All About Germany

All About Germany

Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country located in western Europe and is one of the largest world powers.

It borders nine countries: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland.

General data

  • Capital: Berlin
  • Territorial extension: 357,120 km²
  • Inhabitants: 80,688,545 inhabitants (2015 data)
  • Climate: Mostly temperate
  • Language: German
  • Religion: Christianity, mostly followers of Lutheranism
  • Currency: Euro
  • Government System: Parliamentary Democratic Republic
  • Chancellor: Angela Merkel (since 2005)

Flag

Germany's flag
Germany’s flag

It is formed by three horizontal stripes of the same size.

Each stripe has a color that, in an upward direction are yellow, red and black. They have become the official colors of Germany and together they mean democracy and freedom.

Map

Germany map with its borders
Germany map with its borders

Germany is made up of sixteen states:

  1. Baden-Wurttemberg
  2. Lower Saxony
  3. Bavaria
  4. Berlin
  5. Brandenburg
  6. Bremen
  7. Slavic-Holstein
  8. Hamburg
  9. Hesse
  10. Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
  11. North Rhine-Westphalia
  12. Rhineland-Palatinate
  13. Saarland
  14. Saxony
  15. Saxony-Anhalt
  16. Thuringia

Main cities are considered: Berlin, Dresden, Frankfurt, Munich and Stuttgart.

Hymn

The German anthem was taken from the third verse by Das Lied der Deutschen (The Song of the Germans, in Portuguese).

The song was written in 1841 by the German poet August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben and became the country’s anthem only in 1922 with the melody of Joseph Haydn:

“Union and justice and freedom
For the German homeland.
We will all look after this
Fraternally with our hearts and hands.
Union and justice and freedom
Are foundations of happiness.
It blooms in the brilliance of this happiness
It blooms, German homeland!”

economy

Germany has one of the largest economies in the world. For this reason, it is part of the main economic forums: G7 – Group of Seven , G8 – Group of Eight , G20 – Group of Twenty .

It is one of the most industrialized countries in Europe. Frankfurt is its main economic center and industry is the country’s main activity.

In it stands out the automobile sector, in which the Germans occupy the second place among the largest producers of cars. There is also a place for the manufacture of electronic equipment and chemicals.

Culture

Germany has a wide variety of cultural activities. There are thousands of libraries and museums, and hundreds of theaters.

There are 41 monuments and buildings that have been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Some of them are:

  1. Die Wies Shrine
  2. Bamberg Historic Center
  3. Museum Island in Berlin
  4. Cologne Cathedral
  5. Lutro Memorials in Eisleben and Wittenberg
  6. Le Corbusier’s work in Stuttgart
  7. Weimar Classical
  8. Bauhaus and his works in Weimar and Dessau

The country is also known for its inventions. Computer, telephone, gramophone, book printing, aspirin, airbag are just some of them.

Germany is the country of Oktoberfest, the beer festival known throughout the world. The country is one of the world’s largest consumers of the drink.

Millions of tourists visit the country annually. Its main sights are the Berlin Cathedral, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, the Berlin Wall and the Brandenburg Gate.

Story

Germany was the initial stage of the Protestant Reformation from the 95 theses of Martin Luther. The German monk posted the criticism of the Catholic Church at the Wittemberg Church Door in 1517.

The Nazis developed in Germany between the years 1939 and 1945. He had the lead Adolf Hitler was a nationalist and ideological movement.

In 1949 the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) and the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) were created. Only in 1990 did the two unify.

Major Cities Of Germany

  • Berlin
  • Hamburg
  • Munich
  • Cologne
  • Frankfurt am Main
  • Stuttgart
  • Düsseldorf
  • Leipzig
  • Dortmund
  • Essen

10 Hottest Males Of Germany

  • Matthias Schweighöfer
  • Til Schweiger
  • Christoph Waltz
  • Devid Striesow
  • Joachim Król
  • Moritz Bleibtreu
  • August Zirner
  • August Diehl
  • Thomas Kretschmann
  • Bruno Ganz

10 Hottest Females Of Germany

  • Laura Berlin
  • Diana Amft
  • Judith Rakers
  • Lena Gercke
  • Henriette Richter-Röhl
  • Julia Stegner
  • Bettina Zimmerman
  • Giulia Siegel
  • Tatjana Petitz
  • Claudia Schiffer

