Germany

The Federal Republic of Germany also called Germany (German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland also called Deutschland) is a country in the middle of Europe. It is an important country in international politics. To the north of Germany are the North Sea, the Baltic Sea, and the country Denmark. To the east of Germany are the countries Poland and the Czech Republic. To the south of Germany are the countries Austria and Switzerland. To the west of Germany are the countries France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands. West Germany was one of the countries that started the European Union.

1 History
2 Politics
3 States
4 Geography
5 Economy
6 People
7 Culture
8 Religion
9 External links

[edit] History

The Holy Roman Empire was the first Reich, or kingdom. It was started by Charlemagne, who was the first Holy Roman Emperor in 800 AD, and it lasted until 1806, the time of the Napoleonic Wars.

The second Reich started with a treaty in 1871 in Versailles. The German Empire came together and was centered around Prussia, but without Austria. Germany stayed an empire with many different kinds of people for another 50 years.

Germany won the Franco-Prussian War with France in 1871, and in World War I, it invaded France again. The war became a slow and was fought in trenches, holes soldiers dug in the ground to protect themselves. It killed many on both sides. The war ended in 1918, and Germany's emperor had to give up his power. After a revolution, the Second Reich ended and the democratic Weimar Republic began.

After the war, there were bad money problems in Germany because of the Peace Treaty of Versailles and the worldwide Great Depression.

The "Third Reich" was Nazi Germany; it lasted 12 years, from 1933 to 1945. Adolf Hitler became the Head of government, and by the Enabling Act on March 23, 1933, the parliament gave him total control of the country and the government.

Hitler claimed nearby countries to be part of Germany, and took them over. This finally started World War II in Europe on September 1, 1939. In the beginning, Germany was winning, and got control of most of Europe and a large part of the Soviet Union. After the decisive Battle of Stalingrad, the German Eastern Front began a slow retreat until war's end. On 8 May 1945, Germany gave up and Hitler killed himself. Because of the war, Germany lost a lot of land, and for 45 years, Germany was split into West and East Germany.

After the fall of Communism in Europe in 1990, Germany came together again; the new Germany and France are a large part of the European Union, a group of countries that want to bring all of Europe together for reasons of politics, defense, and economy.

[edit] Politics

Germany is a constitutional federal democracy. Its political rules come from the 1949 'constitution' called Grundgesetz (Basic Law). It has a parliamentary system, and the parliament chooses the head of government, the Bundeskanzler (Chancellor).

The people of Germany vote for the parliament, called the Bundestag (Federal Assembly), every four years. Government members of the 16 Bundesländer work in the Bundesrat (Federal Council). The Bundesrat can help make some laws.

The head of state is the Bundespräsident (Federal President). This person has no real powers but can order elections for the Bundestag.

The judiciary branch (the part of the government that deals with courts) has a Constitutional Court called Bundesverfassungsgericht. This can stop all acts by the law-makers or other leaders if it feels they go against Germany's constitution.

[edit] States

Main article: States of Germany

In Germany there are sixteen Bundesländer (singular Bundesland), or states:

Baden-Württemberg
Bavaria (Bayern)
Berlin (city-state)
Brandenburg
Bremen (city-state)
Hamburg (city-state)
Hesse (Hessen)
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen)
North Rhine-Westphalia (Nordrhein-Westfalen)
Rhineland-Palatinate (Rheinland-Pfalz)
Saarland
Saxony (Sachsen)
Saxony-Anhalt (Sachsen-Anhalt)
Schleswig-Holstein
Thuringia (Thüringen)

In these states there are 438 Kreise (districts).

[edit] Geography

Germany is one of the biggest countries in Europe. It goes from the high mountains of the Alps (highest point: the Zugspitze at 2,962 m) in the south, to the North Sea and Baltic Sea in the north. Between the mountains and the sea are the large forests of the middle part of Germany, and the very low and flat parts of northern Germany (lowest point: Neuendorfer/ Wilstermarsch at -3.54 m). Germany also has parts of Europe's biggest and most important rivers, such as the Rhine, Danube and Elbe.

