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Germany ( ), officially the Federal Republic of Germany (, ), is a country in central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea, to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic, to the south by Austria and Switzerland, and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands. Within its borders are a portion of the Alps, the famous Rhine and Danube rivers, and the Black Forest. Its capital is Berlin; many of the governmental institutions, ministries as well as embassies were moved in from the former capital of West Germany, Bonn (now Federal City of Bonn) in 1999. Germany is a democratic parliamentary federal republic, made up of 16 states (), which in certain spheres act independently of the federation. Historically consisting of several sovereign states with their own history, distinct German tribe dialects, culture and religious beliefs, Germany was unified as a nation state amidst the Franco-Prussian War in 1871. The Federal Republic of Germany is a member state of the United Nations, NATO, the G8 and the G4 nations, and is a founding member of the European Union. It is the European Union's most populous and most economically powerful member state.
History The state now known as Germany was unified as a modern nation-state only in 1871, when the German Empire, dominated by the Kingdom of Prussia, was forged. This began the German Reich, usually translated as empire, but also meaning kingdom, domain or realm. Early history of the Germanic tribes (100 BC & AD 300) The ethnogenesis of the Germanic tribes is assumed to have occurred during the Nordic Bronze Age, or at the latest, during the Pre-Roman Iron Age in southern Scandinavia and northern Germany, from the first century BC expanding south, east and west, coming into contact with Celtic tribes of Gaul and Iranian, Baltic and Slavic tribes in Eastern Europe. Little is known about early Germanic history, except through their interactions with the Roman Empire and archaeological finds. Under Augustus, the Roman General Drusus began to invade Germany, and it was from this period that the German tribes became familiar with Roman tactics of warfare while maintaining their national identity. In AD 9, three Roman legions led by Publius Quinctilius Varus were crushed by the Cheruscan leader Arminius (Hermann) in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. Germany as far as the Rhine and the Danube therefore remained outside the Roman Empire. By 100, the time of Tacitus' Germania, Germanic tribes settled along the Rhine and the Danube (the Limes Germanicus), occupying most of the area of modern Germany. The 3rd century saw the emergence of a number of large West Germanic tribes — Alamanni, Franks, Chatti, Saxons, Frisians, Sicambri, Thuringians. Around 260, the Germanic peoples broke through the Limes and the Danube frontier. The Holy Roman Empire of German Nation (843-1806) The medieval empire stemmed from a division of the Carolingian Empire in 843, which was founded by Charlemagne on December 25 800, and existed in varying forms until 1806, its territory stretching from the river Eider in the north to the Mediterranean coast in the south. Often referred to as the Holy Roman Empire (or the Old Empire), it was officially called the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation ("Sacrum Romanum Imperium Nationis Germanicæ") since 1448 to adjust the title to its then reduced territory. Under the reign of the Ottonian emperors (919–1024), the duchies of Lorraine, Saxony, Franconia, Swabia, Thuringia and Bavaria were consolidated and in 962 the German king was crowned Holy Roman Emperor. Under the reign of the Salian emperors (1024–1125), the Holy Roman Empire absorbed northern Italy and Burgundy. Under the Hohenstaufen emperors (1138–1254) the German princes were increasing their influence further south and east. The edict of the Golden Bull in 1356 provided the basic constitution of the empire up to its dissolution. For three hundred years starting in 1438, the Emperors were elected nearly exclusively from the Austrian Habsburg family. In 1530, a separate Protestant church was acknowledged as the new state religion in many states of Germany. This led to inter-German dispute, the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648). From 1740 onwards the dualism between Austria and Prussia dominated the Empire's history. In 1806 the Imperium was overrun and dissolved as a result of the Napoleonic Wars. Restoration and revolution (1814-71) Following Napoleon's fall and the end of the Confederation of the Rhine, the Congress of Vienna convened in 1814 in order to restructure Europe. In Germany, the German Confederation was founded, a loose league of 39 sovereign states. Disagreement with the restoration politics partly led to the lifestyle called Biedermeier and to intellectual liberal movements, which demanded unity and freedom during the Vormärz epoch, each followed by a measure