I.

Introduction

Federal Republic of Germany (German Bundesrepublik Deutschland), major industrialized nation in Central Europe, a federal union of 16 states (Länder). Germany has a long, complex history and rich culture, but it was not unified as a nation until 1871. Before that time, Germany had been a confederacy (1815-1867) and, before 1806, a collection of separate and quite different principalities.

Germany is the seventh largest country in area in Europe. It has a varied terrain that ranges from low-lying coastal flats along the North and Baltic seas, to a central area of rolling hills and river valleys, to heavily forested mountains and snow-covered Alps in the south. Several of Europe’s most important rivers, including the Rhine, Danube, and Elbe, traverse the country and have helped make it a transportation center.

Germany is overwhelmingly urban. Berlin is the capital and largest city, although Bonn, which was the provisional capital of West Germany, is still home to some government offices. The principal language is German, and two-thirds of the people are either Roman Catholic or Protestant.

Germans have made numerous noteworthy contributions to Western culture. Among the many outstanding German authors, artists, architects, musicians, and philosophers, the composers Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven are probably the best known the world over. German literary greats include Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Thomas Mann.

A major industrialized nation, Germany is home to the world’s third largest economy, after the United States and Japan. Germany is a leading producer of products such as iron and steel, machinery and machine tools, and automobiles. Germany is an economic powerhouse in the European Union (EU), and a driving force behind greater economic integration and cooperation throughout Europe.

Germany’s central location in Europe has made it a crossroads for many peoples, ideas, and armies throughout history. Present-day Germany originated from the ad 843 division of the Carolingian empire, which also included France and a middle section stretching from the North Sea to northern Italy. For centuries, Germany was a collection of states mostly held together as a loose feudal association. From the 16th century on, the German states became increasingly involved in European wars and religious struggles. In the early 19th century, French conquest of the German states started a movement toward German national unification, and in 1815, led by the state of Prussia, the German states formed a confederacy that lasted until 1867 (see German Confederation).

Once unified under Otto von Bismarck in 1871, Germany experienced rapid industrialization and economic growth. During the early 20th century Germany embarked on a quest for European dominance, leading it into World War I. Germany’s defeat in 1918 triggered political and economic chaos. An ultranationalist reaction gave rise to the National Socialist (Nazi) Party (see National Socialism), which gained power in the 1930s under German leader Adolf Hitler. In 1939 Nazi Germany plunged the world into a new global conflict, World War II.

In 1945 the Allied Powers of the United Kingdom, the United States, France, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) defeated Germany in World War II. The Allies agreed to divide the country into four zones of occupation: the British, American, French, and Soviet zones. When the wartime alliance between the Western powers and the Soviet Union broke up in the late 1940s, the Soviet zone became the Communist-led German Democratic Republic (GDR), or East Germany. The three Western zones formed the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), or West Germany. Control of Germany's historic capital of Berlin was also divided between the two German states, despite its location deep within East Germany. In 1961 East Germany built the Berlin Wall and other elaborate border fortifications to stop the exodus of millions of East Germans to the more prosperous and democratic West Germany.

In 1989 Germans from the East and West breached the Berlin Wall, an event that symbolized the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe and the beginning of German reunification. Amid joyful celebrations, the two Germanys were reunited on October 3, 1990, as the Federal Republic of Germany. However, Germany soon faced numerous social and economic difficulties as it attempted to absorb millions of new citizens and blend different cultures and institutions. Many of these difficulties—including chronically high unemployment and reduced levels of economic growth—were among the most important challenges facing Germany in the early 21st century.

II.

Land and Resources

Germany ranks as the seventh largest country in Europe, with a total area of 356,970 sq km (137,827 sq mi). Germany is bounded on the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; on the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; on the south by Austria and Switzerland; and on the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and The Netherlands.

Stretching from the Baltic and North seas to the Alps, Germany measures 800 km (500 mi) from north to south; the country extends 600 km (400 mi) from west to east. In addition to coastline and mountains, the varied terrain includes forests, hills, plains, and river valleys. Several navigable rivers traverse the uplands, and canals connect the river systems of the Elbe, Rhine, see Main, and Danube rivers and link the North Sea with the Baltic.

A.

Natural Regions

Germany has three major natural regions: a lowland plain in the north, an area of uplands in the center, and a mountainous area in the south. The northern lowlands, called the North German Plain, lie along and between the North Sea and the Baltic Sea and extend southward into eastern Germany. The lowest point in Germany is sea level along the coast, where there are areas of dunes and marshland. Off the coast are several islands, including the Frisian Islands, Helgoland, and Rügen. The flat area was originally formed by glacial action during the Ice Age and includes an alluvial belt, southwest of Berlin, which is Germany’s richest farming area. Farther west, this belt supported the development of the coal and steel industries of the Ruhr Valley in cities such as Essen and Dortmund. Historically, the north German lowlands have been wide open to invasions, migrations, and trade with Scandinavia and Eastern Europe. East of the Elbe River, they also sustained large-scale agriculture and huge feudal estates once owned by the Prussian aristocratic elite.

The central uplands feature mountain ranges of modest height, separated by river valleys. Navigable rivers facilitated economic development by providing inexpensive transportation before the age of railroads and trucking. This region is located between the latitude of the city of Nürnberg and the Main River in the south and the latitude of Hannover in the north. Much of it is heavily forested and exploited for its timber. The region is marked by an abundance of waterpower. Intense cultivation and industrial development have occurred in cities such as Dresden and Kassel, located in the river valleys.

The mountainous region, or Alpine zone, in the south includes the Swabian and Franconian mountains, the foothills of the Alps, and two large forests, the Black Forest in the southwest and the Bavarian and Bohemian Forest in the east. Germany’s highest point is Zugspitze (2,962 m/9,718 ft) in the Bavarian Alps. Major cities in this area include Stuttgart and Munich. The region has traditionally relied on small-scale agriculture and tourism, but many high-technology industries began to develop there during the 1970s.

B.

Rivers and Lakes

Rivers have played a major role in Germany’s economic development. The Rhine River flows in a northwesterly direction from Switzerland through much of western Germany and The Netherlands into the North Sea. It is a major European waterway and a pillar of commerce and trade. Its primary German tributaries include the Main, Mosel, Neckar, and Ruhr rivers.

The Oder (Odra) River, along the border between Poland and Germany, runs northward and empties into the Baltic; it provides another important path for waterborne freight. The Elbe River originates in the Czech mountains and traverses eastern and western Germany toward the northwest until it empties into the North Sea at the large seaport of Hamburg. The Danube River connects southern Germany with Austria and Eastern Europe. Since the recent construction of the Rhine-Danube Canal, freight can be transported by barge from the North Sea to the Black Sea. Smaller rivers such as the Neisse and Weser also play a significant role as transport routes. There are several large lakes, including the Lake of Constance (Bodensee) in extreme southwest Germany and the glacial moraine lakes of Bavaria, but none of them have rivaled the importance of rivers in German economic development.

C.

Coastline

Germany’s coastline along the North Sea is characterized by vast stretches of tidal flats and several important seaports, including Hamburg, Bremerhaven, and Emden. Schleswig-Holstein, Germany’s northernmost state, is traversed by the vital Kiel Canal, which carries freight between the Baltic and North seas, eliminating the need for a shipping route around Denmark. Major seaports of the German Baltic coast include Kiel and Rostock. The coastline also features recreation areas, some on small islands off both coasts.

D.

Plant and Animal Life

Once a country of thick forests, Germany today includes mostly areas that have been cleared for centuries. However, forest conservation since the 18th century has preserved large areas of oak, ash, elm, beech, birch, pine, fir, and larch. About one-third of the country is woodland.

Of the many animals that once roamed the forests, deer, red fox, hare, and weasel are still common, but these animals and wilder game such as wild boar, wildcat, and badger depend increasingly on conservation efforts. Private hunting licenses are very expensive, and even fishing in the streams and lakes where edible species abound is not encouraged. Instead, there is a good deal of fish farming, including trout and carp; deer are also raised commercially to satisfy the demand for venison. Many species of songbirds migrate to Germany every year, as do storks, geese, and other larger fowl that fly in over the Mediterranean Sea from Africa. Herring, flounder, cod, and ocean perch are found in coastal waters.

E.

Natural Resources

The presence of coal and iron ore encouraged German industrial development in the late 19th century. Most of the deposits were found in close proximity to one another, allowing for the convenient use of coal as fuel first to process the iron into steel and then to manufacture products from the steel. The availability of inexpensive transport by water, and later by land, facilitated the growth of manufacturing and encouraged exports. The presence of certain minerals in great quantity, such as potash and salt, permitted the development of a chemical industry, including the production of fertilizers and pharmaceuticals. The availability of wood, petroleum, natural gas, brown coal (also known as lignite), and waterpower further smoothed the path of German industrial progress.

F.

Climate

Germany has a mostly moderate climate, characterized by cool winters and warm summers. River valleys such as that of the Rhine tend to be humid and somewhat warmer in both winter and summer, whereas mountain areas can be much colder. Precipitation on the average is much heavier in the south, especially along the Alpine slopes, which force incoming weather fronts to rise and shed their moisture in the form of rain and snow.

G.

Environmental Issues

Germany is located amid other heavily industrial nations whose air pollution and water pollution enter the country with the wind and rain, and in the rivers. Also every summer many automobiles, including those from other European countries, drive across Germany’s autobahn on their way to vacations in southern Europe. Among Germany’s homegrown environmental problems, the most important are probably those connected with industrial overdevelopment and automobile traffic.

A densely settled country, Germany has limited land, air, and water in which to bury and dissipate all the toxic wastes produced by its intensive industrial development. Factory and automobile exhaust pollution is blamed for the widespread destruction of forests from acid rain. Agricultural development results in fertilizer and pesticide runoff into lakes and streams, burdening the groundwater supply. Germany also received some nuclear fallout at the time of the 1986 Chernobyl’ reactor meltdown in Ukraine (Chernobyl’ Accident). Public resistance halted the development of nuclear energy in Germany as people objected to the proposed sites of nuclear plants.

