Culture of Germany

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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a significant German poet

This article deals with the Culture of Germany as a political state within Europe; for a review of the culture of the German-speaking world, see German Culture.

1 Culture in prose
2 Religious tradition
3 Musical and artistic contributions
4 Academic landmarks
5 Cuisine
6 See also
7 External links

[edit] Culture in prose

Germany is known as das Land der Dichter und Denker (The Land of Poets and Thinkers). Famous German poets include Goethe, Schiller and Heine. Poets in Jena and later in Berlin led Romanticism in the 19th century. German prose authors include Günter Grass, Hermann Hesse and Bertolt Brecht. Famous German philosophers include Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Heidegger. German theologians include Luther, Schleiermacher, Feuerbach, and Rudolf Otto. Also Germany brought up many mystics including Meister Eckhart and Rudolf Steiner.

[edit] Religious tradition

The German government has limited responsibilities for culture, which is devolved to the states of Germany, called Länder.

Approximately 67 percent of the German population belong to a Christian denomination, of whom roughly half are Roman Catholic and half are Protestant (the figures are known quite accurately because Germany imposes a church tax on those who disclose a religious affiliation). Germany formed a substantial part of the Roman Catholic Holy Roman Empire, but was also the source of Protestant reformers such as Martin Luther. Historically, Germany had a substantial Jewish population. Only a few thousand people of Jewish origin remained in Germany after the Holocaust, but the German Jewish community now has approximately 100,000 members, many from the former Soviet Union. Germany also has a substantial Muslim minority, the most are from Turkey. Over 50 percent of Germans attend church on a regular basis.

[edit] Musical and artistic contributions

Germany has made a significant contribution to art and music. Famous German fine artists include the Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer, the surrealist Max Ernst, the expressionist Franz Marc, the conceptual artist Joseph Beuys or the neo expressionist Georg Baselitz. Famous German composers include Beethoven, Bach, Brahms, Schumann, and Wagner. The German Bauhaus school has a large influence on modern architecture. 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 Mozart, Franz Kafka and Stefan Zweig.

[edit] Academic landmarks

Germany has some of the finest academic centers in Europe. Famous Universities include the University of Tübingen, University of Göttingen, University of Marburg, University of Berlin, Heidelberg University, mining academy Freiberg and Freiburg University, among many others.

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 scene. Germany is also well known for its many opera houses.

[edit] Cuisine

Main article: German cuisine

German cuisine varies from region to region, but concentrates on meat (especially sausage) and varieties of sweet dessert and cakes (such as Black Forest gateau Scheißwälder Kirschtorte) and Stollen (a fruit cake).Germans also are famous for rye bread. Germany also produces a large quantity of beer, and (mostly white) wine, particularly Riesling, but also Müller-Thurgau and other varieties.

German cuisine is very similar to English and American cuisine and also to the cooking styles of its immediate neighbors (Holland, France, Austria, Poland). Although sausage is the most famous food product from Germany you couldn't gain an understanding of German cuisine if you just reduced it to sausage. In Germany it is mostly consumed as a snack (Bratwurst), at barbecues and it also appears in a few dishes. A stereotypical German dish contains a type of meat (typically pork, beef or poultry), a type of potatoes (mashed, fried, as dumplings or boiled) and a type of vegetable (typically peas, carrots or cabbage) and sauce. The "home cuisine" differs very much from the "restaurant cuisine". In restaurants you will find more traditional dishes. Cuisine differs also greatly according to regions (in the north you eat fish, in the Rhine region you replace beer with wine, in Bavaria you eat roasted pork) and season (in spring you eat white asparagus with ham and sauce hollandaise, in fall you eat green cabbage with a special kind of sausage and mustard and in winter/for Christmas you eat duck or goose with red cabbage, dumplings and delicious brown gravy).