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Travel to Germany — Unbiased reviews and great
deals from TripAdvisorGermany
| Federal Republic of Germany National name: Bundesrepublik
Deutschland President: Horst Köhler
(2004) Chancellor: Angela Merkel
(2005)
Current government officials
Land area: 135,236 sq mi (350,261 sq km);
total area: 137,846 sq mi (357,021 sq km) Population (2007 est.): 82,400,996 (growth
rate: 0.0%); birth rate: 8.2/1000; infant mortality rate: 4.1/1000;
life expectancy: 79.0; density per sq mi: 609
Capital and largest city (2003 est.):
Berlin (capital since Oct. 3, 1990), 3,933,300
(metro. area), 3,274,500 (city proper) Other large cities: Hamburg, 1,686,100;
Munich, 1,185,400; Cologne, 965,300; Frankfurt, 648,000; Essen,
588,800; Dortmund, 587,600; Stuttgart, 581,100; Düsseldorf, 568,900;
Bremen, 527,900; Hanover, 516,300; Duisburg, 513,400 Monetary unit: Euro (formerly Deutsche
mark)
Language:
German
Ethnicity/race:
German 91.5%, Turkish 2.4%, Italian 0.7%, Greek
0.4%, Polish 0.4%, other 4.6%
Religions:
Protestant 34%, Roman Catholic 34%, Islam 4%,
Unaffiliated or other 28% Literacy
rate: 99% (2003 est.) Economic summary
GDP/PPP (2007 est.): $2.81 trillion; per capita $34,200.
Real growth rate: 2.5%. Inflation: 2.3%.
Unemployment: 8.4%. Arable land: 34%. Agriculture:
potatoes, wheat, barley, sugar beets, fruit, cabbages; cattle,
pigs, poultry. Labor force: 43.63 million; industry 33.4%,
agriculture 2.8%, services 63.8% (1999). Industries: among the
world's largest and most technologically advanced producers of iron,
steel, coal, cement, chemicals, machinery, vehicles, machine tools,
electronics, food and beverages, shipbuilding, textiles. Natural
resources: iron ore, coal, potash, timber, lignite, uranium,
copper, natural gas, salt, nickel, arable land. Exports: $1.361
trillion f.o.b. (2007 est.): machinery, vehicles, chemicals, metals
and manufactures, foodstuffs, textiles. Imports: $1.21 tillion
f.o.b. (2007 est.): machinery, vehicles, chemicals, foodstuffs,
textiles, metals. Major trading partners: France, U.S., UK,
Italy, Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Spain, China (2006). Communications: Telephones: main lines in
use: 54.2 million (2006); mobile cellular: 84.3 million (2006).
Radio broadcast stations: AM 51, FM 767, shortwave 4 (1998).
Television broadcast stations: 373 (plus 8,042 repeaters)
(1995). Internet hosts: 16.494 million (2007). Internet
users: 38.6 million (2006). Transportation: Railways: total: 48,215 km
(20,278 km electrified) (2006). Highways: total: 231,581 km;
paved: 231,581 km (including 12,200 km of expressways); unpaved: 0 km
(2002). Waterways: 7,467 km (2006); note: Rhine River carries
most goods; Main-Danube Canal links North Sea and Black Sea (2004).
Ports and harbors: Bremen, Bremerhaven, Brunsbuttel, Duisburg,
Frankfurt, Hamburg, Karlsruhe, Mainz, Rostock, Wilhemshaven.
Airports: 550 (2006). International
disputes: none.
Major sources and definitions
Rulers of Germany and Prussia
The Berlin Wall (1961–1990)
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Geography
Located in central Europe, Germany is made up of the North German
Plain, the Central German Uplands (Mittelgebirge), and the Southern German
Highlands. The Bavarian plateau in the southwest averages 1,600 ft (488 m)
above sea level, but it reaches 9,721 ft (2,962 m) in the Zugspitze
Mountains, the highest point in the country. Germany's major rivers are
the Danube, the Elbe, the Oder, the Weser, and the Rhine. Germany is about
the size of Montana.
Government
Federal republic.
History
The Celts are believed to have been the first inhabitants of Germany.