With unification, West Germany inherited the enormous pollution problems of East Germany, whose government had not dealt with serious environmental damage. Among the worst problems were the open remnants from strip mining and the legacy of the chemical industry, both located in southern East Germany. The poisoning of soil and groundwater by uncontrolled industrial and agricultural development required enormous expenditures for cleanup. The burning of brown coal, the only kind of coal abundant in East Germany, has led to health problems, including respiratory ailments and lung and heart disease.

Germany has developed a number of measures to address environmental problems of various sorts, ranging from controls on industrial emissions to identification of additives in food to smog control devices on vehicles. In the 1970s an environmental protest movement developed, and the Green Party—a political party that focuses on environmental issues—was formed. These two events led the major political parties to devote more attention to the environment because they felt they had to compete with the Green Party. The most remarkable result of this increased environmental awareness was the development of an “eco-industry,” a new manufacturing sector that makes pollution-control devices and other environmentally useful equipment. This industry has also produced new jobs, helping counter the fears of both trade unions and existing industries that environmental controls would cost jobs and handicap business. In addition, Germany has ratified various international environmental agreements on air pollution, biodiversity, climate change, endangered species, oceans, the ozone layer, wetlands, and whaling.

III.

People

Germany has a total population of 82,400,996 (2007 estimate). As is the case in many industrialized countries, the German population has grown substantially older on the average since the early 20th century. This is a result of declining birth rates and the shrinking of family size as Germans have chosen to have fewer children. In addition, the numbers of single-parent and one-person households are increasing.

The German population is overwhelmingly urban. Germany has more than three dozen cities exceeding 200,000 residents, and 12 metropolises with more than 500,000 residents. Three of Germany’s federal states are city-states: Berlin, Bremen, and Hamburg. Berlin is the capital and largest city.

Germany’s population density is highest in the northwest, especially in North Rhine-Westphalia (Nordrhein-Westfalen), which includes Germany’s old industrial heartland, the Ruhr Valley, and a number of large cities. Population density is lower in the former East Germany and in the more rural states of Schleswig-Holstein, Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen), and Bavaria.

A.

Ethnic Groups

Several ethnic minorities live in Germany, including the Danes of northern Schleswig-Holstein and the Sorbs of southeastern Brandenburg, who are descended from the Slavic tribes called the Wends. Foreign residents make up about 9 percent of Germany’s population. The largest group is Turkish, but there are also large numbers of East European refugees, as well as immigrants from European Union (EU) countries such as Italy, Spain, and Greece.

B.

Immigration

As a result of being defeated in World War I and World War II, Germany lost large areas of land. After World War II, many ethnic Germans fled from lost territories and East European countries to what remained of Germany. About 8 million refugees fled from East Prussia, the Czech Sudetenland, and the region between the Oder and Neisse rivers in Poland. About another 3 million ethnic Germans fled from Hungary, Yugoslavia, Romania, and other parts of Eastern Europe. Most of these ethnic Germans had lived for centuries in Eastern Europe. However, during and after the wars they were driven out, often violently, with the loss of an estimated 2 million German lives. This process began with the collapse of the German Empire (see German Unification) and Austria-Hungary in 1918 and the establishment of East European countries such as Czechoslovakia and Poland. The failed attempt of the Nazi Party to reconquer and expand German ethnic dominance by force led to the final flight and expulsion of ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe.

Once they arrived from their trek to East and West Germany, these millions of ethnic German refugees were rapidly integrated into German society. Many refugees continued to move from rural to urban areas, and from east to west as 2.5 million East Germans fled to West Germany before the Berlin Wall was built in 1961.

A second great population movement began in the 1950s as the rapidly expanding West German economy demanded a larger labor supply. To meet this demand, West Germany looked outside the country to fill labor needs. From 1955, under bilateral treaties with various countries that had underemployment, West Germany brought in thousands of so-called guest workers on limited-term contracts to work for a few years. When Germany’s economic growth slowed in the early 1970s, West Germany stopped foreign recruitment and expected the guest workers to return to their home countries. However, most of them—including large numbers of workers from Turkey and Yugoslavia—did not leave. In addition, many workers had brought their families with them to share in Germany’s opportunities, living standards, and welfare benefits.

During the 1980s and 1990s Germany continued to experience waves of migration. The disintegration of Eastern European Communist regimes led ethnic Germans from as far away as Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Russia, and Romania to seek a new life in Germany, where the Basic Law offers them instant citizenship even if they do not speak the language. The crumbling of Communist rule in East Germany was also accompanied by a massive migration of East Germans to West Germany. Finally, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, hundreds of thousands of people a year from Sri Lanka, Lebanon, West Africa, and other regions sought refuge in Germany under Article 16 of the Basic Law, which provides asylum for victims of political persecution.

Some Germans have not welcomed these immigrants; many believe that the immigrants came only to participate in Germany’s high living standards. Official responses to these different kinds of immigration challenges have been varied and at times inconsistent, especially since Germany is a federal country and different states and cities have widely varying labor needs and problems. Ethnic German “resettlers” and East German migrants still encounter prejudice even though they are German citizens. Asylum-seekers have been kept in hostels all over the country, barred from jobs and social integration while individual cases for political asylum are examined. This process can take years and has resulted in large numbers of people being turned away. Restrictive immigration procedures adopted in the early 1990s reduced the number of annual asylum seekers by two-thirds.

C.

Principal Cities

Germany’s largest cities tend to be either the capitals of former or present states—for example, Berlin, the capital of former Prussia; Munich, the capital of Bavaria; and Dresden, the capital of Saxony (Sachsen). In addition, many of Germany’s largest cities are centers of important super-regional functions or part of industrial areas. For example, the Rhine-Ruhr area, the center of German heavy industry, is a vast population hub with five large cities: Düsseldorf, Duisburg, Dortmund, Essen, and Cologne. Because many people live in adjacent areas or towns and commute to the city, each of these urban centers accounts for far more people than just those living within the city limits.

The cores of many of these large cities and many smaller ones are quite old and have maintained their historic centers with authentically preserved old buildings and cathedrals. Many small towns, such as Rothenburg ob der Tauber in northern Bavaria, boast medieval towers, gates, and parts of their ancient city walls. Many medium-sized and larger cities also pride themselves on a rich, publicly subsidized cultural life of theater, opera, music festivals, and galleries, which add modern refinement to regional traditions.

D.

Language

The principal and official language of Germany is German, an Indo-European language (see German Language). Standard High German is used for official, educational, and literary purposes. Spoken German, however, differs from High German in the form of dozens of distinctive dialects and simplified street usage. One version, Low German, or Plattdeutsch, resembles Dutch and is spoken in the seaboard areas of the northwest. Southern dialects such as Swabian and Bavarian may be hard to understand for North Germans or for foreign visitors who learned only High German in school. There are small language minorities, such as the Sorbs of southeastern Brandenburg and the Danes of northern Schleswig-Holstein; both of these groups also have some cultural autonomy. The various immigrant populations also retain their separate languages, such as Turkish, Greek, Italian, Spanish, and Croatian. However, the public schools require all children to learn German.

E.

Religion

Religion in Germany plays a fairly small role in society. Church attendance in Germany is much lower than that in the United States. Under German law, all churches are supported by a modest church tax that is collected by the state.

Roman Catholicism was the dominant religion in medieval Germany until the major crises and reformation efforts of the 14th and 15th centuries. After that time, Protestant churches came to power in the majority of principalities of the north, east, and center of the Holy Roman Empire. The actual Reformation began with the publication of the Ninety-five Theses of protest by Martin Luther in 1517. After considerable religious and political conflict, the Peace of Augsburg of 1555 decreed that each ruler of the approximately 300 German principalities could determine the religion of the subjects. The Catholics eventually met the rapid spread of Protestantism with the Counter Reformation, which involved internal church reforms and a stricter interpretation of church doctrine. Religious strife finally culminated in the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648), which devastated the country.

Roman Catholics, mainly concentrated in the south, make up about 35 percent of the German population. Protestants, the great majority of whom are Lutherans (see Lutheranism), make up about 37 percent of the people. Protestants live primarily in the north. Several German Protestant churches form a loosely organized federation called the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD). About 4 percent of the German population is Muslim (see Islam).

Only a very small percentage of Germans are Jewish (See also Judaism). Until the 19th century, the Jewish community was segregated and barred from many activities in most German states. In 19th-century Prussia and with the unification of Germany in 1871, German Jews were granted equal status under the law. At that point, German Jews became integrated into cultural and economic life. More than 500,000 Jews lived in Germany in the early 1930s. By the end of World War II in 1945, most of them had been killed by the Nazis in the Holocaust or had fled the country. By 1970 only about 33,000 Jews lived in Germany. With the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe and the fall of the Berlin Wall, tens of thousands of East European and Russian Jews began to settle in the larger cities of Germany, particularly Berlin. Today, due to in part to an immigration policy that generally grants visas to Jews from formerly Communist states, Germany is home to one of the fastest growing Jewish populations in Europe, now numbering more than 100,000.

F.

Education

Full-time school attendance in Germany is free and mandatory from age 6 to age 14, after which most children either continue in secondary schools or participate in vocational education until the age of 18. Kindergarten is not part of the public school system, although before unification East Germany had a nearly universal system of childcare facilities. Under the treaty of unification, the East German public education system was required to conform to the model in use in West Germany.

Education in Germany is under the jurisdiction of the individual state governments, which results in a great deal of variety. Most states in the former West Germany have a three-track system that begins with four years of Grundschule (primary school), attended by all children between the ages of 6 and 9. After this period, a child’s further educational program is determined during two “orientation grades” (ages 10 and 11). Those who are university-bound then enter a track of rigorous preparatory secondary education by attending a highly competitive, academic Gymnasium (junior and senior high school). Many Gymnasium students leave school at age 16 to pursue business careers. Others graduate at age 19 after passing a week-long examination called the Abitur. If they pass, they receive a certificate, which is a prerequisite for entering a university. The Gymnasium has three alternative focuses: Greek and Latin, modern languages, and mathematics and science. Only about one-tenth of German students graduate from the Gymnasium.