Travel Destinations Of Germany

  • Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate
  • Cologne Cathedral (Kölner Dom)
  • The Black Forest
  • The Ultimate Fairytale Castle: Neuschwanstein
  • Miniatur Wunderland and the Historic Port of Hamburg
  • The Rhine Valley
  • Berlin’s Museum Island
  • Bamberg and the Bürgerstadt
  • Zugspitze Massif
  • The Island of Rügen

Top 10 Sportsmen Of Germany

  • Franz Beckenbauer
  • Oliver Kahn
  • Wolfgang Behrendt
  • Max Baer
  • Katarina Witt
  • Boris Becker
  • Steffi Graf
  • Jurgen Klinnsman
  • Dirk Nowitzi
  • Honus Wagner

Top Pornstars Of Germany

  • Madison Ivy
  • Nina Elle
  • ​Annette Schwarz
  • Amy Reid
  • Anny Aurora
  • Shyla Jennings
  • Katja Kassin
  • Lucy Cat
  • Victoria Sin
  • Sexy Cora

What Are The Biggest Industries In Germany?

  • Machinery, Automotive, And Aviation Industry
  • Chemical And Medical Industry
  • Consumer And Service Industries
  • Energy And Environmental Technology Industry
  • Electronics And ICT Industry
  • Mittelstand Industries

History of Germany

Approximately in 2300 BC new hordes of Indo-European peoples arrived, ancestors of the Germans, who settled in northern and central Germany, the Baltic and Slavic peoples in the east and the Celts in the south and west. From 1800 to 400 BC, the Celtic peoples of southern Germany and Austria developed progress in working with metal, configuring various cultures – ballot boxes, Hallstatt and La Tène – that spread throughout Europe.

Between the 2nd century BC and the 5th century AD, the Germanic and Celtic tribes were in contact with the Romans, who controlled southern and western Europe and tried unsuccessfully to extend their rule to the River Elbe. The border remained on the Rhine and Danube rivers, where the limes (fortification line) were erected. In the 4th and 5th centuries the Huns from Asia ravaged the territory and the Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Vandals, Franks, Lombards and other Germanic tribes invaded the Roman Empire.

Munich’s old town has numerous buildings built in the early 18th century by its Bavarian governors. The gathering (in the foreground) dominates the famous Marienplatz square. Frauenkirche, a tile cathedral of the late Gothic, is next to the gathering. The temple was built in the 15th century and its tower measures 99 meters.

At the end of the 5th century, the chief of the Franks, Clodoveu I, defeated the Romans and established a kingdom that encompassed most of Gaul and southeastern Germany. His work was continued in the 8th century by Charlemagne, who annexed southern Germany and subjected the Saxons. The Carolingian Empire did not survive and after the death of Charlemagne’s son was divided between his three grandchildren (see Treaty of Verdun of 843), with Germany, Luis, the German.

After the death of the last Carolingian monarch, Otto I the Great, he was the first Saxon king strongly determined to create a centralized monarchy. He granted territorial privileges to the Church, defended his kingdom from outside attacks and invaded Italy twice. He was crowned emperor in 962, and is considered the de facto founder of the Holy Roman Empire. Saxon kings made themselves recognized as emperors for three generations, until the death of Enrique the Saint. During the next 100 years (1024-1125), the kings of Germania were elected from among the Franks who reigned in the duchy of Franconia. The Salic kings took the empire to its climax.

The city of Nuremberg, in the state of Bavaria, is located on the Pegnitz River. In the Middle Ages, Nuremberg was a commercial and cultural center. The castle that appears here was built in the 11th century.

Conrad II, the Salic, strengthened royal power, relying on the knights he ennobled. He was succeeded by his son Henry III, the Negro, who forced the Duke of Bohemia to recognize his authority. At the age of six, Henry IV succeeded his father and during the regency his mother, Inês de Poitiers, was obliged to cede most of the royal territory. Henry IV tried to recover the loss of imperial power which provoked the Saxon rebellion. The result was a civil war of almost 20 years. Henry marched over Rome, installed the antipope Clement III and was crowned emperor in 1084. Finally, betrayed and taken prisoner by his son (Henry V), he was forced to abdicate. Henry V uselessly continued his father’s struggles to maintain supremacy over the Church,upholding their right to nominate bishops who were simultaneously feudal lords. He lost control of Poland, Hungary and Bohemia. The Investiture Question ended with the Worms Agreement (1122), which stipulated that episcopal appointments would take place before the imperial presence and the emperor would invest the candidate with the symbols of his temporal office, before a bishop did so with spiritual symbols .