They were followed by German tribes at the end of the 2nd century B.C. German invasions destroyed the declining Roman
Empire in the 4th and 5th centuries A.D. One of
the tribes, the Franks, attained supremacy in western Europe under
Charlemagne, who was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 800. By the Treaty of
Verdun (843), Charlemagne's lands east of the Rhine were ceded to the
German Prince Louis. Additional territory acquired by the Treaty of Mersen
(870) gave Germany approximately the area it maintained throughout the
Middle Ages. For several centuries after Otto the Great was crowned king
in 936, German rulers were also usually heads of the Holy Roman
Empire.
By the 14th century, the Holy Roman Empire was little more than a loose
federation of the German princes who elected the Holy Roman Emperor. In
1438, Albert of Hapsburg became emperor, and for the next several
centuries the Hapsburg line ruled the Holy Roman Empire until its decline
in 1806. Relations between state and church were changed by the
Reformation, which began with Martin Luther's 95 theses, and came to a
head in 1547, when Charles V scattered the forces of the Protestant League
at Mühlberg. The Counter-Reformation followed. A dispute over the
succession to the Bohemian throne brought on the Thirty Years' War
(1618–1648), which devastated Germany and left the empire divided into
hundreds of small principalities virtually independent of the emperor.
Meanwhile, Prussia was developing into a state of considerable
strength. Frederick the Great (1740–1786) reorganized the Prussian army
and defeated Maria Theresa of Austria in a struggle over Silesia. After
the defeat of Napoléon at Waterloo (1815), the struggle between Austria
and Prussia for supremacy in Germany continued, reaching its climax in the
defeat of Austria in the Seven Weeks' War (1866) and the formation of the
Prussian-dominated North German Confederation (1867). The architect of
this new German unity was Otto von Bismarck, a conservative, monarchist,
and militaristic Prussian prime minister. He unified all of Germany in a
series of three wars against Denmark (1864), Austria (1866), and France
(1870–1871). On Jan. 18, 1871, King Wilhelm I of Prussia was proclaimed
German emperor in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. The North German
Confederation was abolished, and the Second German Reich, consisting of
the North and South German states, was born. With a powerful army, an
efficient bureaucracy, and a loyal bourgeoisie, Chancellor Bismarck
consolidated a powerful centralized state.
Wilhelm II dismissed Bismarck in 1890 and embarked upon a “New Course,”
stressing an intensified colonialism and a powerful navy. His chaotic
foreign policy culminated in the diplomatic isolation of Germany and the
disastrous defeat in World War I (1914–1918). The Second German Empire
collapsed following the defeat of the German armies in 1918, the naval
mutiny at Kiel, and the flight of the kaiser to the Netherlands. The
Social Democrats, led by Friedrich Ebert and Philipp Scheidemann, crushed
the Communists and established a moderate state, known as the Weimar
Republic, with Ebert as president. President Ebert died on Feb. 28, 1925,
and on April 26, Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg was elected president.
The mass of Germans regarded the Weimar Republic as a child of defeat,
imposed on a Germany whose legitimate aspirations to world leadership had
been thwarted by a worldwide conspiracy. Added to this were a crippling
currency debacle, a tremendous burden of reparations, and acute economic
distress.
Adolf Hitler, an Austrian war veteran and a fanatical nationalist,
fanned discontent by promising a Greater Germany, abrogation of the Treaty
of Versailles, restoration of Germany's lost colonies, and the destruction
of the Jews, whom he scapegoated as the reason for Germany's downfall and
depressed economy. When the Social Democrats and the Communists refused to
combine against the Nazi threat, President von Hindenburg made Hitler the
chancellor on Jan. 30, 1933. With the death of von Hindenburg on Aug. 2,
1934, Hitler repudiated the Treaty of Versailles and began full-scale
rearmament. In 1935, he withdrew Germany from the League of Nations, and
the next year he reoccupied the Rhineland and signed the Anti-Comintern
pact with Japan, at the same time strengthening relations with Italy.
Austria was annexed in March 1938. By the Munich agreement in Sept. 1938,
he gained the Czech Sudetenland, and in violation of this agreement he
completed the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia in March 1939. His invasion
of Poland on Sept. 1, 1939, precipitated World War II.