The overwhelming majority of German students attend either a six-year Realschule (postprimary school), which offers a mixture of business and academic training, or a five-year Hauptschule (general school) followed by further skills training and on-the-job experience in a three-year vocational program, or Berufsschule. From age 14 nearly all Realschule and Hauptschule students, both male and female, enroll in trade apprenticeship programs, which combine training in workshops, factories, or businesses with vocational schooling. Apprentices are supervised by a trade master and must demonstrate their mastery of the trade in examinations.

Since the German three-track system has often been accused of conforming to class distinctions, some states have opted instead for a comprehensive high school system that combines all the tracks within the same institution. The result is somewhat similar to an American high school, but far more competitive. Before unification, East Germany’s polytechnic high schools also provided a comprehensive program. Since 1990, East German education has moved in the direction of West German models.

The Abitur is required for university entrance but there are alternative routes to it. Some students are permitted to change from one kind of school to another during the course of their education. Such midcourse changes are easiest at comprehensive high schools. Those who opt for three years of vocational training after tenth grade can also go on to specialized trade colleges, or Fachhochschulen. Schools of continuing education for adults, such as the many Volkshochschulen (German for “people’s colleges”), offer a variety of adult education courses and have some programs leading to diplomas.

Enrollments at German universities have quadrupled since the 1960s, which has caused the expansion of many old universities and the building of a number of new ones. Germany has quite a few venerable old universities, such as those of Heidelberg, Freiburg, Munich, Tübingen, and Marburg.

G.

Way of Life

High living standards, plentiful leisure time (including three weeks or more of mandatory paid vacation for most workers), and comprehensive social welfare benefits distinguish German society. Germany has a highly urbanized society, with lifestyles that emphasize recreational, leisure, and physical fitness activities. Many Germans enjoy hiking, camping, skiing, and other outdoor pursuits. Germans are known for their love of traveling, and millions travel abroad each year. Soccer is the most popular sport in the nation, and many Germans belong to local soccer clubs. Germans are also known for their love of food, especially rich pastries, veal and pork dishes, and many types of sausages and cheeses. German-made wine and beer are famous all over the world. Also popular are lively social gatherings at outdoor beer or wine gardens or cellar restaurants where wine or beer is stored.

German society has undergone vast changes in recent decades. Since the early 1960s, for example, television has homogenized popular culture and brought urban ways of thinking to rural areas. In fact, the rapid spread of automobile ownership in the 1950s and 1960s made rural isolation a thing of the past. The old village communities, whose cultural life was dominated by the parish and the elementary school, have almost disappeared. The one-room schools in which eight grades used to be instructed simultaneously no longer exist. Young women find that most of the traditional barriers to a career of their own choosing, in particular barriers to diversified vocational and higher education, have broken down. Women have also been freed from the constraints of the traditional family roles of motherhood and child rearing by birth control and a greatly lowered birth rate. Today, Germany’s birthrate is among the lowest in the world.

Some people in the former East Germany look back fondly on the days before unification when their way of life was modest but also highly egalitarian. Unification brought greater personal freedom to East Germans, but the capitalistic market economy also brought the heightened competition and a hectic pace of life common in the West. The former East Germany still has considerably lower wage levels and living standards than the more prosperous West Germany. Many large state-owned manufactures and cooperative agricultural enterprises in East Germany did not survive the transformation to a market economy, a process that resulted in unusually high unemployment. The German government continues to invest tens of billions of dollars every year to modernize the infrastructure of roads, transport, communications, and housing in the former East Germany.

H.

Social Problems

Germany does not have large pockets of poverty or great economic disparity. Crime levels are substantially lower than those in the United States, and the possession of guns is controlled. However, there are significant numbers of homeless people and problems of violence, alcoholism, and drug abuse. Nonviolent crimes, such as theft and burglary in urban areas, have increased since the 1970s.

Since the 1960s youth violence and crime have increased steadily. Disruptive behavior and gang membership characterize some urban secondary schools. Neighborhood youth gangs sometimes engage in vandalism, car theft, and other crimes. Some teens belong to punk and skinhead groups, which may espouse drug use, violence, or racism. In addition, gangs of “soccer rowdies” frequently disrupt games or cause riots afterward.

In the early 1990s the great influx of foreigners, especially illegal aliens and asylum-seekers, coincided with the collapse of the East German Communist regime. Unification brought numerous economic and social problems to Germany, including increased taxes, budget deficits, housing shortages, strikes and demonstrations, high unemployment, and rising crime rates. Enormous social changes and economic fears brought xenophobia (fear of foreigners) to the surface. While an angry public focused on the unwelcome strangers and competitors for scarce housing and other benefits, neighborhood youth gangs attacked visible aliens and set fire to their government-assigned housing shelters. At its peak in 1992 this antiforeign violence became the object of extraordinary media concern in Germany and abroad, where it was sometimes interpreted as a sign of German racism and the revival of Nazi activities. Massive counter-demonstrations drew millions of Germans opposed to racism and antiforeign violence. Nevertheless, episodes of racist violence continued into the new millennium, claiming an estimated 100 lives between 1990 and 2000.

IV.

Culture

The German people have made many noteworthy cultural contributions. However, the antecedents of contemporary German art, music, and literature are so thoroughly embedded in the broader European intellectual traditions as to defy most attempts to separate any specifically German cultural roots. A visitor, for example, can see abundant evidence of early medieval art and architecture in the many splendid cathedrals, monasteries, and castles of Germany, but these follow the same styles and style periods that are be found in other European countries—Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, baroque, and so on. German literature and music were similarly part of the larger European culture.

A.

Literature

From the beginnings of Germany in the 9th century through the Middle Ages, classical Latin was the language of literature and theology in the country. In the 12th and 13th centuries, a vernacular literature appeared, particularly of heroic epics told by wandering minstrel poets. Gottfried von Strassburg wrote Tristan und Isolt (1210) and Wolfram von Eschenbach wrote Parzival (about 1210), both of which dealt with Christian themes from the French Arthurian cycle. The two most important epics of the Middle Ages—the Nibelungenlied (about 1200-1210) and the Gudrunlied (about 1210)—are based on pagan Germanic traditions.

Two important events—the construction of a printing press using movable type around 1450 by German printer Johannes Gutenberg and the translation of the Bible into German in 1521 by religious reformer Martin Luther—had a profound impact on Western culture as a whole. They also opened new possibilities for a specifically German literature, because they founded a uniform High German language above the regional dialects, and made it accessible to all who could read. Religious unrest and the Thirty Years’ War put an end to most German literary efforts until a revival occurred in the 18th century.

One of the first writers to stand out beyond Germany was 18th-century dramatist Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, whose play Nathan the Wise (1779; translated 1781) argued for religious toleration. Philosopher and literary critic Johann Gottfried von Herder was an important contemporary of Lessing. The revival of German literature was marked by two great literary movements, classicism and romanticism, which were united in the works of Germany’s greatest poets, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller. The lyrical poetry and novels of Goethe and his drama Faust (1808-1832; translated 1834) and the plays and poems of Schiller brought together classical form and the romantic emotions that marked much of the literature to come. The great inspiration for this golden age of German literature was classical antiquity, which was considered admirable for its balance and perfection. The romantics, on the other hand, often used German folk materials, such as medieval history and the fairy tales collected by the Grimm brothers. Ancient Greek poetry inspired the romantic poems of Friedrich Hölderlin. The brothers August Wilhelm von Schlegel and Friedrich von Schlegel edited Athenaeum, which was the chief journal of the romantic movement, translated Shakespeare, and produced literary works based on classical antiquity.

In the mid-1800s the new literary schools of naturalism and symbolism developed. Naturalism regarded human behavior as controlled by instinct, social and economic conditions, and biological factors; it rejected free will. Naturalist playwright Gerhart Hauptmann explored hereditary factors that shaped the individual, while the work of symbolist poet Rainer Maria Rilke was marked by mystic lyricism and imagery. Austrian playwright and poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal created aesthetic moods. Great German novelists of the early 1900s include Thomas Mann, author of The Magic Mountain (1924; translated 1927) and other famous novels, and Alfred Döblin, who is best known for his novel Berlin Alexanderplatz (1929; translated 1931). The most influential expressionist writer was Franz Kafka, whose novels and short stories present a world of oppression and despair.

Social criticism was also a common theme in the early 1900s; it provided the primary focus for the novelist Robert Musil and the playwrights Arthur Schnitzler and Frank Wedekind. In 1929 Erich Maria Remarque published the antiwar novel Im Westen nichts Neues (All Quiet on the Western Front), with grimly realistic portraits of World War I. Writers like Hermann Hesse, author of Siddhartha (1922; translated 1951), drew on Indian philosophy and religion. The narrative epic theater of see Bertolt Brecht during the 1920s in Berlin specifically attacked capitalist, bourgeois society. German writing, like many German arts, suffered when the Nazi Party (see National Socialism) took control of Germany in 1933; led by Thomas Mann, many creative minds fled the country and went into exile.

After World War II a new generation of German writers, which called itself Group 47, examined themes of overcoming the Nazi experience. Novelists Heinrich Böll, Günter Grass, and Uwe Johnson led this group. Playwrights Peter Weiss and Peter Handke and poets Ingeborg Bachmann and Paul Celan made important contributions to German literature in the late 20th century.

B.

Art and Architecture

Medieval German art and architecture were embedded in the dominant European styles of the time. No monumental painting or sculpture, however, has survived from the earliest period except the 9th-century Carolingian cathedral at Aachen, one of the most important circular buildings in Europe.