of Metternich's repression of liberal agitation. The Zollverein, a tariff union, profoundly furthered economic unity in the German states. The German people had been stirred by the ideals of the French revolution. On October 18, 1817, students held a gathering to exchange ideas, the high point of which was the burning of works by authors like August von Kotzebue, who were against a united German state. A second such meeting attracted 30,000 people from all social classes and from all regions to the Hambacher celebration. There for the first time, the colours of black, red and gold were chosen to represent the movement, which later became the national colours. The states were also shaped by the Industrial Revolution, which was the initial step of the growing industrialisation in Europe and contributed to a wave of poverty, causing social uprisings. In light of a series of revolutionary movements in Europe, which in France successfully established a republic, intellectuals and common people started the Revolutions of 1848 in the German states. The monarchs initially yielded to the revolutionaries' liberal demands, and an intellectual National Assembly was elected to draw up a constitution for the new Germany, completed in 1849. However, the Prussian king Frederick William IV, who was offered the title of Emperor but with a loss of power, rejected the crown and the constitution. This prompted the demise of the national assembly along with most of the changes from the revolution. In 1862, conflict between the Prussian King Wilhelm I and the increasingly liberal parliament erupted over military reforms. The king appointed Otto von Bismarck the new Prime Minister of Prussia. Bismarck solved the conflict with difficulty and used the desire for national unification to further the interests of the Prussian monarchy. In 1864 he successfully waged war on Denmark. Prussian victory in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 enabled him to create the North German Confederation and divide Austria, formerly the leading state of Germany, from the more western and northern parts. Second German Empire (1871-1918)
Weimar Republic (1919-33) After the German Revolution in November 1918, a Republic was proclaimed. That year, the German Communist Party was established by Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, and in January 1919 the German Workers Party, later known as the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers Party, NSDAP, "Nazis"). On August 11 1919, the Weimar Constitution came into effect, with the sign of the Reichspräsident Friedrich Ebert. In a cool climate of economic hardship from both the world wide Depression and the harsh peace conditions dictated by the Treaty of Versailles, and a long succession of more or less unstable governments, the political masses in Germany increasingly lacked identification with their political system of parliamentary democracy. This was exacerbated by a wide-spread right-wing (monarchist, völkische, and Nazi) Dolchstoßlegende, a political myth which claimed the German Revolution was the main reason why Germany had lost WWI. On the other hand, radical left-wing communists such as the Spartacist League had wanted to abolish what they perceived as a "capitalist rule" in favour of a "Räterepublik" and were thus also in opposition to the existing form of government. During the years following the Revolution, German voters increasingly supported anti-democratic parties, both right- (monarchists, Nazis) and left-wing (Communists). At the beginning of the 1930s, Germany was not far from a civil war. Paramilitary troops were set up by several parties, there were thousands of politically motivated murders. They intimidated voters and seeded violence and anger among the public, who suffered from high unemployment and poverty. After a succession of unsuccessful cabinets, on January 29 1933, President von Hindenburg, seeing little alternative and pushed by advisors, appointed Adolf Hitler Chancellor of Germany. Third Reich (1933–45) On 27 February 1933, the Reichstag was set on fire. Some basic democratic rights were quickly abrogated afterwards under an emergency decree. An Enabling Act gave Hitler's government full legislative power — only the Sozial Demokratische Partei, SPD voted against it; the communists could not because many had already been imprisoned or murdered. A centralised totalitarian state was established by a series of moves and decrees making Germany a single-party state. Industry was closely regulated with quotas and requirements in order to shift the economy towards a war production base. In 1936, German troops entered the demilitarised Rhineland and British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's appeasement policies proved inadequate. Emboldened, Hitler followed from 1938 onwards a policy of expansionism to establish Greater Germany. To avoid a two-front war, Hitler concluded the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with the