In the 12th and 13th centuries, Germany and Italy were immersed in the rivalry between two princely families: the Hohenstaufen of Swabia, called gibelines (see Guelfos and gibelinos) in Italy, and the Welfs of Bavaria and Saxony, known as guelfos in Italy .

With the death of Henry V the princes elected Emperor Lotario II, Duke of Saxony, who tried to convert and dominate the east. After his death, the princes elected Conrado de Hohenstaufen, Duke of Swabia and the civil war broke out again (Guelphs – Ghibellines) while Conrado led the unfortunate Second Crusade, which developed in parallel with the Guelfo-Ghibelline conflict in Italy.

His son Frederico I Barba-Roxa assumed the title of emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. He unified Germany and Burgundy, declared an imperial peace and subjugated the guelfos.

Henry VI wanted to expand his domains. To ensure peace in Germany, he suppressed a rebellion, invaded the cities of northern Italy, conquered Sicily and tried to create an empire in the Mediterranean that quickly dismembered. Her son, Frederick II, inherited Sicily, but northern Italy reaffirmed its independence. To gain support for his campaigns in northern Italy, he allowed the German princes to be absolute masters in their own territories. It conquered the main Christian places in the Holy Land, except Jerusalem, and after the wars with the Lombarda League it took over the Pontifical States.

The old part of the city of Cologne was separated from the modern by the Ringstraáe, built between 1881 and 1895. The modern districts of Cologne emerged as support for the development of the commercial and nautical industries.

Frederick’s youngest son inherited Sicily and the imperial title, but Italy and Germany never came together. The popes, allied with the French, expelled the Hohenstaufen from Sicily. Germany suffered the disorder of the Gran Interregnum (1254-1273), during which the innumerable states in which it was divided carried out a return to isolationist feudalism.

By the end of the 13th century, the Empire had lost Poland, Hungary and effective control over Burgundy and Italy. Within their borders, principalities were virtually autonomous. In the cities, commerce had a great development. The cities of the Rhine and, later, the German cities of the north formed trade associations; the most powerful of which was the Hanseatic League.

At the end of the Middle Ages, the great strains of dukes were extinct and new principalities were created. Three royal houses – Habsburg, Wittelsbach and Luxembourg – fought for the dynastic rights of the imperial crown. In 1273 the Gran Interregnum ended with the election of Rodolfo I of Habsburg, who dedicated himself to expanding the possessions of his family.

During the reign of Sigismund of Luxembourg, the Council of Constance (1414-1418) was convened. The Hussite movement convulsed Bohemia by combining traditional Czech sentiments with a desire to deeply reform the Church.

With his stepson Alberto V, the Illustrious, the imperial crown became hereditary of the Habsburg house. His successor, Frederick III of Styria, lost Hungary and Bohemia, and sold Luxembourg to France, while fighting against German princes and Turks reaching the borders of the Empire.

Maximiliano I developed a marriage policy for the benefit of his family. His marriage to Maria de Burgundy gave him the right to the inheritance of Duke Carlos, the Temerário, which included the territory between present-day Switzerland and the sea, with Flanders and Holland. Through the marriage of his son, Felipe I, the Beautiful, with the heir of Spain, Joana I, the Madwoman, Maximiliano laid the foundations for the future union of the crowns of Castile and Aragon with the Empire. As in the rest of Europe, the 15th century was a time of transition from the feudal economy of the Middle Ages to the monetary economy of the modern age, a process that created tensions between all classes of society, as cities became increasingly important.

Martin Luther’s spiritual concerns were combined with the secular ambitions of the German princes to produce the Protestant Reformation, which proposed religious freedom. Religious struggles have intensified European political conflicts for a hundred years.

In 1519, Carlos (I of Spain and V of Germany) succeeded his grandfather Maximiliano as emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. He dedicated his life to preserving a medieval empire united in faith, a fruitless effort in the plural society created by the reformers and secular forces. Protestants were divided: in addition to the Lutherans there were reformist Christians inspired by Swiss theologian Ulrich Zwingli and radical Anabaptists.

For the Peace of Augsburg (1555), Lutheranism was recognized, but the same was not true for Calvinists (see John Calvin). Carlos abdicated in 1556. His vast Empire was divided: Spanish and Burgundian possessions passed to his son Felipe II, while the imperial title and German possessions went to his brother Fernando I of Habsburg.