The cathedrals of Hildesheim and Magdeburg, the illuminated manuscripts, the sculpture, and the church paintings of the 10th century reflect the spirituality of Byzantine art and architecture. The 11th- and 12th-century cathedrals of Speyer, Goslar, Mainz, and Worms are outstanding examples of the Romanesque style, with rounded arches and dark interiors. The cathedrals of Strasbourg, Trier, and Cologne are fine samples of the Gothic style and its soaring pillars, pointed arches, and flying buttresses. In the 14th century a family of architects and artists, the Parlers, helped spread Gothic designs and sculpture throughout southern Germany, from Ulm to Nürnberg and Prague. During the Renaissance of the 15th and 16th centuries, the great German artist Albrecht Dürer created extraordinary woodcuts and copper engravings and pioneered ways of reproducing and disseminating art. Other well-known artists of the time include the painters Matthias Grünewald, Lucas Cranach the Elder, and Hans Holbein the Younger, and the superb wood altars and sculptures of Tilman Riemenschneider.

Another style, the opulently ornamented baroque, flourished in the Catholic churches and monasteries and the secular palaces of southern Germany and Austria during the 17th and 18th centuries. Its rich ornamentation accompanied the renewed style of the Catholic church service of the Counter Reformation, which was a reaction to the Protestant preference for stripping churches of statuary and paintings of saints. Andreas Schlüter designed the Royal Palace in Berlin in 1706, and architect Balthasar Neumann built the Bishop’s Residence in Würzburg with a great stair hall and a reception room decorated with ceiling paintings.

Outstanding examples of late baroque, or rococo style, include the Wies Church near Munich in southern Bavaria, a vision of light and lightness built by Dominikus Zimmermann, the Benedictine Abbey of Melk on the Danube, and the Royal Zwinger Palace in Dresden, a creation of Matthäus Daniel Pöppelmann. Rococo is distinguished by its fanciful use of curves and light, its flowing asymmetric lines, and its pierced shellwork. In the 19th century, great architects such as the painter and architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel designed many of the representative buildings in Berlin, and Gottfried Semper pioneered the revival of Renaissance styles in Dresden and Vienna. Artists of the German romantic period include Caspar David Friedrich, who painted meditative landscapes and seascapes, and Carl Spitzweg, who provided humorous glimpses of small-town life.

At the beginning of the 20th century, German art and architecture developed a range of new styles, beginning with the Jugendstil (see Art Nouveau), whose rich and colorful ornamentation and graceful curves left an indelible imprint on the rest of the century. The Bauhaus school of design, under the direction first of Walter Gropius and later of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, pioneered a functional, severely simple architectural style during the years of the Weimar Republic. The Bauhaus also attracted great abstract painters such as Paul Klee and famous foreigners such as the Russian Wassily Kandinsky and the American Lyonel Feininger. In addition, the early 1900s produced the bitter caricatures of George Grosz, the tragic graphic art of Käthe Kollwitz, and the expressionist art of groups such as Die Brücke (The Bridge) and Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider). Among the leading expressionists were painters Max Beckmann, who produced highly dramatic and energetic paintings, and Emil Nolde, who used contorted brushwork and raw colors to visually shock the viewer. The Nazis pilloried their work as “degenerate art.” As with German literature, nearly every leading figure in art and architecture fled Germany during the Nazi years, and only a few returned after 1945. In postwar Germany, artists of note include sculptor and performance artist Joseph Beuys and painter Anselm Kiefer, who explored themes of the German cultural crisis under dictatorship and total war.

C.

Music

The earliest roots of German music lie in monastic chants and religious music. In the 12th century the mystic abbess Hildegard of Bingen wrote stirring compositions and hymns that sought to free musical expression from narrow conventions. From the 12th century to the 14th century, wandering nobles and knights called minnesingers wrote and recited courtly love poems in the tradition of French troubadours and trouvères. Of the approximately 160 known minnesingers from this time period, the most famous are Walther von der Vogelweide and Reinmar von Hagenau. In addition to the minnesingers, a secular folk music tradition also developed. Some collections of student and vagabond songs survive, including the Carmina Burana verses of 13th-century Bavaria, which in the 20th century were set to music by Carl Orff. From the 14th to the 16th century the German middle class favored the rigid musical style composed by the poets and musicians who belonged to the Meistersinger guild.

During the 16th and 17th centuries, polyphonic music, in which simultaneous melodies were interwoven, arrived in Germany in the form of the Protestant chorale. In contrast to the music of the traditional Catholic service, the rousing Protestant chorale became the participant music of the faithful. Protestant leader Martin Luther himself contributed some of the most popular chorales, such as “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” to this genre of sacred songs written in the vernacular. Other leading religious composers included Heinrich Schütz, Dietrich Buxtehude, and see Johann Pachelbel.

The age of baroque music, with its exuberant ornamentation, began with one of Germany’s greatest composers, Johann Sebastian Bach. Bach’s towering work of the early 1700s was admired for its artistic use of counterpoint. It includes the formal Brandenburg Concertos; four orchestral suites; concertos for violin, keyboard, and various wind instruments; preludes; fugues; and a huge volume of choral works, including his Christmas Oratorio, The Passion of St. Matthew, The Passion of St. John, and many cantatas. He also had two musically talented sons, Johann Christian Bach and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, who became well-known composers in their own right. Two famous contemporaries of Bach were composers Georg Philipp Telemann and George Frideric Handel—who wrote more than 40 operas, chamber music, and the famous oratorio Messiah.

By the 1740s princely courts in such cities as Berlin, Dresden, Mannheim, and Vienna had emerged as sponsors of orchestral music and of composers and musicians. In Mannheim, for example, Johann Wenzel Anton Stamitz held the post of court composer. In Vienna, the Hungarian Esterházy princes extended their patronage to the immensely gifted and versatile Joseph Haydn, who gave the string quartet, the symphony, and the sonata their classic form. In Salzburg and also in Vienna in the late 1700s, child prodigy and musical genius Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart experimented with strains of the dominant Italian musical tradition until he developed his own unmistakable graceful and lyrical style. In his short but brilliant life he produced about 50 symphonies; concertos for piano, violin, and wind instruments; masses; and a requiem. His most famous operas, The Marriage of Figaro (1786) and Don Giovanni (1787), and lighter operatic pieces, The Magic Flute (1791) and The Abduction from the Seraglio (1782), still dominate the operatic stage.

The age of the French and American revolutions characterized the heroic emotion of the work of Ludwig van Beethoven, a student of Haydn’s in Vienna, who also revolutionized musical form and expression in the early 1800s. He used unorthodox harmonies in classical sonatas and symphonies to inspire exalted moods. His nine symphonies—including the Eroica (begun 1803) and the Symphony no. 9 (1824), with the famous Ode to Joy—five piano concertos, his violin concerto of haunting beauty, an opera, and a large volume of superb chamber music, including his brilliant string quartets, earned Beethoven a reputation as one of the greatest composers in the Western tradition. Another musical innovator of the 1800s, Franz Schubert, created the German lied (art song), usually a piece of romantic or lyrical poetry—some by Goethe—set to music and accompanied by a pianist. Schubert’s lieder cycles, such as The Miller’s Beautiful Daughter (1823), became the model for a long list of other romantic composers, including Hugo Wolf, Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms.

Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, and Schubert had found Vienna a musical center of the highest creativity and the most refined musical tastes. But there was also a burst of more popular music with the Viennese waltzes of Johann Strauss the Younger and his immortal operettas Die Fledermaus (1874; The Bat) and Der Zigeunerbaron (1885; The Gypsy Baron). There were also other operetta masters such as Albert Lortzing and the Hungarian Franz Lehár, whose Merry Widow (1905) brought operetta into the 20th century. Other composers such as the prolific Anton Bruckner and Gustav Mahler—a genius of romantic expression in his song cycles—continued the Vienna tradition in a serious vein.

Many 19th-century German composers mixed the style of classicism with the less-structured, more spontaneous style of romanticism. Brahms, for example, tended more toward the classical in his four symphonies, his violin and piano concertos, his requiem, and his chamber music. Schumann’s haunting melodies, including symphonies, piano pieces, and chorales, were more on the romantic side. His talented wife, Clara Schumann, also composed romantic pieces. Classicist Felix Mendelssohn produced orchestral, choral, and chamber works.

German opera of the 19th century enjoyed a dramatic evolution at the hands of Carl Maria von Weber and Richard Wagner. Wagner developed a closer linkage between the music and the action on stage by using such devices as the leitmotiv, which presents a musical theme for each important figure or recurrent action. Both Weber and Wagner preferred themes from German history, particularly the Middle Ages. Among Wagner’s best-known operas are The Mastersingers of Nürnberg (completed 1867), The Flying Dutchman (1841), and the four-part epic cycle of the Ring of the Nibelungs (completed 1874). Later, Richard Strauss produced outstanding operas such as Der Rosenkavalier (1911), and Engelbert Humperdinck experimented with operas for children. At the same time, Austrian Arnold Schoenberg and his pupils Anton Webern and Alban Berg devised a revolutionary twelve-tone music that abandoned traditional melodies and harmonies for emphasis on rhythm and dissonance. Composer Kurt Weill collaborated with writer Bertolt Brecht on two of the great works of the German popular stage, The Three-Penny Opera (1928; translated 1933) and Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (1930; translated 1956). Germany has also produced a multitude of talented orchestra directors, including Otto Klemperer and Kurt Masur.

As it did in other fields, the rise of the Nazi Party in the 1930s choked off German musical development. Hundreds of musical artists fled Germany during the years of the Third Reich. After the war, only a few new modern composers appeared, notably Karlheinz Stockhausen and his electronic music, and Hans Werner Henze, known for his lyrical modern operas. However, the classical music tradition continues in Germany with the performances and recordings of more than 150 major orchestras, including such world-renowned groups as the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig, and the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra.

D.

Libraries and Museums

German cultural life has flourished in the many cities that were once the capitals of near-independent states. Their rulers sponsored the arts, music, and theater, and established many fine libraries, galleries, and museums that survived long after the dynasties were gone. The kings of Prussia founded the Prussian State Library (now the Berlin State Library-Prussian Cultural Heritage), the National Gallery, and the Museum of Greek and Roman Antiquities in Berlin. In Munich the Bavarian kings founded the Bavarian State Library, the Alte Pinakothek art gallery, and the famous Deutsches Museum, a museum of scientific and technological inventions. The kings of Saxony founded a splendid art collection in the Zwinger Palace in Dresden. In addition, excellent university libraries and many city and monastery libraries exist throughout the country. Records of the Nazi period are located in the Federal Archives in Koblenz and in the Berlin Document Center, which houses 25 million Nazi Party documents. A large number of private archives of businesses and individuals and fine private museums, such as the Wallraf Museum in Cologne, are also found in Germany.