Soviet Union, and broke it. In 1939 the growing tensions from nationalism, militarism, and territorial issues led to the Germans launching a blitzkrieg on September 1st against Poland, followed two days later by declarations of war by Britain and France, marking the beginning of World War II. Germany quickly gained direct or indirect control of the majority of Europe. On June 22, 1941, Hitler broke the pact with the Soviet Union by opening the Eastern Front and invading the Soviet Union. Shortly after Japan attacked the American base at Pearl Harbor, Germany declared war on the United States. Although initially the German army rapidly advanced into the surprised Soviet Union, the Battle of Stalingrad marked a major turning point in the war. Subsequently, the German army commenced retreating on the Eastern front, followed by the eventual defeat of Germany. On 8 May 1945, Germany surrendered after the Red Army occupied Berlin. In what later became known as The Holocaust, the Third Reich regime enacted governmental policies directly subjugating many parts of society: Jews, Slavs, Roma, homosexuals, freemasons, political dissidents, priests, preachers, religious opponents, and the disabled, amongst others. During the Nazi era about 11 million people were murdered in the Holocaust, including more than 6 million Jews. Division and reunification (1945-90)
Administrative divisions
Geography Germany is located in Central Europe and it shares borders with Denmark in the North, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and France in the West, Austria and Switzerland in the South and Poland and the Czech Republic in the East. The North Sea and the Baltic Sea represent additional National Borders in the North. Geographic coordinates: Area
Territory Since reunification Germany has resumed its role as a major centre country between Scandinavia in the north and the Mediterranean region in the south, as well as between the Atlantic west and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The territory of Germany stretches from the high mountains of the Alps (highest point: the Zugspitze at 2,962 m / 9,718 ft) in the south to the shores of the North Sea (Nordsee) in the north-west and the Baltic Sea (Ostsee) in the north-east. In between are the forested uplands of central Germany and the low-lying lands of northern Germany (lowest point: Neuendorfer/Wilstermarsch at 3.54 metres (11.6 ft) below sea level), traversed by some of Europe's major rivers such as the Rhine, Danube and Elbe. Because of its central location, Germany shares borders with more European countries than any other country in Europe. Its neighbours are Denmark in the north, Poland and the Czech Republic in the east, Austria and Switzerland in the south, France and Luxembourg in the south-west and Belgium and the Netherlands in the north-west. Climate
Demographics Image:Germany demography.png|thumb|right|300px|Population of Germany over time. Note that for years before 1990, the values of the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic are combined. The federal statistics office estimates the population will shrink to approximately 75 million by 2050 Chemnitz is thought to be city with the lowest birth rate in the world. There are 2.2 million Turks in Germany, 139,000 of them in Berlin alone, making them the largest group of foreign workers. Economy Germany is the largest European economy and the third largest economy in the world in real terms, placed behind the United States and Japan, and fifth behind the United States, the People's Republic of China, India and Japan counted by purchasing power parity. According to the World Trade Organization, Germany is also the world's top exporter, ahead of the United States and number two in imports. It currently (2005) has the largest trade surplus in the world (160.6 billion euros). While it has positive trade balances with most of its EU-partners (+129.8 billion euros / 2005) and the United States (+28 billion euros / 2005), it runs trade deficits with China (-18.6 billion euros / 2005), Japan (-8.1 billion euros /2005) and Russia (-4.3 billion euros / 2005). With a net international investment position of 545.9 billion euros (US$682 billion) in Q2 2006 (Deutsche Bundesbank), Germany is the second largest international creditor behind Japan. A major issue of concern remains the persistently high unemployment rate and weak domestic demand which slows down economic growth. Eastern Germany in particular suffers from a lack of a solid base of small and medium-sized companies, which provided the foundation for the Federal Republic's economic prosperity and is responsible in great measure for Germany's lag in economic growth. In spite of its extremely good performance in international trade domestic demand has stagnated for many years because of wage stagnation and zealous cost-cutting by the federal state. Insecurity among consumers has caused many of the prevalent economic problems. Germany's government runs a restrictive