History of Germany

The concept of Germany as a distinct region in central Europe can be traced to Roman commander Julius Caesar, who referred to the unconquered area east of the Rhine as Germania, thus distinguishing it from Gaul (France), which he had conquered. The victory of the Germanic tribes in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest (AD 9) prevented annexation by the Roman Empire, although the Roman provinces of Germania Superior and Germania Inferior were established along the Rhine. Following the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Franks conquered the other West Germanic tribes. When the Frankish Empire was divided among Charles the Great's heirs in 843, the eastern part became East Francia. In 962, Otto I became the first Holy Roman Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, the medieval German state.The division of the Carolingian Empire by the Treaty of Verdun in 843Territorial evolution of the Holy Roman Empire from 962 to 1806The Holy Roman Empire at its greatest territorial extent under Hohenstaufen emperor Frederick II, 13th centuryThe Holy Roman Empire under Ottonian and Salian rule, 10th and 11th centuriesThe Holy Roman Empire around the year 1700Cologne, around 1411Munich, Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493Regensburg, in 1572Nordhausen, 17th centuryLübeck, 15th centuryBamberg, Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493Hildegard von Bingen (1098–1179), Benedictine abbess, philosopher, author, artist and visionary naturalistWalther von der Vogelweide (c. 1170–1230), most celebrated Middle High German language MinnesängerJohannes Gutenberg (c. 1398–1468), pioneering user of the printing press with movable typesAlbertus Magnus (c. 1193–1280), bishop, philosopher, theologian, Doctor of the ChurchGeorgius Agricola (1494–1555), metallurgist and ‘‘Father of mineralogy’’, author of De Re MetallicaAlbrecht Dürer (1471–1528), one of the most influential artists of the Northern RenaissanceTilman Riemenschneider (c. 1460–1531), most accomplished sculptor, woodcarver and master in stone from the late Gothic to the RenaissanceNikolaus Kopernikus (1473–1543), astronomer and mathematicianJohannes Kepler (1571–1630), astronomer and mathematicianGottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716), philosopher and mathematicianEhrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus (1651–1708), mathematician, physicist, physician, philosopher, co-inventor of European porcelainElisabeth of the Palatinate (1618–1680), philosopher, critic of René Descartes' dualistic metaphysicsHans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen (1621/22–1676), author of the novel Simplicius SimplicissimusMatthäus Merian (1593–1650), engraver, painter and publisher, member of the Merian familyDaniel Gabriel Fahrenheit (1686–1736), physicist, inventor, and scientific instrument makerOn the whole, industrialisation in Germany must be considered to have been positive in its effects. Not only did it change society and the countryside, and finally the world...it created the modern world we live in. It solved the problems of population growth, under-employment and pauperism in a stagnating economy, and abolished dependency on the natural conditions of agriculture, and finally hunger. It created huge improvements in production and both short- and long-term improvements in living standards. However, in terms of social inequality, it can be assumed that it did not change the relative levels of income. Between 1815 and 1873 the statistical distribution of wealth was on the order of 77% to 23% for entrepreneurs and workers respectively. On the other hand, new problems arose, in the form of interrupted growth and new crises, such as urbanisation, 'alienation', new underclasses, proletariat and proletarian misery, new injustices and new masters and, eventually, class warfare.Immanuel Kant (1724–1804)Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–1781)Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832)Joseph von Fraunhofer (1787–1826), physicist and optical lens manufacturer (1787–1826)Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805)Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859)Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827)Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855)Brothers Grimm (1785–1863 & 1786–1859)Werner von Siemens (1816–1892)Karl Marx (1818–1883)As of 1878, only three of eight Prussian dioceses still had bishops, some 1,125 of 4,600 parishes were vacant, and nearly 1,800 priests ended up in jail or in exile ... Finally, between 1872 and 1878, numerous Catholic newspapers were confiscated, Catholic associations and assemblies were dissolved, and Catholic civil servants were dismissed merely on the pretence of having Ultramontane sympathies.First a long-term coalition between France and Russia had to fall apart, secondly, Russia and Britain would never get together, and finally, Britain would eventually seek an alliance with Germany.Hermann von Helmholtz (1821–1894)Rudolf Virchow (1821–1902)Robert Koch (1843–1910)Karl Benz (1844–1929)Georg Cantor (1845–1918)Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (1845–1923)Rudolf Diesel (1858–1913)Max Planck (1858–1947)Fritz Haber (1868–1934)Thomas Mann (1875–1955)Otto Hahn (1879–1968)Martin Heidegger (1889–1976)Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956)Werner Heisenberg (1901–1976) The concept of Germany as a distinct region in central Europe can be traced to Roman commander Julius Caesar, who referred to the unconquered area east of the Rhine as Germania, thus distinguishing it from Gaul (France), which he had conquered. The victory of the Germanic tribes in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest (AD 9) prevented annexation by the Roman Empire, although the Roman provinces of Germania Superior and Germania Inferior were established along the Rhine. Following the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Franks conquered the other West Germanic tribes. When the Frankish Empire was divided among Charles the Great's heirs in 843, the eastern part became East Francia. In 962, Otto I became the first Holy Roman Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, the medieval