E.

Contemporary Culture

The German people have a long tradition of supporting the arts. Four-fifths of the $2-billion cost of opera performances annually come from public subsidies. Since unification, however, government funding for the arts has been dramatically reduced, especially in Berlin. Before 1990 East and West Berlin each supported their respective opera houses with public monies, particularly East Berlin, which supplied cheap tickets for the working class. After unification, Berlin ended up with two great opera houses and the excellent Comic Opera House, but it has only a fraction of the previous funding.

Popular music in Germany also enjoys a large audience. The concerts of German rock groups draw tens of thousands. Germans have their own groups and bands, and have also come to produce fine jazz in some of the big cities. However, much of the music and many of the artists are part of the international music scene. The popular music itself is overwhelmingly of American origin. The same is true of much of popular television fare in Germany. Germany has made few efforts to limit the market share of American cultural imports.

The cultural inundation from Hollywood has long overwhelmed the native motion-picture industry. German films make up less than 10 percent of those shown in German theaters. The flourishing German film industry of the Weimar years, which produced well-known directors such as Fritz Lang, became a wasteland during and after World War II. In the 1960s and 1970s, however, with the help of government subsidies and television contracts, a few new directors nurtured a modestly successful film industry. Volker Schlöndorff, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Werner Herzog, Wim Wenders, Jürgen Syberberg, and Margarethe von Trotta were among the new filmmakers honored by the Young German Film Trust and at international film festivals such as those held in Berlin and Mannheim. Many Germans, however, are not familiar with their work.

V.

Economy

When Germany became a nation in 1871, it was a latecomer in the race toward industrialization (see Industrial Revolution), which was then dominated by the United Kingdom and France. Unification under Chancellor Otto von Bismarck resulted in a boom that made Germany an industrial leader by 1910. Germany’s economic development was based on an alliance of industrial business leaders with the Prussian aristocracy, who controlled much of the land. It emphasized the production of coal and steel, machines and machine tools, chemicals, electronic equipment, ships, and later, motor vehicles. Well-organized business, labor, and farm associations in league with the government produced a distinctive “organized capitalism,” different from the less regulated forms of capitalism in Britain and the United States. Germany’s strong economy carried it into two world wars in the 20th century. Despite heavy Allied bombing against German targets that helped end World War II in 1945, Germany’s industrial base survived largely intact.

After World War II Western powers saw the need to strengthen European economies to resist the threat of Soviet expansion and the encroachment of Communism. To this end, the U.S. government in 1947 initiated the European Recovery Program, commonly called the Marshall Plan, which offered generous investment loans to all European countries devastated by the war. Under the stewardship of economics minister Ludwig Erhard, the Marshall Plan helped launch a 20-year economic expansion in West Germany that raised living standards and industrial production far above prewar levels. This recovery is often described as West Germany’s “economic miracle.”

East Germany did not participate in the Marshall Plan and instead constructed a communist economic system, in which central planning by a state commission set all wages and prices. Most private industries and farms were turned into state or cooperative enterprises. East Germany became one of the most industrialized and prosperous Communist countries.

However, after German unification in 1990, the enormous differences between the West and East German economic systems brought East Germany to the brink of collapse. Many East German workers abandoned their jobs for better opportunities in the West, and East German consumers spurned their own products for Western goods. To make matters worse, the overvalued East German currency, the ostmark, was exchanged one-to-one for the West German deutsche mark (DM), whose street value was actually seven to ten times higher. This exchange plunged struggling East German enterprises into the highly competitive West German and international markets without protection. The East German enterprises now had to pay their debts and payrolls in higher-value DM while at the same time losing market share to the superior West German products that were becoming widely available. A wide range of West German goods became available on East German shelves. The Eastern European markets for East German exports disappeared, since many of these countries could not afford to pay in DM for East German goods previously attained by bartering their own products. Many East German enterprises failed. New private and public investments, most of them from the former West Germany, have since flowed into the former East Germany as its economy was restructured and privatized.

Numerous difficulties have marked Germany’s economic development since unification. Following unification, Germany began to pour tens of billions of dollars annually into the infrastructure of former East Germany. These immense financial transfers are expected to continue into the second decade of the 21st century. In just the first seven years after unification, this involved an amount equivalent (in real, uninflated value) to 70 times the Marshall Plan aid to West Germany.

Convergence between the two economies has slowed since the mid-1990s, and Germany as a whole has experienced relatively low rates of annual growth—especially following the painful economic downturn in 2002 and 2003. The unemployment rate in the former East Germany remains double that in the west. Worker productivity in the east still lags far behind that in the west, and many skilled workers in the east continue to move westward seeking better-paying jobs. In addition, the east remains dependent on large financial transfers from the west for economic development and social welfare assistance.

Since the early 1990s, these structural economic problems have weakened the German economy—an economy long regarded as the economic powerhouse of Europe. Nevertheless, with its large and modern industrial base, Germany’s economy remains the largest in the European Union (EU). Germany uses the EU’s common currency, the euro, and more than one-half of German exports and imports are with other EU countries.

A.

Labor

In the past, West Germany had very low unemployment, and East Germany had full employment under its communist system. In the early 1990s, however, unemployment in Germany increased. This increase was due to a number of problems, including industrial restructuring in former East Germany, declines in export orders brought about by recession in other countries, and monetary policies designed to curb inflation. In early 1997 unemployment hit a postwar high of 12.2 percent, with more than 4 million Germans out of work. In the west, the level was more than 9 percent, while eastern Germany’s rate was about 17 percent. Among the reasons for the sluggishness in job creation were the high wage rate common in Germany and the strong trade unions, which seek to protect existing wages and jobs. Unemployment remains high in Germany with a national rate of 9.8 percent in 2004.

Germany has a history of strong labor unions (see Labor Union). The first German unions were founded in 1868 and grew into a mighty political and economic force until the Third Reich took over all labor organization in 1933. After 1945 the unions came back with redoubled force in the West under the German Trade Union Federation (DGB). In 1949 the DGB had 4.8 million members in 16 industrial federations and 101 unions. By 1989, on the eve of unification, there were 7.9 million DGB members. German unification briefly raised this figure by 50 percent before the number of members finally settled at about 9 million. The federations ranged from the powerful metalworkers and autoworkers to the leather workers. Other important DGB federations were the Public Service Union and the Chemical, Paper, and Ceramics Workers. Major labor unions outside the DGB included the White Collar Employees, the Civil Service Union, and the Christian Workers Union.

East Germany meanwhile had organized the state-controlled Free German Trade Union Federation (FDGB). At its peak, the FDGB claimed a membership of 9.6 million, including pensioners, students, production workers, office employees, intellectuals, and professionals. The FDGB collapsed at the time of unification, and DGB organizers from the west moved in and offered East German workers their support during the transition to a market economy, which included waves of dismissals, reduced hours, and early retirements. The DGB conducted a series of strikes for higher wages and better working conditions for East German workers, beginning with large strikes of metalworkers and public employees in 1992 and 1993. However, with the dismantling of some of the largest East German industrial conglomerates and agricultural collectives, whole regions became depressed areas of high unemployment, especially in the north and northeast.

B.

Manufacturing and Industry

Manufacturing and industry have long been central to German economic development, although recent global and European trends are forcing changes upon the German economy. Industry helped the country recover economically from World War II and from the unification of East and West Germany. Although the economy has gradually moved in the direction of services, manufacturing and industry are still important in the country and accounted for 29.7 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in 2005. Germany is a leading producer of such products as iron and steel, cement, chemical products, electronics, food and beverages, machinery and machine tools, and motor vehicles.

Large-scale manufacturing enterprises are concentrated in several areas. The most important industrial area encompasses the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, which includes the steel-producing Ruhr region. The Ruhr region is one of the most intensely developed industrial areas in the world, and a large majority of Germany’s iron, steel, and bituminous coal comes from this area. Its early and intense development also make this region the equivalent of a rustbelt area in the United States, where traditional manufacturing is in decline and unemployment is high. The area around the confluence of the Rhine and Main rivers forms another major industrial region, comprising the cities of Frankfurt am Main, Wiesbaden, Mainz, and Offenbach. They produce metals, electronic equipment, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, and motor vehicles. To the south, Stuttgart and Munich are also manufacturing hubs. Their products include aircraft, textiles and clothing, office machinery, optical instruments, and beer. Berlin, the Hannover-Brunswick area, and the port cities of Hamburg, Bremen, Kiel, and Wilhelmshaven are other important industrial centers.

Since unification, industry in the former East Germany has suffered from a number of problems stemming from the long years when it was protected from international competition. Some industries—such as chemicals and plastics, shipbuilding, textiles, and motor vehicles—lost their markets to superior or less expensive products made in western Germany or abroad. Inefficient manufacturing processes in the east made it necessary to cut the industrial work force in half, leading to mass unemployment. After unification, Germany broke up most large eastern corporations and transferred them from state ownership into private hands. Some enterprises were taken over by their own managers; most were bought in bits and pieces by West German or foreign investors. By the late 1990s, former East Germany was well on its way in moving from a manufacturing economy toward a predominantly service-oriented economy.

C.

Mining

Mining plays a small role in the modern German economy. Several minerals, however, are produced in sizable quantities. Hard coal deposits are mined in the Ruhr area and the Saarland. Brown coal, also known as lignite, is mined in the foothills of the Harz Mountains; near Cologne; in southeastern Brandenburg; and in central Germany. Before 1990 brown coal satisfied about three-fifths of East Germany’s energy needs, but caused massive environmental problems. Since unification, East German brown coal extraction has declined dramatically. The federal government shut down the least productive East German mines and covered open strip mines with vegetation. However, brown coal continues to supply about one-third of the electricity needs of Germany. In addition, nuclear energy and hard coal, which burns more cleanly than brown coal, are gaining in importance. The German government subsidizes both the hard coal and brown coal industries.