Hitler established death camps to carry out “the final solution to the
Jewish question.” By the end of the war, Hitler's Holocaust had killed 6
million Jews, as well as Gypsies, homosexuals, Communists, the
handicapped, and others not fitting the Aryan ideal. After some dazzling
initial successes in 1939–1942, Germany surrendered unconditionally to
Allied and Soviet military commanders on May 8, 1945. On June 5 the
four-nation Allied Control Council became the de facto government of
Germany.
(For details of World War II and of the Holocaust, see Headline
History, World War II.)
At the Berlin (or Potsdam) Conference (July 17–Aug. 2, 1945) President
Truman, Premier Stalin, and Prime Minister Clement Attlee of Britain set
forth the guiding principles of the Allied Control Council: Germany's
complete disarmament and demilitarization, destruction of its war
potential, rigid control of industry, and decentralization of the
political and economic structure. Pending final determination of
territorial questions at a peace conference, the three victors agreed to
the ultimate transfer of the city of Königsberg (now Kaliningrad) and its
adjacent area to the USSR and to the administration by Poland of former
German territories lying generally east of the Oder-Neisse Line. For
purposes of control, Germany was divided into four national occupation
zones.
The Western powers were unable to agree with the USSR on any
fundamental issues. Work of the Allied Control Council was hamstrung by
repeated Soviet vetoes; and finally, on March 20, 1948, Russia walked out
of the council. Meanwhile, the U.S. and Britain had taken steps to merge
their zones economically (Bizone); on May 31, 1948, the U.S., Britain,
France, and the Benelux countries agreed to set up a German state
comprising the three Western zones. The USSR reacted by clamping a
blockade on all ground communications between the Western zones and West
Berlin, an enclave in the Soviet zone. The Western allies countered by
organizing a gigantic airlift to fly supplies into the beleaguered city.
The USSR was finally forced to lift the blockade on May 12, 1949.
The Federal Republic of Germany was proclaimed on May 23, 1949, with
its capital at Bonn. In free elections, West German voters gave a majority
in the constituent assembly to the Christian Democrats, with the Social
Democrats largely making up the opposition. Konrad Adenauer became
chancellor, and Theodor Heuss of the Free Democrats was elected the first
president.
The East German states adopted a more centralized constitution for the
Democratic Republic of Germany, put into effect on Oct. 7, 1949. The USSR
thereupon dissolved its occupation zone but Soviet troops remained. The
Western allies declared that the East German Republic was a Soviet
creation undertaken without self-determination and refused to recognize
it. Soviet forces created a state controlled by the secret police with a
single party, the Socialist Unity (Communist) Party.
Agreements in Paris in 1954 giving the Federal Republic full
independence and complete sovereignty came into force on May 5, 1955.
Under the agreement, West Germany and Italy became members of the Brussels
treaty organization created in 1948 and renamed the Western European
Union. West Germany also became a member of NATO. In 1955, the USSR
recognized the Federal Republic. The Saar territory, under an agreement
between France and West Germany, held a plebiscite, and despite economic
links to France, elected to rejoin West Germany on Jan. 1, 1957.
The division between West Germany and East Germany was intensified when
the Communists erected the Berlin Wall in 1961. In 1968, the East German
Communist leader, Walter Ulbricht, imposed restrictions on West German
movements into West Berlin. The Soviet-bloc invasion of Czechoslovakia in
Aug. 1968 added to the tension. West Germany signed a treaty with Poland
in 1970, renouncing force and setting Poland's western border at the
Oder-Neisse Line. It subsequently resumed formal relations with
Czechoslovakia in a pact that “voided” the Munich treaty that gave Nazi
Germany the Sudetenland. By 1973, normal relations were established
between East and West Germany and the two states entered the United
Nations.
West German chancellor Willy Brandt, winner of a Nobel Peace Prize for
his foreign policies, was forced to resign in 1974 when an East German spy
was discovered to be one of his top staff members. Succeeding him was a
moderate Social Democrat, Helmut Schmidt. Schmidt staunchly backed U.S.
military strategy in Europe, staking his political fate on placing U.S.
nuclear missiles in Germany unless the Soviet Union reduced its arsenal of
intermediate missiles. He also strongly opposed nuclear-freeze
proposals.
Helmut Kohl of the Christian Democrat Party became chancellor in 1982.
