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National motto: Unity and Justice and Freedom |
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| Official language | German¹ | |||
| Capital | Berlin | |||
| Largest City | Berlin | |||
| Chancellor: | Gerhard Schröder | |||
| President: | Horst Köhler | |||
| Area - Total - % water |
Ranked 61st 349,223 km² 2.416% |
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| Population - Total (2004) - Density |
Ranked 13th 82,424,609 242/km² |
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| Formation / Unification | Treaty of Verdun (843), January 18, 1871, May 23, 1949 October 3, 1990 |
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| GDP - Total (2003) - GDP/capita |
Ranked 3rd $2.271 trillion $27,600 |
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| Currency | Euro (€) (²) | |||
| Time zone - in summer |
CET (UTC+1) CEST (UTC+2) |
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| National anthem | Das Lied der Deutschen | |||
| Internet TLD | .de | |||
| Calling Code | +49 | |||
| (¹) Danish, Low German, Sorbian, Romany and Frisian are officially recognized and protected as minority languages per
the ECRML. (²) Prior to 1999: Deutsche Mark. |
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The Federal Republic of Germany (German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland) is one of the world's leading industrialized countries, located in the middle of the European Union. 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.
| Contents |
Main article: History of Germany
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".
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).
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. 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 national elections of 1932, the anti-democratic Nazis got 37.2% in July and 33.0% in November. On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany, and by the Enabling Act on March 23, 1933, a wide majority of the parliament effectively disbanded the constitution of the Weimar Republic.
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 de facto also succeeded the President of Germany. After annexing Austria in 1938, the policy of annexing neighboring territories led to the outbreak of World War II in Europe on September 1, 1939, when Germany invaded Poland. Initially, Germany and her allies 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 Germany, the momentum in the war switched; a development which was reinforced by Hitler's declaration of war on the United States December 11, 1941. From 1941 until 1945 National Socialist Germany, with the help of neighboring collaborators, systematically murdered 6 million Jews in the Holocaust. The regime also persecuted and killed Sinti and Roma, homosexuals and mentally retarded and otherwise disabled people, as well as political or ideological dissenters (especially Communists and Socialists, but also certain religious leaders). On 8 May 1945, Germany surrendered after the Red Army had occupied Berlin where Hitler had committed suicide.
The war resulted in large losses of territory; ethnic cleansing of 15 million Germans from these lost territories; occupation and 45 years of division, during which the remaining parts of the former Reich were split up into Austria, West Germany and East Germany. (The territory of the GDR, often called "East Germany," is still referred to as Middle Germany by people who think that the historical Eastern German provinces constitute rightfully parts of Germany.) In 1948 and 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 behind the Iron Curtain. The people of West Germany became increasingly pro-American. This was a result of many factors, including strong German anti-communism, the American Marshall Plan for the reconstruction of Europe after the War, the foundation of the European Union, and the generally supportive attitude of the occupation forces in West Germany. The reconstructed West Germany once again became one of the world's major economies and the democracy was reconstructed.
The Soviet-controlled German Democratic Republic, by contrast, became one a socialist satellite state and member of the Warsaw Pact, with restrictions on travel and personal freedom. Ultimately, on August 13, 1961, East Germany erected the Berlin Wall between East and West Berlin and fortified the border to West Germany in order to prevent all contacts and migration over the inner-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 historical Eastern Germany caused much controversy, so that some Germans considered him a traitor, while many others (particularly among the younger generations) consider him a hero.
After the fall of Communism in Europe, Germany was reunited in 1990, which caused considerable economic difficulty even up to the present day. Berlin once again became capital of Germany. There was a need for a healing process in East Germany, however, where one out of every five people had been an informant on their friends, neighbors, and even family members and spouses. As part of this process, German officials have opened the secret files of what was informed for public examination, albeit with with some restrictions.
Together with France, the new Germany is playing the 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. The Chancellor recently also called for a permanent seat for Germany in the UN Security Council.
Main article: Politics of Germany
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.
The parliament, called Bundestag (Federal Assembly), is elected every four years by popular vote in a complex system combining direct and proportional representation. The 16 Bundesländer are represented at the federal level in the Bundesrat (Federal Council), which—depending on the subject matter—may have a say in the legislative procedure. Lately, there has been much concern about the Bundestag and the Bundesrat blocking each other, making effective government very difficult.
The function of head of state is performed by the Bundespräsident (Federal President), whose powers are mostly limited to ceremonial and representative duties.
The judiciary branch includes a Constitutional Court called Bundesverfassungsgericht, which may ultimately overturn all acts by the legislature or administration if they are deemed unconstitutional; as well as a Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof) and several subject-specific federal courts, responsible for appeals from lower state courts. All lower courts are created by the Bundesländer.
Germany's social welfare system has deep roots, which go back to the early industrial revolution as well as to the strong role of the state in individuals' lives which grew out of the Reformation and the development of the Prussian state after the 30 Years War, and the welfare system remains one of the aspects of the German society of which most Germans are quite proud. About 90% of the population is covered by a mandatory health insurance. 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 2004) a major theme in domestic politics.