Iron ore production had declined in West Germany by the mid-1980s because it could be imported more inexpensively than producing it locally. Germany’s potash salts industry ranks as one of the largest exporters of potash-based fertilizers in the world. The deposits are located mostly in Thüringen in central Germany. Four-fifths of the potash is exported. Thüringen also has significant deposits of copper.

D.

Farming

Farming is of limited importance to Germany’s economy. Together with forestry and fishing, farming accounts for about 10 percent of the GDP in the former East Germany as compared to 1 percent in the country as a whole. Only 2 percent of the labor force is involved in these sectors. Germany imports about one-third of its food. The nation’s principal crops are wheat, potatoes, sugar beets, and barley. The fruit industry is also significant, producing apples and grapes, some of which are used to make Germany’s famous wines. In addition, farmers raise livestock, including hogs, cattle, sheep, and poultry.

Since 1950 the numbers of farms and farmers have dropped dramatically. Most farms are quite small—only 2 percent are larger than 100 hectares (about 250 acres). The smaller farms, located mostly in the west, are often owned and operated by families who also work other jobs.

In East Germany, a drive for agricultural collectivization in the 1950s eliminated small and medium-sized farms and expropriated large landholdings. The Communist government considered farming to be no different from industrial production. Consequently, it strove for large-scale mechanization of its large cooperatives and state farms. All farmers were forced into production cooperatives whose number gradually shrank over the years.

German unification demonstrated the economic superiority of well-managed small and medium-sized farms in the West over the collective and cooperative giant farms of East Germany. The latter proved inadequate to the tasks of marketing and meeting refined consumer demands, and they generated a great deal of air and water pollution. They also failed to inspire desire in their cooperative farmers to take back and maintain their own original farm properties once the collectives were broken up.

E.

Forestry and Fishing

Environmental management and conservation have played increasingly important roles in German forestry and fishing. Forests cover 32 percent of German territory, much of it mountainous. Only 34 percent is cultivated. The forests sustain timber production and wood products, such as furniture, construction materials, and toys. The harvesting of timber, however, has always had to be supplemented with imports.

The law requires forest owners to maintain their forestland consistently and to replant harvested and thinned-out areas. Public concern with the depletion of this resource led to the enactment of the Forest Preservation and Promotion Act of 1975 and to the progressive withdrawal of forestland from commercial exploitation. Since the early 1980s, increasing industrial pollution and automobile emissions have been blamed for a tree blight that has already affected half of the nation’s forests, causing leaves and needles to drop and slowing tree growth. This damage was discovered, on unification, to be particularly high in the forests of the former East Germany, since the Communist government had made no effort to monitor environmental damage.

Germans consider their woodlands and forests important recreation areas, especially near cities, where they are regarded as the ideal antidote for the stresses and pollution of urban life. The states with the largest forests are Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, Hessen, and Rhineland Palatinate (Rheinland-Pfalz), but there are also densely forested areas in the northeast and in the south of former East Germany.

The fishing industry of West Germany declined beginning in the 1970s, reflecting the expansion of other countries’ territorial fishing zones and the depletion of fish stocks in the remaining open waters. By comparison, the collectivized East German fisheries suffered smaller losses and built up a large fleet for use in the North Atlantic and the Baltic. Unification, however, brought major problems to East Germany’s outdated and inefficient fishing fleets and equipment. Rostock, the chief East German fishing port, has high unemployment as do several other German fishing ports along the North Sea and Baltic coasts.

Germany’s annual catch includes marine fish such as Atlantic herring, blue mussel, Atlantic mackerel, cod, and varieties of flatfish. Domestic fish production, especially of carp and trout, has dramatically increased by raising the fish in ponds and by systematic fish management on rivers and lakes.

F.

Energy

German industrial development in the 19th century was fueled by coal. The use of coal declined in the 1970s and 1980s. However, East German brown coal (lignite) remained important into the early 21st century for electricity production and as fuel, despite being a major source of air pollution. Petroleum and hydroelectric power (see Waterpower) were only a small source of public electricity production, but were major energy sources for heating and manufacturing processes.

German dependence on petroleum imports, the oil crisis of the 1970s, and an expanding appetite for more energy shifted attention to the potential of nuclear energy. By the mid-1980s, 19 nuclear plants were supplying 36 percent of the public electricity needs in West Germany, and more plants were in the planning stage. Following the Chernobyl’ nuclear disaster in 1986, however, massive environmental protests stiffened public resistance to nuclear energy (see Chernobyl’ Accident). Further construction of nuclear power facilities was halted for fear of accidents and lawsuits and because of the difficulties of disposing of the radioactive waste. Instead, West Germany embarked on a program of energy savings, including increasing the efficiency of automobile engines and heating plants. Alternative and renewable sources of energy, such as wind, solar, and geothermal energy, have also been developed, but there is little hope that they could ever supply a major part of Germany’s huge needs.

Nuclear plants still provide 28.13 percent of the nation’s electricity. While many reactors in Germany were shut down, there were 17 plants that continued to function in 2006. The considerable uranium deposits in Saxony and Thüringen, which had been strip-mined (see Mining) and left open to the elements under the East German government, were sealed up. A government-owned company, Wismut GmbH, worked to complete the environmental cleanup. The Federal Ministry of Environmental Protection, along with other Western nations, has raised funds to assist Eastern European countries with measures to shut down or replace all Chernobyl’-type reactors.

G.

Currency and Banking

The monetary unit of Germany is the single currency of the European Union (EU), the euro. Germany is among 12 EU member states to adopt the euro. The euro was introduced in January 1999 for electronic transfers and accounting purposes only, and Germany’s national currency, the deutsche mark, or DM, was used for other purposes. On January 1, 2002, euro-denominated coins and bills went into circulation, and the deutsche mark ceased to be legal tender.

As a participant in the single currency, Germany must follow economic policies established by the European Central Bank (ECB). The ECB is located in Frankfurt, Germany, and is responsible for all EU monetary policies, which include setting interest rates and regulating the money supply. On January 1, 1999, control over German monetary policy was transferred from the central bank of Germany, the Bundesbank, to the ECB.

Germany’s financial institutions include hundreds of lending banks and savings banks, thousands of larger credit cooperatives, and dozens of mortgage institutions and banks. Securities are traded at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. The German capital market is characterized by a large share of fixed-interest securities, in particular local government and real estate bonds.

H.

Foreign Trade

Germany is a major trading nation and one of the export leaders of the world, in close competition with Japan and the much larger United States. Germany’s main trading partners are countries in Europe, such as France, the United Kingdom, The Netherlands, and Italy, and the United States.

I.

Transportation

Germany has a highly developed transportation system including a limited-access superhighway known as the autobahn. There is no speed limit on the autobahns, but frequent construction projects and congestion keep the speed down. Since East German roads had not been upgraded and expanded much since the 1930s and the volume of motor vehicles on them rose greatly after unification, a large part of the funds transferred from the West have gone to expand the German highway system.

The country’s extensive passenger and freight rail system played a major role in German economic development. Most of the railroads were government-owned until 1993, when legislation was approved to privatize them. They are now under private ownership as Bundesbahn A.G. High-speed intercity lines serve major German cities such as Hamburg and Munich, Frankfurt and Dresden, and Hannover and Bremen.

Germany has major navigable inland waterways and canals. The canals, such as the Mittellandkanal, supplement the traffic routes of the major rivers; some canals, such as the Kiel Canal and the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal, connect major bodies of water. Duisburg, Magdeburg, Mannheim, and Berlin are large inland ports, and Hamburg, Bremen, Bremerhaven, Emden, Lübeck, Rostock, and Stralsund are major seaports. An extensive underground pipeline system conveys petroleum products.

Air transportation of passengers and goods is served by several international airports, including Frankfurt and Munich, and many regional airports. There are hundreds of airports, including 13 major ones. Germany’s principal airline, Deutsche Lufthansa A.G., was formerly operated by the government but is now privately owned.

J.

Communications

The German Basic Law, or constitution, guarantees the freedom of the press. Germany has high newspaper readership and a well-informed population. Major daily publications include the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Die Welt, and the Berlin Tagesspiegel. Der Spiegel and Die Zeit are weeklies with national circulation. Bild is a mass-circulation tabloid. Party-owned and government-run publications in the former East Germany were privatized after 1989.

Germany’s competitive television market is the largest in Europe. Numerous commercial broadcasters compete with public broadcasters for national and regional audiences. Each of Germany’s 16 regions regulates its own broadcasting services and provides local public television and radio services. Nearly all German homes have access to cable or satellite television, and the German government has actively promoted the development of digital television and radio services.

The German telephone system is modern, automatic, and also nearly universal. The system relies on satellites, cable, and microwave radio relay (MRR) networks. Before unification, this state of development did not apply to East Germany, where only the government and the secret police had efficient communications at their disposal. Since 1990, however, massive Western transfer payments have given eastern Germany a highly advanced communications system, although the distribution of private telephones has not yet caught up with standards in the former West Germany.

Deutsche Post AG, a formerly state-owned business that was privatized in 2000, is Germany’s largest postal carrier; in 2002 the company received a license to deliver mail in the United Kingdom, ending the long-held monopoly of Britain’s publicly owned Royal Mail. Deutsche Telekom AG, a privately held corporation since 1996, is Germany’s largest telecommunications company. Its subsidiaries oversee national and international telecommunications operations, and include T-Com (conventional telephone network), T-Mobile (mobile telephones), and T-Online (Internet services). Deutsche Telekom also holds interests in various other telephone companies, including subsidiaries in Croatia, Hungary, and Slovakia.

K.