[edit] Economy

Germany has the world's third most technologically powerful economy (only the United States and Japan are more powerful), but its economy is starting to have problems, because Germany pays a lot of money to many people who have no job. Germany's people are getting older, too; Social Security is paying more money than it gets. Bringing West and East Germany together and making their economy work is still taking a long time and costing a lot of money; the west gives about $100 billion to the east a year. Germans hope that because of the new form of money, the Euro used in most countries in Europe, and because Europe is coming closer together, this will help Germany's economy in the early 21st century.

[edit] People

There are at least seven million people from other countries living in Germany. Some have political asylum, some are guest workers (Gastarbeiter), and some are their families. A lot of people from poor or dangerous countries go to Germany for safety, but today the number is smaller (about 50,000 in 2003).

About 50,000 ethnic Danish people live in Schleswig, in the north. About 60,000 Slavic people, Sorbs, live in Germany too, mostly in Saxony. About 12,000 people in Germany speak Frisian; this language is the closest living language to English. In northern Germany, people outside towns speak Low Saxon.

Many people have come to Germany from Turkey (about 1.9 million Kurds and Turks). Other small groups of people in Germany are Croats (0.2 million), Italians (0.6 million), Greeks (0.4 million), Russians, and Poles (0.3 million). There are also some ethnic Germans who lived in the old Soviet Union (1.7 million), Poland (0.7 million), and Romania (0.3 million) (1980–1999 totals). These people have German passports, so they are not counted as foreigners. A lot of these people do not speak German at home.

Christianity is the biggest religion; Protestants are 38% of the people (mostly in the north) and Catholics are 34% of the people (mostly in the south). There are also many Muslims (1.7% of Germans), while the other people (26.3%) are either not religious, or belong to smaller religious groups.

Germany has one of the world's highest levels of schooling, technology, and businesses. The number of young people who start going to universities is now more than three times as big as it was after the end of World War II, and the trade and technical schools of Germany are some of the best in the world. Germans each make about $25,000 a year, so Germany is a very middle class society. A large social welfare system gives people money when they are ill or cannot find a job, and other things the people need. Millions of Germans travel outside their country each year.

[edit] Culture

Germany is where many people important in culture were born: composers such as Beethoven, Bach, Brahms, and Wagner; poets such as Goethe, Schiller, Heine and Lessing or Brecht; philosophers including Kant, Hegel, Marx, and Nietzsche; and scientists including Einstein, Born, Heisenberg and Planck. It was also where the Bauhaus movement started.

In the past, when people in Europe could not speak each other's languages, they used German. Today, many people still learn German in school as a foreign language; it is second after English. Many important people in history are thought of as "German", because they are at the heart of German culture, although they did not always live in Germany. Some of these people were Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Franz Kafka, Stefan Zweig, and Copernicus.

[edit] Religion

Roman Catholicism was the biggest religion in Germany up to the 15th century, but a major religious change called the Reformation changed this. In 1517, Martin Luther said that the Catholic church was greedy and that it used religion to make money. Because of what he said, European and world history changed, and Luther started Protestantism, which is equally big then the Catholic religion in Germany today. The current Pope, Benedict XVI, was born in Germany.

Before World War II, about 2/3 of the German people were Protestant and 1/3 were Roman Catholic. In the north and northeast of Germany, there were a lot more Protestants than Catholics.

Germany's constitution says that all people can believe in any religion they want to, and that no one is allowed to step on another person's rights because of the person's religion.

Today, Germany has the fastest-growing group of Jewish people in the world. Many of them are in Berlin. Ten thousand Jews have moved to Germany since the fall of the Berlin Wall; many came from countries that were in the Soviet Union. Schools teaching about the horrible things that happened when the Nazis were in power, as well as teaching against the ideas of the Nazis, has helped to make Germany very tolerant towards other people and cultures, and now many people move there from countries that may not be so tolerant.

Today, about 2/3 of the German people (more than 55 million people) belong to a Christian church, but most of them take no part in church life. About half of them are Protestants and about half are Roman Catholics. Most German Protestants are members of the Evangelical Church in Germany. About three million Muslims are living in Germany.

[edit] External links

Deutschland.de - Official German portal
Statistikportal.de - Website statistical data
Bundesregierung Deutschland - Website of the German Federal Government
Bundespräsident - Website of the German President
Bundestag - Website of the German Parliament
City Panoramas - Panoramic Views and Virtual Tours of German Cities and Towns
Wide pictures of many German places and buildings
Germany Travel Guide
Axel Boldt, A Subjective Comparison of Germany and the United States

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