While emperors Fernando I and his son Maximilian II were occupied with the threat of Turkish invasion, Protestantism expanded in Germany, but its progress was halted by Counter-reform. The Council of Trent (1545-1563), modified Catholic doctrine and worship and prevented reconciliation with Protestants.

The tension between both religions led to the Thirty Years’ War, which ended in the peace of Westphalia (1648). The sovereignty and independence of each state of the Holy Roman Empire was recognized and religion would be determined by its prince; the situation existing in 1624 in the religious aspect was accepted, when establishing that the properties of the Habsburgs, the south and the west of Germany were catholic and the Protestants could maintain the acquired properties.

Politically, the Holy Roman-German Empire (or I Reich) continued with that name, but had lost all pretensions to universality and centralized government. In the late 17th and early 18th centuries, the Empire was eclipsed by France and England. The imperial structure depended on a large number of lesser princes; the Wettins of Saxony, the Welfs of Brunswick-Lüneburg became voters in Hannover, the Wittelsbachs of Bavaria, the Habsburgs of Austria and the Hohenzollerns of Brandenburg were the hegemonic families in the Empire and dominated the other princes.

They had only recovered from the Thirty Years’ War when the princes and the emperor faced each other in a series of new dynastic struggles. In the west, princes engaged in four wars to curb Louis XIV’s intentions to extend French territory to the Rhine.

The German princes headed north and east, where they came into conflict with Sweden in the Baltic Sea, producing two wars, called the North. The Germans also had to face the Ottoman Turks, who expanded in southeastern Europe. Eugênio de Savóia defeated them in Senta (1697) and the Habsburgs annexed most of Hungary. The Hohenzollern family had geographically disconnected territories in the west. Outside the Empire, the most important area was Prussia, which became an independent kingdom in 1701.

Frederico Guilherme I of Prussia was a military man dedicated to uniting his dispersed possessions in a single modern state where the presence of the military would be constant. Frederick II the Great devoted most of his life to extending Prussian territory at the expense of Austria and Poland.

Emperor Charles VI, anxious to keep the Habsburg domains unified, enacted a pragmatic sanction in 1713, declaring that his daughter Maria Teresa I of Austria would succeed him. When he died in 1740, voters in Bavaria and Saxony rejected the Pragmatic Sanction. Frederick II invaded Silesia, precipitating the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748). Maria Teresa signed peace with him in 1742, giving him Silesia.

The emergence of Prussia as a great power has led to a change of alliances and new hostilities. Maria Teresa’s intention to regain Silesia gave rise to a series of alliances that would lead to the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763).

For 18 years, German states have been implicated differently in five wars against the armies of revolutionary and Napoleonic France. Austria and Prussia initially lost many territories, but in 1812 Napoleon was defeated in the Russian campaign. Frederick William III of Prussia, together with Austria and Russia, defeated Napoleon in Leipzig (1813). At the Vienna Congress (1814-1815) Napoleon’s winning states redrawn the map of Europe. The Holy Romano-Germanic Empire, with more than 240 states, was replaced by the German Confederation, formed by 39 states represented in the Frankfurt Diet. Many Germans wanted to establish a liberal government under a constitution that would guarantee popular representation and other measures. They also had hopes for national unification.

The sovereigns of Prussia and Austria and the recently crowned kings of Bavaria, Hannover, Württemberg and Saxony, fearful of any usurpation of their sovereignty, opposed liberalism and nationalism. Austria, Prussia, Russia and Great Britain formed the Quadruple Alliance to suppress any threat to the Vienna agreements.

The liberal revolutions of 1830 and 1848 in Paris, spread over Europe. The clashes also reached Bavaria, Prussia and southwestern Germany, but were quickly crushed in Austria, Hungary and Prussia.

Prussia and Austria made divergent plans for the future German unification. In Prussia, King William I, together with his prime minister, Otto von Bismarck, decided to make Prussia a powerful state.

After the Austro-Prussian War, Austria ceded Venice to Italy, and Prussia annexed Schleswig-Holstein, Hannover and other states, and organized the North German Confederation (1867) without Austria. Bismarck culminated his strategy with the Franco-Prussian War, after which, in 1871, William was proclaimed emperor of the German Empire (the II Reich).

Once the various German states were united under the Prussian-led Empire, Bismarck made a series of alliances to protect Germany from any external aggression. Inland, it fostered the Industrial Revolution.

Bismarck considered that the Catholic Church threatened the supremacy of the German state. Thus began the Kulturkampf (cultural struggle) during which it suppressed many religious orders.