fiscal policy and has cut numerous regular jobs in the public sector. Since reunification there has been a net loss of estimated one million such jobs. But while regular employment in the public sector shrank, "irregular" government employment such as "one-euro jobs" (jobs paid this amount per hour on top of unemployment benefits), government supported self-employment (known informally as "Ich-AG", or "Me, Inc.") and job training increased. Despite the tense situation in eastern Germany, total government employment in Germany remains lower than in other states such as the United Kingdom or Canada. Economical and political discussion in Germany today concentrates on whether Germany needs more market reforms such as deregulation of the labour market, more low income jobs, lower social security contributions, lower taxes for enterprises and employers, or already passed too many reforms. In view of problematic socio-economic trends (fast growing inequality, rising poverty rates, stagnant wages, less social security, constant high unemployment) corporate profits and salaries of top managers soar. More and more people in Germany distrust the sense and direction of the reforms over the last years. A major reason is the pressure that unions and lobbyists exert on parliament. One third of the lower house (Bundestag) are themselves in one union or another. Many representatives of the upper house (Bundesrat) and lower house are at the same time on the advisory council (Aufsichtsrat) of major concerns in the pharmaceutical, energy and automobile sectors leading to exploding costs for the consumer in these areas. See also below: Science and technology Exports
Politics Germany's political system is a framework of a federal parliamentary representative democratic republic, whereby the Chancellor is the head of government, and of a pluriform multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Federal legislative power is vested in both the government and the two chambers of parliament, Bundestag and Bundesrat. While the Bundestag is elected in direct election the Bundesrat represents the governments of the 16 German States. Since 1949 the party system is dominated by the conservative Christian Democratic Union and the Social Democratic Party of Germany. Smaller parties that have an important role are the liberal Free Democratic Party, that has been in the Bundestag since 1949, as well as the Green Party that has had seats in the parliament since 1983. The German head of state is the President of Germany, elected by an institution consisting of Bundesrat and Bundestag (called Bundesversammlung which means federal convention). The second highest official in the German order of precedence is the President of the Bundestag elected by the Bundestag itself. He is responsible for the parliaments sessions and the regularity of the institution. The third highest official is the chancellor as the head of government recommended by the President of Germany, elected by the Bundestag and if necessary removed by a constructive motion of no confidence of the Bundestag. Constructive motion meens that the Bundestag has to elect a successor. The Judiciary of Germany is independent of the executive and the legislature. The political system is laid out in the 1949 constitutional document under approval of the allied forces which wanted to assure among other restrictions that Germany's military forces are restricted exclusively to defence and that a dictatorship could not reoccur. It is known as the Grundgesetz literally Basic Law. It is akin to the American Constitution. Changes in the Grundgesetz require a majority of two thirds of the parliament. The Grundgesetz remained in effect with minor amendments after 1990's German Reunification. Legal system Germany has a civil or statute law system based ultimately on Roman law with some references to Germanic law. Legislative power is divided between the Federation and the individual federated states. While criminal law and private law have seen codifications on the national level (in the Strafgesetzbuch and the Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch respectively), no such unifying codification exists in administrative law where a lot of the fundamental matters remain in the jurisdiction of the individual federated states. In 1976, with the Verwaltungsverfahrensgesetz (VwVfG), the main form of actions of administration was codified. Most federated states have followed this codification. There are a series of special supreme courts; for civil and criminal cases the highest court of appeal is the ''Bundesgerichtshof'' (Federal Court of Justice), located in Karlsruhe. The courtroom style is inquisitorial. The Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht), also located in Karlsruhe, is the German Supreme Court responsible for constitutional matters, with power of judicial review. It acts as the highest legal authority and ensures that legislative and judicial practice conforms to the