An economic upswing in 1986 led to Kohl's reelection. The fall of the
Communist government in East Germany left only Soviet objections to German
reunification to be dealt with. On the night of Nov. 9, 1989, the Berlin
Wall was dismantled, making reunification all but inevitable. In July
1990, Kohl asked Soviet leader Gorbachev to drop his objections in
exchange for financial aid from (West) Germany. Gorbachev agreed, and on
Oct. 3, 1990, the German Democratic Republic acceded to the Federal
Republic, and Germany became a united and sovereign state for the first
time since 1945.
A reunited Berlin serves as the official capital of unified Germany,
although the government continued to have administrative functions in Bonn
during the 12-year transition period. The issues of the cost of
reunification and the modernization of the former East Germany were
serious considerations facing the reunified nation.
In its most important election in decades, on Sept. 27, 1998, Germans
chose Social Democrat Gerhard Schröder as chancellor over Christian
Democrat incumbent Helmut Kohl, ending a 16-year-long rule that oversaw
the reunification of Germany and symbolized the end of the cold war in
Europe. A centrist, Schröder campaigned for “the new middle” and promised
to rectify Germany's high unemployment rate of 10.6%.
Tension between the old-style left-wing and the more pro-business
pragmatists within Schröder's government came to a head with the abrupt
resignation of finance minister Oskar Lafontaine in March 1999, who was
also chairman of the ruling Social Democratic Party. Lafontaine's plans to
raise taxes—already nearly the highest in the world—on industry and on
German wages went against the more centrist policies of Schröder. Hans
Eichel was chosen to become the next finance minister.
Germany joined the other NATO allies in the military conflict in Kosovo
in 1999. Before the Kosovo crisis, Germans had not participated in an
armed conflict since World War II. Germany agreed to take 40,000 Kosovar
refugees, the most of any NATO country.
In Dec. 1999, former chancellor Helmut Kohl and other high officials in
the Christian Democrat Party (CDU) admitted accepting tens of millions of
dollars in illegal donations during the 1980s and 1990s. The enormity of
the scandal led to the virtual dismemberment of the CDU in early 2000, a
party that had long been a stable conservative force in German
politics.
In July 2000, Schröder managed to pass significant tax reforms that
would lower the top income-tax rate from 51% to 42% by 2005. He also
eliminated the capital-gains tax on companies selling shares in other
companies, a measure that was expected to spur mergers. In May 2001, the
German parliament authorized the payment of $4.4 billion in compensation
to 1.2 million surviving Nazi-era slave laborers.
Schröder was narrowly reelected in Sept. 2002, defeating conservative
businessman Edmund Stoiber. Schröder's Social Democrats and coalition
partner, the Greens, won a razor-thin majority in parliament. Schröder's
deft handling of Germany's catastrophic floods in August and his tough
stance against U.S. plans for a preemptive attack on Iraq buoyed him in
the weeks leading up to the election. Germany's continued reluctance to
support the U.S. call for military action against Iraq severely strained
its relations with Washington.
Germany's recession continued in 2003: for the previous three years,
Europe's biggest economy had the lowest growth rate among EU countries. In
Aug. 2003, Schröder unfurled an ambitious fiscal-reform package and called
his proposal “the most significant set of structural reforms in the social
history of Germany.” Schröder's reforms, however, did little to rejuvenate
the economy and angered many Germans, accustomed to their country's
generous social welfare programs. His reforms reduced national health
insurance and cut unemployment benefits at a time when unemployment had
reached an alarming 12%.
National elections in Sept. 2005 ended in a deadlock: the conservative
CDU/CSU and its leader, Angela Merkel, received 35.2% and Gerhard
Schröder's SPD garnered 34.3%. After weeks of wrangling to form a
governing coalition, the first left-right “grand coalition” in Germany in
36 years was cobbled together, and on Nov. 22, Merkel became Germany's
first female chancellor. During her first year, Merkel showed strong
leadership in international relations, but her domestic economic reform
agenda has stalled. Her first major initiative, reforming the health care
system, was widely viewed as ineffectual.
See also Encyclopedia: Germany.
U.S. State Dept. Country Notes:
Germany
Federal Statistical Office http://www.destatis.de/e_home.htm .
Information Please® Database, © 2007 Pearson Education,
Inc. All rights reserved.
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