The Empire did not function democratically. Bismarck directed the persecution of the Socialist Party, the forerunner of the German Social Democratic Party, and was preparing to suppress the Constitution. However, the new Emperor William II of Prussia dismissed him, for wanting to govern the Empire in a personal way.

Guilherme II maintained the Triple Alliance (1882) of Germany, Austria and Italy. To balance the situation, Russia agreed to an alliance in 1894 with France. Great Britain, for a long time neutral, resolved its colonial differences with France and Russia, which resulted in the formation of the Triple Entente. In this way, Europe was divided into two armed blocs.

The crisis in Morocco and the Balkans has intensified antagonisms. Guilherme II intervened twice in Morocco (1905, 1911), which France intended, to protect German interests in Africa. Austria annexed the Turkish provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908. The assassination of Austrian archduke Francisco Fernando de Habsburg in Sarajevo in June 1914 was the spark that started World War I.

German troops invaded and advanced through neutral Belgium with the intention of taking Paris by surprise, but the Germans encountered more resistance in Belgium than they expected, even though they almost reached Paris. Meanwhile, the British and the French halted the German advance in the battle of Marne, while the Russians attacked the east, plunging Germany into the dreaded two-front war.

The Germans defeated the Russians several times. The Allies blocked Germany to prevent the supply of food and raw materials, with the support of the United States, which entered the war in 1917. Russia called for peace, which was signed in 1918. The Germans launched a final offensive in the west, but the allies resisted.

The chancellor announced that Guilherme II had abdicated and resigned. The Social Democratic Party leader Friedrich Ebert proclaimed the Republic. Germany had to face the harsh terms of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919: it lost Alsace and Lorraine to France, and West Prussia moved to Poland. It also lost its colonies and had to cede its steel facilities, railway lines and merchant ships, as well as its naval force. In addition, they had to accept full responsibility as the cause of the war and pay compensation to the winning countries.

The economic crisis has made the situation worse. Under the Dawes Plan (1924), the amount and method of payment for war reparations were reviewed and loans from abroad were provided. For five years, Germany enjoyed relative social stability and prosperity; in 1926 he joined the Society of Nations. However, the 1929 world economic crisis once again brought the country to the brink of disaster.

In the midst of economic depression, the 1932 elections made the National Socialist (Nazi) Party the most represented in the Reichstag. In 1933, with the support of elements from the extreme right, Hitler was elected chancellor. The new Parliament passed the Special Powers Act allowing Hitler to control all aspects of German life and create the III Reich.

All political parties, except the National Socialist, were considered illegal. The III Reich sought to be economically self-sufficient. The broad propaganda system was supported by the Gestapo in the repression of disaffected people. Jews suffered from discriminatory laws, were deprived of citizenship and excluded from civil and professional activities, and after the so-called Broken Crystals Night, hundreds of thousands of Jews fled the country.

Later, the occupations of France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Yugoslavia and Greece caused millions of Jews to come under Nazi rule. By the end of the war, the number of dead Jews had reached about six million in what became known as the Holocaust.

Germany’s desire to seek a revision of the Versailles Treaty by force made the efforts made by other countries that wanted to avoid military confrontation useless, which led to World War II, in which the Germans were allied with Mussolini’s Italy and Japan expansionist.

The first phase of operations was largely in favor of Axis forces, which occupied Poland, Belgium and France, as well as eastern Europe. In 1942, however, Britain was still resisting and the United States had entered the war after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. In 1943, the Soviet offensive gradually led German troops westward. Axis forces in North Africa were defeated and Italy was invaded. Germany, from 1942, began to be bombed intensively, but Hitler refused to surrender. British and American forces landed in Normandy in 1944 and advanced to the German border, while the Soviets did the same on the eastern front. Hitler committed suicide before Soviet tanks entered Berlin in April 1945.

Germany’s unconditional surrender ended the Third Reich. The Allies reduced Germany to the borders prior to the start of the dispute, and still allocated part of its eastern territory to Poland, as a way to compensate for the lands occupied by the Soviet Union up to Oder. Germany was divided into four occupation zones, but as the political guidelines of the allies diverged, Germany was practically divided into two parts. In 1948, Great Britain, the United States and France united their zones of occupation and encouraged the Germans to form a democratic government. The USSR, in turn, created another state. In 1949 two German states were formed: the Federal Republic of Germany, or West Germany and the German Democratic Republic or East Germany.

Political Map Of Germany

Map Of Germany
Map Of Germany

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