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).
| State | Capital | In German | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Baden-Württemberg | Stuttgart | Baden-Württemberg | Stuttgart |
| 2 Bavaria | Munich | Freistaat Bayern | München |
| 3 Berlin | Berlin | Berlin | Berlin |
| 4 Brandenburg | Potsdam | Brandenburg | Potsdam |
| 5 Bremen (state) | Bremen | Freie Hansestadt Bremen | Bremen |
| 6 Hamburg | Hamburg | Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg | Hamburg |
| 7 Hesse | Wiesbaden | Hessen | Wiesbaden |
| 8 Mecklenburg-Western Pommerania | Schwerin | Mecklenburg-Vorpommern | Schwerin |
| 9 Lower Saxony | Hannover | Niedersachsen | Hannover |
| 10 North Rhine-Westphalia | Düsseldorf | Nordrhein-Westfalen | Düsseldorf |
| 11 Rhineland-Palatinate | Mainz | Rheinland-Pfalz | Mainz |
| 12 Saarland | Saarbrücken | Saarland | Saarbrücken |
| 13 Saxony | Dresden | Freistaat Sachsen | Dresden |
| 14 Saxony-Anhalt | Magdeburg | Sachsen-Anhalt | Magdeburg |
| 15 Schleswig-Holstein | Kiel | Schleswig-Holstein | Kiel |
| 16 Thuringia | Erfurt | Freistaat Thüringen | Erfurt |
Main article: Geography of Germany
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 and the Baltic Sea in the north. 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 m), traversed by some of Europe's major rivers such as the Rhine, Danube and Elbe.
The Federal Republic is bordered to the north by Denmark, to its east by Poland and the Czech Republic, to the south by Austria and Switzerland and to its west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands.
The weather is sometimes unpredictable. In the middle of summer it could be warm and sunny one day and then cold and rainy the next. However truly extreme weather conditions, like severe droughts, tornados, destructive hailstorms, severe frost or heat etc. are all extremely rare. There have been two bad large-scale floodings in the last few years, but in the long term those are also quite rare. Damaging earthquakes are unheard-of.
Main article: Economy of Germany
Germany possesses the world's third most technologically powerful economy after the US and Japan and is part of the world's largest economy, the European Union. While exports remain strong, the local market of the basically capitalistic economy has started to show problems commonly blamed on the generous social benefits. Unemployment has been a problem for several decades, and is now usually considered a long-term, not just cyclical, problem.
After the fall of Communism in Europe, Germany was reunited in 1990, not without economic difficulty. Together with France, the new Germany is playing the leading role in the European Union. The integration and upgrading of the eastern German economy remains a costly long-term problem, with annual transfers from the west amounting to roughly $100 billion without conditions in the East actually improving after 1997. Some economists argue that the transfers hurt more than they help since they don't encourage the East to get out of the slump by its own effort, while at the same time preventing dearly-needed infrastructure investment and upkeep in the West. There are still almost no internationally renowned companies headquartered in former East-Germany; most have only established subsidiaries.
The recent adoption of the euro and the general political and economic integration of Europe including the eastward expansion of the European Union are thought likely to bring major changes to the German economy in the early 21st century.
Main article: Demographics of Germany
Germany has many large cities but no very large ones, Berlin being a borderline case; 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, Frankfurt am Main, Stuttgart, Dortmund and Essen. The largest multi-city metropolitan areas are the Ruhr Area, the Rhein-Main Region and the Stuttgart Region.
Germany has about 7.3 million non-citizen residents, including refugees, foreign workers (Gastarbeiter), and their dependents. About 2/3s of these have been in the country for more than 8 years, 20% have been born in Germany; both groups would qualify for citizenship after recent changes in immigration law (2002 data). 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 proper immigration law has been bounced back and forth between the Bundestag and Bundesrat without much success for about five years now, leaving immigration largely ad-hoc and German language classes for immigrants poorly organized small-scale affairs.
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, considered the living language closest to the English 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.
Immigration has created a sizable minority from Turkey (about 1.9 million Kurds and Turks), and other smaller minorities including Italians (0.6 million), Serbs (0.6 million), Greeks (0.4 million), Poles (0.3 million) and Croats (0.2 million) (figures from year 2002). Anti-immigrant sentiments are chiefly directed against the largest group of Muslims from Turkey, which is perceived as less integrated in the German society than the smaller immigrated minorities.
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.
Even with the mentioned difficulties, Germany still 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. With a per capita income level of about $25,000, Germany is a broadly middle class society. A generous social welfare system provides for universal (but not government-run) medical care, unemployment compensation, and other social needs. As of 2004, economic pressure is forcing Germany to cut down on social welfare and more limitations are expected in the future (see Hartz concept).
Germans also are mobile; millions travel abroad each year, most of their favourite destinations being at the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea. According to the regular travel study of the Dresdner Bank Germans have spent 52.5 Billion Euro for traveling abroad in 2003 and are expected to spend 55 Billion Euro in 2004.
