion

The German constitution guarantees freedom of faith and religion. It also states that no one may be discriminated against due to their faith or religious opinions. However, unlike some other countries, it is entirely in keeping with the German constitution for larger religions to receive some preferential treatment, for example being able to teach religion to adherents' children in public schools and having membership fees collected by the German Finanzamt (equivalent to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service). There have been numerous discussions of allowing other religious groups like Jehovah's Witnesses and Muslims into this system as well. The Muslim efforts were hampered by the public adversity and also by the Muslims' own disorganized state with many small rivaling organizations and no central leadership, which do not fit well into a legal frame that was originally created with well-organized, large Christian churches in mind.

Christianity is the major religion, with Protestants (particularly in the north and east) comprising 33% of the population and Catholics (particularly in the south and west) also 33%. In total more than 55 million people, officially belong to a Christian denomination, although most of them take no part in church life except at such events as weddings and funerals. Most German Protestants are members of the Evangelical Church in Germany. Independent and congregational churches exist in all larger towns and many smaller ones, but most such churches are small.

Roman Catholicism was Germany's top religion in the 15th century, but the religious movement commonly known as the Reformation changed this drastically. In 1517 Martin Luther challenged this religion as he saw it as a commercialisation of his faith. Through this, he altered the course of European and world history and established Protestantism, the largest denomination in Germany today.

Before World War II, about two-thirds of the German population was Protestant and one-third was Roman Catholic. In the north and northeast of Germany especially, Protestants dominated. In the separated West Germany between 1945 and 1990, Catholics had a small majority.

In the former East Germany, there is much less religious feeling — probably the result of forty years of Communism — than in the West. The average church attendance is one of the lowest in the World, with only 5% attending at least once per week, compared to 14% in the West according to a recent study. The number of people who attend church for christenings, weddings and funerals is also lower than in the West.

About 30% of the population are officially religiously unaffiliated. In the East this number is also considerably higher.

Approximately 3.7 million Muslims (mostly of Turkish descent) live in Germany. Lately there have been heated discussions about the question if Muslim women working in public service, such as schoolteachers, should be allowed to wear headscarves to work or not.

Besides this there are a few hundred thousand Orthodox Christians, 400,000 New Apostolic Christians, numerous other small groups, and 160,000 Jews, of which around 100,000 belong to a synagogue.

Today Germany, especially its capital Berlin, has the fastest growing Jewish community worldwide. Some ten thousands of Jews from the former Eastern Bloc, mostly from ex-Soviet Union countries, settled in Germany since the fall of the Berlin wall. This is mainly due to a German government policy which basically grants an immigration ticket to anyone from the CIS and the Baltic states with Jewish heritage, and the fact that today's Germans are seen as significantly more accepting of Jews than many people in the ex-Soviet realm. Some of the about 60,000 long-time resident German Jews have expressed some mixed feelings about this immigration that they perceive as making them a minority not only in their own country but also in their own community; but largely the integration seems to work out. Prior to Nazism, about 600,000 Jews lived in Germany, most of them long-time resident families.

International rankings

• Reporters without borders world-wide press freedom index 2004: Rank 11 out of 167 countries.

Miscellaneous topics

• Cost of unification of East and West Germany
• List of German towns
• List of German districts
• Historical Eastern Germany
• German Democratic Republic
• West Germany
• Foreign relations of Germany
• Communications in Germany
• Freedom of speech in Germany
• Holocaust
• Military of Germany
• Transportation in Germany
• Tourism in Germany
• Tax in Germany
• List of famous Germans
• List of English exonyms for German toponyms

External links

• Facts about Germany — Official site published by the German Federal Foreign Office
• Deutschland.de — Official German portal
• campus-germany.de — Study and Research in Germany (multilingual)
• Deutsche Welle Germany's international broadcaster, 30 language website
• Destatis.de — Federal Statistical Office Germany (in English)
• Statistikportal.de — More official statistical data
• Bundesregierung Deutschland — Official site of the German Federal Government
• Bundespräsident — Official site of the German President
• Bundestag — Official site of the German Parliament
• A Manual for Germany — How Germany works, published by the German Federal Government
• World Fact book — Germany — The World fact book page of Germany (source : CIA)
• Stadtpanoramen.de — Panoramic views of numerous German Cities
• Panoramic views of numerous German landmarks
• Germany travel guide
• Phonebook of Germany
• Axel Boldt, A Subjective Comparison of Germany and the United States
• Photos of Germany
• Travel-Images.com — photos of Germany
• rummage in the photo box
• Germany travel guide at Wikitravel
• German TV Programming
• Zeitungen.de — German newspaper portal
• BonoEstente.com — Ex-Pat Guide To Germany in English
• Library of Congress Country Study
• Information on German Foreign Policy

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