Tourism

Germany’s beautiful scenery and varied culture attract many tourists, both foreign and domestic. Tourists tend to favor the resorts of the North and Baltic seas, the Alps, the forests of the southern uplands, and the valleys of the Rhine, Main, Mosel, Neckar, upper Elbe, and Danube rivers. Since unification, tourists have gained access to the natural parks of former East Germany, such as those of the Oder (Odra) Valley or the island of Rügen. Tourists also flock to Germany’s many medieval cities, including those along the so-called Romantic Road from Würzburg to Augsburg, and to the baroque wonders and art collections of Dresden. Large numbers of tourists attend famous music and theater festivals, such as the Wagner Opera Festival at Bayreuth and the Passion Play in Oberammergau. Ski resorts in the Alps draw many people, as do the numerous noteworthy spas and health resorts, such as Bad Kissingen and Bad Schandau.

VI.

Government

After Germany’s defeat in World War II, the Allied forces of France, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics(USSR) divided the country into four zones. In 1948 France, Britain, and the United States merged their zones into one region while the Soviet Union imposed Communist rule over its zone. In 1949 this division of Germany was perpetuated by the creation of East Germany and West Germany.

In West Germany, a council composed of members of the state legislatures created the Basic Law, or constitution, in 1948 and 1949. It was approved by the state legislatures and by U.S., British, and French occupation authorities. The Basic Law established West Germany as a parliamentary democracy and a federation of states (see Federalism). It has been amended many times, most recently in the 1990s to help anchor the unification of East and West Germany in the constitution. At that point, Germany decided to reconstitute the five original states of East Germany and to admit them, one by one, into the federal union without changing the basic structure of the West German system. The Unity Treaty of 1990 permitted East Germany to retain some of its laws that conflicted with West German statutes until the all-German parliament could bring about a uniform settlement.

A.

Federal Union

The kind of federalism set forth in the Basic Law is based on German federal traditions and differs from the federal system of the United States. German federalism concentrates legislative power at the federal level and places administrative and judicial powers at the state level. Each state has a popularly elected legislature, which chooses a minister-president or a first mayor (in Hamburg and Bremen) to serve as chief executive. There is very little for the 16 state assemblies to legislate because the Basic Law subordinates most state legislative powers to the federal government. However, the states formulate some educational and cultural policies and maintain police. The administration of all laws, including federal laws, is almost exclusively in the hands of the states. Federal administration—except for the foreign service, border protection, and defense—is limited to the personnel of federal cabinet ministries and institutes. These federal bodies collect statistics and draw up legislative bills for policy-making. Even taxation is mostly federally legislated and state administered, including the largest sources of revenue, income and corporation taxes. These taxes are shared by the state and federal levels and, in part, are redistributed from the richer to the poorer states.

The key German federal institution is the Bundesrat (Federal Council), which is the representative of the state governments and has the final say in disputes between states and between the states and the federal government. The Bundesrat is the upper house of parliament but its members are state ministers or civil servants and are not elected; instead their respective state governments appoint them. Of Germany’s 16 states, the four largest—North Rhine-Westphalia, Lower Saxony, Baden-Württemberg, and Bavaria—are all in the west and tend to predominate in the Bundesrat. The five states of former East Germany—which are mostly poor and, with the exception of Saxony, small in population—play a lesser role in federal politics.

B.

Executive

Germany has a parliamentary head of government, or prime minister, called the chancellor. The chancellor is chosen by a majority vote of the popularly elected lower house of parliament, the Bundestag (Federal Assembly), usually by a coalition of parties. The chancellor selects a cabinet of ministers from among the parties in the coalition. The Basic Law gives the chancellor the authority to determine the guidelines of government policy and to select and dismiss the ministers. The chancellor can be removed from office only if the Bundestag elects a successor or when the Bundestag itself is reelected. Due to the existence of strong, disciplined parties, Germany has a stable system of government with little turnover.

The federal president, who acts as the head of state, is elected for a five-year term by the Bundesversammlung (Federal Convention), which consists of the members of the Bundestag and an equal number of members from the state legislatures. The president’s functions are largely ceremonial and nonpartisan. The president receives foreign ambassadors and promulgates laws but has no authority to make policy.

C.

Legislature

Germany’s federal parliament consists of two legislative bodies, the Bundestag and the Bundesrat. The Bundestag is popularly elected at intervals of no more than four years. All citizens who are 18 years of age or older may vote. The number of seats in the Bundestag varies from election to election; there were 614 seats in 2005.

Bundestag seats are determined by a two-part electoral process. German voters have two votes: one to directly select a candidate for their district, and the other to select a particular party. Half of the seats are filled by directly elected candidates, while the other half are filled based on the percentage of the total vote that each party receives. The final distribution of each party’s seats is also adjusted in proportion to the total popular vote. A party must have at least three candidates directly elected or receive a minimum of 5 percent of the national popular vote to win representation. The Bundestag is organized into topical legislative committees, such as for foreign affairs and for agriculture. The committees discuss and modify appropriate bills, but nearly all bills originate with the chancellor’s cabinet.

The 69-member Bundesrat is appointed by the 16 state governments. Representation is determined by population, with each state having no less than three and no more than six seats. The four largest states each have six-member delegations; the four smallest states—Saarland, Hamburg, Bremen, and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern—each have three-member delegations; and all the other states have four seats each. This ratio actually favors the smaller and smallest states because it gives them a veto over any action that requires a two-thirds majority, such as constitutional amendments. Each state delegation must vote as a block and according to the instructions of its state government. In its legislative role, the Bundesrat has only a suspensive veto (whereby it can delay but not actually prevent the passage of bills approved by the Bundestag) over most legislation. The exception to this is bills that deal with the administrative responsibilities of the state governments, which are the more important bills before parliament. On these, the Bundesrat has a veto, which cannot be overridden.

D.

Judiciary

Germany follows civil law (or Roman law) procedures and organization, which differ substantially from American and British common law. Judges play a more activist role, and attorneys a lesser one, than in an American courtroom. In a typical German criminal trial, a panel of judges hears the case. The panel includes the investigating judge, who conducts a prior investigation of the facts of the case and decides if it should be tried at all. The states’ ministries of justice appoint and promote most judges.

German courts at the state level form separate hierarchies depending on the kind of law that they administer: civil, criminal, administrative, social insurance, financial, or labor law. Each state system is headed by a high court, and there is one federal court for each of these specialties. However, plaintiffs may appeal their cases up to the appropriate federal court only if they can demonstrate that similar cases involving the same federal laws have been interpreted differently by the high courts of other states. In such a case, the federal court gives a binding interpretation of the law in question.

Germany also maintains a separate, non-Roman law system of constitutional courts, which interpret their respective state constitutions and the Basic Law. The Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe is the most important. It has a total of 16 judges, 8 selected by the Bundestag and 8 by the Bundesrat. A judicial candidate must receive a two-thirds majority vote, thus ensuring a broad consensus on the selection. The Federal Constitutional Court comprises two panels. One panel deals with the bill of rights, articles 1 to 20 of the Basic Law; the other panel judges disputes among federal bodies, among states, and between levels of government. The court has invalidated about 800 federal and state laws and regulations and given its interpretation on well over half of the articles of the Basic Law. A large part of its work involves citizens’ complaints about violations of the bill of rights. It has even heard foreign policy issues, including cases on the constitutionality of treaties.

E.

Political Parties

A number of political parties are represented in the Bundestag. The Social Democratic Party (SPD) is Germany’s oldest party. Founded in 1875, the SPD has developed from a Marxist socialist workers’ party into a broadly based people’s party, which now also emphasizes Christianity and humanism. The SPD supporters include trade union workers and white-collar and public employees, especially teachers. In recent years, the SPD has championed environmentally oriented economic reforms, environmental concerns in general, women’s rights, and the rights of asylum-seekers.

The SPD has often allied itself with Germany’s Green Party. This party has gradually gained strength since it first won representation in the Bundestag in 1983. The Greens support environmentalism, feminism, and pacifism. Despite the enormous environmental problems in former East Germany, the Greens have attracted little support there. They have, however, joined forces with Alliance 90, a party that has grown out of the East German citizen movements that first opposed the Communist dictatorship. (Green Parties.)

Another major party is the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), which is closely allied with the Christian Social Union (CSU) of Bavaria. The CDU/CSU has also formed an alliance in the past with the much smaller Free Democratic Party (FDP). This coalition brought about German unification in 1989 and 1990 against considerable opposition. The CDU and the CSU were both established in 1945. Under Chancellor Helmut Kohl, the CDU/CSU alliance was conservative on economic and social questions, such as abortion rights, although it supported the welfare state, which provided a wide range of social services to its citizens. Among the CDU/CSU supporters are churchgoing Catholics and Protestants from all walks of life, farmers, and nonunion workers. The FDP, founded in 1948, is a party of liberal and libertarian business and professional people, white-collar workers, and farmers.

Also represented in the Bundestag is the Left Party. The Left Party is a successor to the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), which in turn succeeded the state-run Communist Party of East Germany. Most PDS voters were white-collar employees from former East Germany, including many university-educated and highly trained civil service and management professionals who were discontent with unification. The PDS had almost no support outside of former East Germany and tried to represent the regional interests of this area. In 2005 the PDS formed an alliance with a left-wing group called Election Alternative: Jobs and Social Justice (WASG). The WASG was primarily made up of a breakaway faction from the SPD. The Left Party was formed from this alliance.

Dozens of other parties run candidates in every election but have not yet managed to gain representation in the Bundestag. Some have won seats in state legislatures. Among them are radical right groups such as the Republicans, the German People’s Union, and the National Democrats.

F.

Social Insurance

Germany has one of the most comprehensive and generous systems of health, old age, disability, and unemployment insurance in the world. A large part of the population benefits from the welfare system, which includes child support, public housing, and veterans aid. The welfare state accounts for about one-third of the national budget. Basic universal health care and old age and disability pensions are financed equally by employer and employee contributions. Better-paid employees, managers, and business and professional people usually supplement their benefit levels by buying additional private insurance. Employers pay for accident insurance. Long-term nursing care for the elderly is financed by payroll taxes. Parliament sets the rates of these insurance programs, which are administered by boards staffed by trade unions and employers’ associations.