Constitution. It acts independently of the other state bodies, but cannot act on its own behalf. Foreign relations Germany plays a leading role in the European Union, having a strong alliance with France. Germany is at the forefront of European states seeking to advance the creation of a more unified and capable European political, defence and security apparatus. Since its establishment on May 23, 1949, the Federal Republic of Germany kept a notably low profile in international relations, because of both its recent history and its occupation by foreign powers. In 1999, however, on the occasion of the NATO war against Yugoslavia, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's government broke convention by sending German troops into combat for the first time since World War II. Germany and the United States have been close allies since the end of the Second World War. The Marshall Plan and continued US support during the rebuilding process after World War II, as well as the significant influence American culture has had on German culture, have crafted a strong bond between Germany and the US that lasts to this day. Not only do the United States and Germany share many cultural similarities: they are also deeply economically interdependent. Of all German exports, 8.8% are US-bound, and US–German trade in 2004 totalled $108.2 billion. An illustration of the strong economic relations between the US and Germany may be the fact that 18.3% of all cars sold in the US were manufactured by German car makers. Other signs of the close ties between Germany and the US are the continuing status German-Americans as the largest ethnic group in the US and the status of Ramstein Air Base, close to the city of Kaiserslautern, Germany, as the largest US community outside the US. Armed forces Germany's military, the Bundeswehr, is a defence force with Heer (German Army), Marine (German Navy), Luftwaffe (German Air Force), ''Zentraler Sanitätsdienst'' (Central Medical Services) and Streitkräftebasis (Joint Service Support Command) branches. It employs some 250,000 soldiers (including women in active fighting branches since 2001) and 120,000 civilians (will be reduced to 75,000). 40,000 of the soldiers are 18–23-year-old men on national duty, currently for at least 9 months. In peacetime, the Bundeswehr is commanded by the Minister of Defence, currently Franz Josef Jung. If Germany goes to war, which according to the constitution is allowed only for defensive purposes, the Chancellor becomes commander in chief of the German Bundeswehr. Currently, the German military has about 1,180 troops stationed in Bosnia-Herzegovina; 2,650 Bundeswehr soldiers are serving in Kosovo; 780 soldiers are stationed as a part of EUFOR in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; 2,400 soldiers are serving in a navy battle group off the coast of the Lebanon as a part of UNIFIL and 3,900 Bundeswehr troops are assisting the US anti-terrorism operation called Enduring Freedom off the Horn of Africa. 4,500 German troops currently make up the largest contingent of the NATO-led ISAF force in Afghanistan. Energy policy In 2000, the German SPD-led government along with Bündnis 90/Die Grünen (Alliance '90/The Greens), officially announced its intention to phase out the use of nuclear energy. Jürgen Trittin as the Minister of Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, reached an agreement with energy companies on limiting the life span of the existing nuclear power plants and an end to the civil usage of nuclear power by 2020. See also: the country's nineteen nuclear power plants In 1999, electricity production in Germany was powered by coal (47%), nuclear power (30%), natural gas (14%), renewable sources (including hydro, wind and solar power) (6%), and oil (2%) (*). As for energy consumption, oil accounted for 41% of the total. At the World climate conference, the German government announced a carbon dioxide reduction target of 25% by the year 2005 as compared to 1990, to protect global climate. Note however, that the 1990 numbers included former industrial facilities in eastern Germany, most of which soon expired in post-1990-Germany. In 2005, the German government reached an agreement with Russia in building a gas pipeline along the bottom of the Baltic Sea directly from Russia to Germany. Bypassing Poland and other Baltic countries lead to controversy. Due in part to generous subsidies Germany leads Europe by having the greatest capacity on the continent to generate electricity from sun and wind. In terms of total installed capacity to generate electricity from windpower Germany is No.1 in the world. By 2005 it had a capability to generate 18,427.5 MW (in comparison: 2nd place Spain — 10,027 MW; 3rd place; USA — 9,141 MW). Because of the whims of wind and sun and the reluctance of the conventional energy companies to transmit renewable energy on their transmission lines the power actually generated seldom reaches the capacity to produce it. Since the environmentalistists have been voted out of government and the end of subsidies in 2006 the number of new wind generators to be installed in Germany has dropped dramatically. However, Germany's emphasis on renewable energy sources has resulted in the founding of numerous high-tech companies developing such technologies. Germany is also the main exporter of wind turbines, the demand greatly exceeding capacity. Religion