Main article: Government
As is typical for states in which the rule of law prevails, the German government consists of three branches, the legislative, the executive, and the judicial.
The German legislature is bicameral, meaning that it consists of two houses, an upper, and a lower. The Bundestag is the lower house. Every four years, the people of Germany vote for a party which they feel deserves power within the Bundestag. A party must obtain five percent of the overall vote to receive seats in the Bundestag. Prior to the elections, the parties have made lists of individuals in order of priority, from which the members of parliament are selected, depending on how many seats the party wins. The Bundestag has numerous subject-oriented committees which consider bills, hold hearings, and occasionally revise bills. The Bundestag is not only responsible for creating laws, but also for electing the Federal Chancellor (Bundeskanzler), the head of government.
The head of the Bundestag is the President of the Bundestag. Directly following the federal election, the Bundestag votes for the president. He or she is commonly from the largest governing party and presides over the meetings of the Bundestag (Sitzung).
While there are over 600 members of the Bundestag, there are less than 100 members of the upper house, the Bundesrat. There is no limit to the number of terms one may serve in either house. The Bundesrat only meets about once a month to consider the bills which have been passed in the Bundestag. It has the power to reject any bills that the Bundestag passes. Depending on the subject matter of the bill, the Bundestag can reconsider the bill and vote it into effect without the consent of the Bundesrat, or the withholding of the Bundesrat's consent can cause the bill to fail. Because different parties hold the power in the Bundestag than in the Bundesrat, many disagreements occur.
Unlike the United States or China, Germany has many influential parties. The largest parties are the Sozialdemokratische
Partei Deutschlands (Social-Democratic Party - SPD), the conservative Christlich
Demokratische Union (Christian-Democratic Union - CDU), and Bündnis '90/Die
Grünen (Alliance 90/The Greens). The SPD has the
most members of any party; the CDU presently holds power within most states. In Bavaria, the conservatives are represented by the
Christlich Soziale Union (Christian-Social Union - CSU) which generally shares the
goals of the CDU. In the Bundestag, the "CDU" and "CSU" work together in the same
caucus ("Fraktion"). There is also the Freie Demokratische Partei (Free Democratic Party - FDP) which consists of free-market liberals, and the left-wing party Partei des demokratischen Sozialismus
(Party of Democratic Socialism - PDS) which is the successor of the SED, the former state party of the German Democratic Republic. It has important influence in local politics in most states from the
former GDR but has only two representatives in the federal parliament.
The largest right-wing nationalist parties are the Nationaldemokratische Partei (National-Democratic Party - NPD), the
Deutsche Volksunion (German People-Union - DVU) and the Republikaner (Republicans - REP). These parties have no
major influence on federal politics in the present Germany, but in some states, for instance Saxony, they have received up to
about 10% of the vote, which gives them representation in the state legislatures.
There are also many smaller parties which lack representation at the parliamentary level (both state and federal) such as the
Deutsche Kommunistische Partei (German Communist Party, founded some years after the old communist party of Germany, the
KPD, was banned in 1956), the
fundamentalist Christliche Mitte (Christian Centrist), the separatist Bayernpartei (Bavarian Party), the Animal
Rights Party ("Tierschutzpartei") and the Ökologisch-Demokratische Partei Deutschlands (Ecological-Democratic Party of
Germany).
The executive branch consists of the chancellor, the cabinet ministers, and the numerous employees and civil servants serving in the bureaucracy. The ministers are selected by the chancellor and may be removed at any time. They are the heads of the departments within the country, and they act as the "German Cabinet". The highest court within Germany is the Bundesverfassungsgericht. It has the power to call any laws unconstitutional.
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 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Arthur Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger, theologians like Luther, authors including Hermann Hesse, Thomas Mann, Heinrich Böll and Grass; scientists including Johannes Kepler, Ernst Haeckel, Einstein, Born, Planck, Heisenberg, Hertz and Bunsen; and inventors and engineers such as Gutenberg, Otto, Werner von Siemens, Wernher von Braun, Daimler, Benz, Diesel and Linde. There are also numerous fine artists from Germany such as the Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer, the surrealist Max Ernst, the expressionist Franz Marc, the conceptual artist Joseph Beuys or the neo expressionist Georg 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 the second most popular 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.
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's 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 (http://www.umich.edu/~newsinfo/Releases/1997/Dec97/r121097a.html). 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. (See also Islam in Germany).
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.
Germany is today often regarded as an open and tolerant country, although conservative politicians have voiced strong criticism against the Islamic minority after the murder of the Dutch film maker Theo van Gogh, and said the multi-cultural idea have failed.
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Austria | Belgium | Cyprus | Czech Republic | Denmark | Estonia | Finland | France | Germany | Greece | Hungary | Ireland | Italy | Latvia | Lithuania | Luxembourg | Malta | Netherlands | Poland | Portugal | Slovakia | Slovenia | Spain | Sweden | United Kingdom |
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| Countries in Europe |
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| Dependencies: Faroe Islands | Gibraltar | Guernsey | Jan Mayen | Jersey | Isle of Man | Svalbard |
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