The German welfare state began in the 1880s with Chancellor Otto von Bismarck’s old age and disability insurance, and it has always enjoyed broad support. With the birth of West Germany in 1949, the welfare programs continued to grow due to a social partnership between business and labor, as well as the social market economic policies of the CDU/CSU governments. These programs were based on the common belief that a well-ordered welfare state can be highly productive at the same time that it takes care of its weaker members. A law passed in 1957 tied West German public pensions to rising wage levels. In 1990 the average pension after a career of gainful employment was about 70 percent of the last income before retirement. On the downside, such a generous welfare state results in high tax rates for social security.

Before unification in 1990, East Germans enjoyed a modest but egalitarian system of social insurance. Subsidized rents, food, transportation, and recreation made their modest pension levels quite comfortable. Unification raised East German pensions, but it has also brought higher prices as the subsidies are ended.

G.

Defense

Since 1955 West German external security has been tied to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). East Germany was similarly tied to the Warsaw Pact until 1990. Even in peacetime, all major units of the German army and air force were assigned to NATO operational command, leaving no separate German army under German command. The final negotiations toward international recognition of united Germany gave Germans a choice of whether or not they wanted to continue in the Western alliance or to become a neutral nation; they chose NATO. As a condition of being accorded international sovereignty in 1990, Germany pledged to limit its armed forces to 370,000 troops and to continue to foreswear the production and use of nuclear, bacteriological, and chemical weapons. The cap on military forces meant that the West German NATO forces of about 500,000 and the East German forces of 200,000 were halved. The East German army was dissolved, and West Germany invited East German military personnel, but not high officers, to apply for transfer to the Bundeswehr (Federal Army).

About two-thirds of the Bundeswehr consists of army units, while the remaining one-third is naval and coastal and air forces. Half of the military personnel are regulars or extended-service volunteers for terms ranging from 2 to 15 years. The other half are conscripts who are drafted for 10 months. All men 18 years of age or older must serve in the military. Large numbers of persons subject to the draft opt instead for the status of conscientious objector, which obliges them to spend two years in civilian service in hospitals, old age homes, and other civilian settings.

After the defeat of the German forces in World War II, major efforts were undertaken to reduce the militaristic spirit of the German armed forces. Officers and soldiers were educated to be “citizens in uniform.” The Basic Law ensured civilian control over the military, specifying that in peacetime the defense minister has the supreme command over the Bundeswehr. If the Bundestag declares a “state of defense,” the command passes to the chancellor. The Bundestag also controls the defense budget, and its Defense Committee oversees the organization and procedures of the military. In addition, the Bundestag appoints a defense ombudsman to handle complaints by enlistees on subjects such as officer misconduct and other abuses.

Germany was accustomed to the presence of foreign military forces after it was defeated in World War II. From the beginning of the 1945 Allied occupation, 250,000 American troops and as many as 360,000 Soviet soldiers were stationed in West and East Germany, along with a huge quantity of lethal weapons ranging from tanks and planes to nuclear-armed missiles. The presence of foreign army units and recurrent military maneuvers were a constant reminder to the German people of how closely they lived to possible open warfare. A major change in German life occurred in the early 1990s when most NATO countries reduced their forces in Germany, the Americans to under 100,000 troops. The Russians completed the withdrawal from their bases in East Germany in 1994. The final and most symbolically meaningful exodus was the departure in 1994 of the token troops from four nations that had kept Berlin an occupied city since 1945.

H.

International Organizations

In addition to NATO, Germany is a member of numerous European and international groups. Germany, together with France, has played a leading role in the European Union (EU). Under EU auspices, Germany has pressed for a more unified and cooperative Europe in economic, political, and security affairs. Both Germanys were members of the United Nations (UN), and united Germany joined the UN in 1990. Germany also participates in UN agencies such as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the International Labor Organization (ILO), the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), and the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Germany belongs to the World Health Organization (WHO), the Communications Satellite Corporation (INTELSAT), and Interpol (the International Criminal Police Organization).

VII.

History

Germany lacked any clearly defined geographical boundaries until modern times. The idea of a single German people, or Volk, is likewise a relatively recent development, largely invented by 19th- and 20th-century writers and politicians. From ancient times, several ethnic groups have mixed to shape the history of Germany, resulting in a stunning diversity of cultures and dialects. Political definitions of Germany have tended to reflect this ambiguity, at various times including many regions that today are sovereign nations (such as Austria and Switzerland) or parts of other countries (such as France, Poland, Russia, and Hungary). Modern Germany is the product of centuries of social, political, and cultural evolution. This history section provides a brief survey of that evolution.

A.

Early History

The forests of Germany were occupied during the Old Stone Age by bands of wandering hunters and gatherers. They belonged to the earliest forms of Homo sapiens, who lived about 400,000 years ago. Neandertal people, who were similar to modern humans in many ways, first appeared in Europe about 200,000 years ago. (The name Neandertal comes from fossils discovered in 1856 in the Neander Valley near Düsseldorf.) By about 30,000 years ago, the Neandertals had disappeared, but another human group, the Cro-Magnon—known for spectacular cave drawings, such as those at the famous site at Lascaux, France—had appeared in Europe. See also Human Evolution: Late Homo sapiens.

About 7000 bc Homo sapiens societies experienced a crucial transformation, which archaeologists have labeled the Neolithic, or New Stone Age, revolution. During this period, many groups began producing their own food through agriculture and the domestication of animals. Their permanent settlements and more stable food supply in turn triggered a significant increase in population. The indigenous hunters of central Europe encountered farming peoples migrating up the Danube Valley from southwest Asia in about 4500 bc. These populations mixed and settled in villages to raise crops and breed livestock.

A.1.

Bronze Age Peoples

The Bronze Age began in the region of central Germany, Bohemia, and Austria in about 2500 bc with the working of copper and tin deposits by prospectors from the eastern Mediterranean. Around 2300 bc new waves of migrating peoples arrived, probably from southern Russia. These so-called Indo-Europeans were the ancestors of the Germanic peoples who settled in northern and central Germany, of the Celts in the south and west, and of the Baltic and Slavic peoples in the east. Their language was the precursor of all modern languages in those regions, including English, German, and all of the Romance (Latin-based) languages (see Indo-European Languages).

From 1800 to 400 bc, Celtic peoples in southern Germany and Austria developed a succession of advanced metalworking cultures. They introduced the use of iron for tools and weapons. Teutons, Germanic tribes of obscure northern origin, absorbed much of the Celtic culture and eventually displaced the Celts. The various ancient peoples known collectively as Germans represented a diverse assortment of Celtic and Teutonic peoples and cultures. The Latin word Germanus is probably derived from an ancient Celtic word for a neighboring Teutonic tribe. The term was later applied by the Romans to a variety of peoples in western and central Europe.

A.2.

Germans and Romans

From the 2nd century bc to the 5th century ad northern Germanic and Celtic tribes, constantly pressed by new migrations from the north and east, were in contact with the Romans, who controlled southern and western Europe. The writings of Romans Julius Caesar and Cornelius Tacitus describe these encounters and provide almost the only accounts of life among these so-called barbarian peoples. In general, the Romans denounced the Germans for heavy drinking, relentless fighting, and atrocities such as human sacrifice. But Romans also commended the virtue of Germanic women as well as the overall absence of any avarice among the tribes.

In 101 and 102 bc the Cimbri and the Teutons were defeated by Roman general Gaius Marius as they were about to invade Italy. The Suevi and other tribes in Gaul (modern-day France), west of the Rhine, were subdued by Julius Caesar around 50 bc. The Romans tried several times to extend their rule to the Elbe River, but their efforts were halted at the Battle of Teutoburg Forest in ad 9. The Rhine and Danube rivers became the boundaries of Roman territory, connected by a line of fortifications, or limes, that extended from Colonia (Cologne) to Bonna (Bonn) to Augusta Vindelicorum (Augsburg) to Vindobona (Vienna). Most of the peoples within Roman Germany were gradually assimilated as auxiliary Germanic troops by the empire, often employed against Germanic raiders from outside the limes.

In the 2nd century the Romans prevented confederations of Franks, Alamanni, and Burgundians from crossing the Rhine into the empire. By the 4th and 5th centuries, however, the population pressures outside the empire proved too much for the weakened Romans. The Huns, sweeping in from Asia, set off waves of migration, during which the Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Vandals, Franks, Lombards, and other Germanic tribes poured into and eventually overran the empire.

B.

Medieval Germany

Scholars continue to debate at what point it is possible to speak of Germany or a German state. Even though the Romans had often grouped several peoples under the name Germans, it is doubtful that most of these groups viewed themselves as connected in any cultural, linguistic, or political sense. The formation of an eastern Frankish kingdom in the 9th century seems a watershed event in German development (see Holy Roman Empire), although this kingdom featured a diversity of cultures and political allegiances. Most of the medieval “German” rulers actually considered themselves kings of the Romans, and, later, Roman emperors. Not until the 15th century did the emperors officially add “of the German nation” to their title.

On the other hand, it is undeniable that the medieval emperors who called themselves Roman were in fact Germans. During the 10th to 13th centuries, their state, the Holy Roman Empire, was the most powerful in Europe, dominating not only German lands but northern Italian city-states as well. In turn, the decline of the Holy Roman Empire marked a period in which political power was fragmented among many German princes. By the time that the late-15th-century emperor Maximilian attempted to revive imperial authority and institutions, the division of power among German princes had become entrenched. Even his powerful grandson, Charles V, was eventually forced to recognize the political pluralism of Germany, which prevailed until the late 19th century.

B.1.

The Origins of a German State (486-911)

B.1.a.

Frankish Kingdoms

Throughout western Europe and northern Africa, the political and cultural bonds of the Roman Empire were gradually replaced by a multitude of successor states. In 486 the Salian chieftain Clovis defeated the last Roman governor in Gaul and established a Frankish kingdom that included southwestern Germany. Clovis and his successors, known as the Merovingian dynasty, succeeded in uniting many Germanic tribes under one king. Following his conversion to Christianity in about 500, Clovis formed a special relationship with the bishop of Rome (later known as the pope). He forcibly converted his subjects from the Arian form of Chri