Social issues The German social market economy (German: soziale Marktwirtschaft) helped bring about the "economic miracle" (the German "Wirtschaftswunder") that rebuilt Germany from rubble after World War II to one of the most impressive economies in Europe. Still today, Ludwig Erhard, minister of economics in the Adenauer administration (1949–1963) and later chancellor (1963–1966), is widely recognised as having been the "father" of this profound rise in the country's economic and social wealth. Germany continues to struggle with a number of social issues, although problems created by the German Reunification of 1990 have begun to diminish. The standard of living is higher in the western half of the country, but easterners now share a reasonably high standard of living. Germans continue to be concerned about a relatively high level of unemployment, especially in the former East German states. The country has passed several reforms to curb unemployment. Recent polls have indicated a growing poverty in the country. In spring of 2006 it had reached 8% of the population, in the easten part as high as 20% according to the FES (Friedrich-Ebert Stiftung). For centuries, a woman's role in German society was summed up by the three words: Kinder (children), Küche (kitchen), and Kirche (church) — Kinder, Küche, Kirche. Throughout the twentieth century, however, women have gradually won victories in their quest for equal rights. Despite significant gains, discrimination remains in united Germany. Women are noticeably absent in the top tiers of German business. They only hold 9.2% of jobs in Germany's upper and middle management positions. Until 2001 women were barred from serving in combat units in the Bundeswehr, being restricted to the medical service and the administration. The first woman to become chancellor is Angela Merkel, who was elected in 2005. Since World War II, Germany has experienced intermittent turmoil from various groups. In the 1970s leftist terrorist organisations like the Red Army Faction engaged in a string of assassinations and kidnappings against political and business figures and there has been a recent surge in right-wing nationalist crimes. According to former Interior Minister Otto Schily, the number of these crimes rose 8.4% to 12,553 cases in 2004, which the minister attributed to such crimes as the display of illegal Nazi symbols being reported more frequently. As mentioned elsewhere in this article population growth is burdened with an extremely low fertility/birthrate. Currently Germany's average birth rate has plunged to less than 1.4 children per mother, a situation which would lead to the demise of any species if nothing is undertaken to relieve it. Lawmakers ask what the state can do to encourage women to have more children. According to provisional figures from the Federal Statistics Office, 680,000 babies were born in Germany in 2005, down from a peak of 1.36 million in 1964 and fewer even than in 1945, when nearly all the country lay in rubble. Germany has failed to implement EU laws prohibiting racial discrimination. The European Court of Justice ruled on April 29 2005, that Germany had breached EU law by failing to transpose fully the 'Racial Equality Directive' prohibiting discrimination on the grounds of race or ethnic origin (Directive 2000/43/EC). Immigrants to Germany may generally face integration issues and other difficulties. In addition to the challenges of adapting to a new language and culture, they may be subject to security-related police inquiries and violence from right-wing nationalist groups. Some German states have banned Muslim teachers from wearing headscarves in class and all except Bavaria have from the classroom as well, generally by prohibiting the use of all religious symbols by teachers. This is legitimate by combining the German states' privilege of educational laws with the principle of separation of church and state, both provided for in the German federal constitution: According to this legal view, teachers in their vocational function within a state administered educational system are obliged to maintain and publicly exhibit religious neutrality when on duty. As this status of employment does not hold for pupils, whose constitutional right to religious freedom thus remains unencumbered by these provisions, this ban cannot legally be extended to them as it is in France. Education Germany has one of the world's highest levels of education and many famous universities. The most important foreign languages taught at school are English, French, Latin, Italian