German state. In the Late Middle Ages, the regional dukes, princes, and bishops gained power at the expense of the emperors. Martin Luther led the Protestant Reformation against the Catholic Church after 1517, as the northern states became Protestant, while the southern states remained Catholic. The two parts of the Holy Roman Empire clashed in the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), which was ruinous to the twenty million civilians living in both parts. The Thirty Years' War brought tremendous destruction to Germany; more than 1/4 of the population and 1/2 of the male population in the German states were killed by the catastrophic war. 1648 marked the effective end of the Holy Roman Empire and the beginning of the modern nation-state system, with Germany divided into numerous independent states, such as Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, Austria and other states, which also controlled land outside of the area considered 'Germany'. After the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars from 1803–1815, feudalism fell away and liberalism and nationalism clashed with reaction. The German revolutions of 1848–49 failed. The Industrial Revolution modernized the German economy, led to the rapid growth of cities and to the emergence of the socialist movement in Germany. Prussia, with its capital Berlin, grew in power. German universities became world-class centers for science and humanities, while music and art flourished. The unification of Germany (excluding Austria and the German-speaking areas of Switzerland) was achieved under the leadership of the Chancellor Otto von Bismarck with the formation of the German Empire in 1871. This resulted in the Kleindeutsche Lösung, ('small Germany solution', Germany without Austria), rather than the Großdeutsche Lösung, ('greater Germany solution', Germany with Austria). The new Reichstag, an elected parliament, had only a limited role in the imperial government. Germany joined the other powers in colonial expansion in Africa and the Pacific. By 1900, Germany was the dominant power on the European continent and its rapidly expanding industry had surpassed Britain's, while provoking it in a naval arms race. Germany led the Central Powers in World War I (1914–1918) against France, Great Britain, Russia and (by 1917) the United States. Defeated and partly occupied, Germany was forced to pay war reparations by the Treaty of Versailles and was stripped of its colonies as well as of home territory to be ceded to Czechoslovakia, Belgium, France and Poland. The German Revolution of 1918–19 put an end to the federal constitutional monarchy, which resulted in the establishment of the Weimar Republic, an unstable parliamentary democracy. In the early 1930s, the worldwide Great Depression hit Germany hard, as unemployment soared and people lost confidence in the government. In January 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany. His Nazi Party quickly established a totalitarian regime, and Nazi Germany made increasingly aggressive territorial demands, threatening war if they were not met. Remilitarization of the Rhineland came in 1936, then annexation of Austria in the Anschluss and parts of Czechoslovakia with the Munich Agreement in 1938, and further territory of Czechoslovakia in 1939. On 1 September 1939, Germany initiated World War II in Europe with the invasion of Poland. After forming a pact with the Soviet Union in 1939, Hitler and Stalin divided Eastern Europe. After a 'Phoney War' in spring 1940, the Germans swept Denmark and Norway, the Low Countries, and France, giving Germany control of nearly all of Western Europe. Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941. Racism, especially antisemitism, was a central feature of the Nazi regime. In Germany, but predominantly in the German-occupied areas, the systematic genocide program known as the Holocaust killed 11 million, including Jews, German dissidents, disabled people, Poles, Romanies, Soviets (Russian and non-Russian), and others. In 1942, the German invasion of the Soviet Union faltered, and after the United States entered the war, Britain became the base for massive Anglo-American bombings of German cities. Following the Allied invasion of Normandy (June 1944), the German Army was pushed back on all fronts until the final collapse in May 1945. Under occupation by the Allies, German territories were split up, Austria was again made a separate country, denazification took place, and the Cold War resulted in the division of the country into democratic West Germany and communist East Germany, reduced in territory by the establishment of the Oder-Neisse line. Millions of ethnic Germans were deported from pre-war Eastern Germany, Sudetenland, and from all over Eastern Europe, or fled from Communist areas into West Germany, which experienced rapid economic expansion, and became the dominant economy in Western Europe. West Germany was rearmed in the 1950s under the auspices of NATO, but without access to nuclear weapons. The Franco-German friendship became the basis for the political integration of Western Europe in the European Union. In 1989, the Berlin Wall was destroyed, the Soviet Union collapsed, and East Germany was reunited with West Germany in 1990. In 1998–1999, Germany was one of the founding countries of the eurozone. Germany remains one of the economic powerhouses of Europe, contributing about one-quarter of the eurozone's annual gross domestic product. In the early 2010s, Germany played a critical role in trying to resolve the escalating euro crisis, especially with regard to Greece and other Southern European nations. In the middle of the decade, the country faced the European migrant crisis as the main receiver of asylum seekers from Syria and other troubled regions. For more events, see Timeline of German history. The discovery of the Homo heidelbergensis mandible in 1907 affirms archaic human presence in Germany by at least 600,000 years ago. The oldest complete set of hunting weapons ever found anywhere in the world was excavated from a coal mine in Schöningen, Lower Saxony. Between 1994 and 1998, eight 380,000-year-old wooden javelins between 1.82 and 2.25 m (5.97 and 7.38 ft) in length were eventually unearthed.