and Spanish. Some languages, such as Russian, Ancient Greek, Turkish, Chinese, Japanese, Polish and Arabic are taught less widely. Since the end of World War II, the number of youths entering universities has more than tripled, but university attendance still lags behind many other European nations because of its very high standards. In the annual league of top-ranking universities compiled by Shanghai Jiaotong University in 2004, Germany came 4th overall, with 7 universities in the top 100 (to compare, the United States had 51 in the top 100, but a lot of more universities generally, so that the proportional comparison precipates very well). The highest ranking university, at German educational ideals differ considerably from Anglo-Saxon educational ideals, emphasising socialisation, debate, vocal participation in class and critical faculties. The results of the PISA student assessments, that revealed comprehension of the respective subject matters only, were a shock to the German public but no surprise to many educational experts. In the test of 31 countries in year 2000 Germany ranked 21st in reading and 20th in both Mathematics and in the Natural Sciences. Participation in the official school system is compulsory; however, home-schooling is still practised by a small number of people. There has been some publicity to government prosecution of this practice. Culture
German language The German language was once the lingua franca of central, eastern and northern Europe. Within the European Union, German is the language with the most native speakers, with more than English, French, Spanish and Italian, because the borders of the German language reach through Austria, Italy, Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and into Switzerland. As a foreign language, German is the third most taught worldwide.* It is also the second most used language on the Internet after English. The language has its origin in Old High German which is related to old English. There are numerous dialects of German, many of which are not intelligible to speakers of standard German or a different dialect. Some consider Low German to be a different language from High German; Low German has been given the status of a minority language by the European Union, although it is less used today in the traditionally Low German-speaking areas of northern Germany. Other dialects, which are very different from standard German are spoken in Saxony, Bavaria, Rhineland-Palatinate and Swabia. The Pennsylvania Dutch, spoken by the Amishe is derived from the dialect spoken in the Rhineland-Palatinate. Music In the field of music, Germany's influence is noted through the works of, among others, Bach, Händel, Telemann, Beethoven, Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Mozart, Brahms, Schumann, Wagner, Strauss, Orff. Science and technology Germany is a leading nation in scientific research and the production of innovative technological products. Some of the most important industrial contributions include automobiles, rocketry, material science, and chemical products. As in physics and chemistry, Germans are a leading nation in the Nobel Prizes for physiology or medicine. In spite of past achievements of their ideals young scientists are currently emigrating at the rate of over 2000 per month (26,000 in 2005). Assumed reasons are overwhelming bureaucracy and a bleak outlook for their future. Germany has been the homeland of many great scientists like Helmholtz, Fraunhofer, Fahrenheit, Kepler, Haeckel, Wundt, Virchow, Ehrlich, Humboldt, Röntgen, Braun, Einstein, Born, Planck, Heisenberg, Creuzfeldt, Hertz, Koch, Hahn, Leibniz, Liebig, Ostwald, Haber, Mayr and Bunsen. It has been the home of many inventors and engineers such as Gutenberg, Otto, Geiger, Fick, Lilienthal, Junkers, Reis, von Ardenne, von Mayenburg, Bosch, Bentz, von Drais, Zeppelin, Krupp, Siemens, von Braun, Porsche, Maybach, Daimler, Zuse, Diesel and Benz. Important mathematicians were born in Germany such as Dedekind, Bessel, Gauß, Hilbert, Jacobi, Riemann, Riese, Klein, Cantor, Weierstraß and Weyl. With the construction of the first laboratory for psychology at the University of Leipzig in 1879 , Wilhelm Wundt established psychology as an independent empirical science. Important psychologists were born in Germany such as Wundt, von Helmholtz, Charlotte Bühler, Karl Bühler, Heckhausen. Transport
International rankings For an explanation of the ratings, see the corresponding article. Political and economic rankings Health rankings Other rankings Miscellaneous topics Further reading ISBN 0-691-05357-X (Hardcover). ISBN 0-691-00795-0 (Softcover). ISBN 0-691-05358-8 (Hardcover). ISBN 0-691-00796-9 (Softcover). ISBN 0-691-05359-6 (Hardcover). ISBN 0-691-00797-7 (Softcover). gv:Yn Ghermaan zu:IJalimani lg:Girimane mi:Tiamana nah:Teutōtitlan rmy:Jermaniya st:Tôitšhi vls:Duutsland yo:Jámánì | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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