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| More History Resources |
 Berlin Games: How the Nazis Stole the Olympic Dream Guy Walters |
 The Bonfire of Berlin: A Lost Childhood in Wartime Germany Helga Schneider |
 Germany Since World War II: From Occupation to Unification and Beyond Klaus Larres |
 The Mentality of German Physicists 1945-1949 Klaus Hentschel |
 Hegel: Lectures on the Philosophy of Spirit 1827-8 (Hegel Lectures) |
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About the Country |
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Background: As Western Europe's richest and most populous nation, Germany remains a key member of the continent's economic, political, and defense organizations. European power struggles immersed the country in two devastating World Wars in the first half of the 20th century and left the country occupied by the victorious Allied powers of the US, UK, France, and the Soviet Union in 1945. With the advent of the Cold War, two German states were formed in 1949: the western Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and the eastern German Democratic Republic (GDR). The democratic FRG embedded itself in key Western economic and security organizations, the EC and NATO, while the communist GDR was on the front line of the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact. The decline of the USSR and the end of the Cold War allowed for German unification in 1990. Since then Germany has expended considerable funds to bring eastern productivity and wages up to western standards. In January 1999, Germany and 10 other EU countries formed a common European currency, the euro.
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Map courtesy of www.theodora.com/maps used with permission. |
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Location: Central Europe, bordering the Baltic Sea and the North Sea, between the Netherlands and Poland, south of Denmark Geographic coordinates: 51 00 N, 9 00 E Area: Area - comparative: slightly smaller than Montana Land boundaries: Climate: temperate and marine; cool, cloudy, wet winters and summers; occasional warm foehn wind Terrain: lowlands in north, uplands in center, Bavarian Alps in south
Population: 82,424,609 (July 2004 est.) Age structure: Population growth rate: 0.02% (2004 est.) Ethnic groups: German 91.5%, Turkish 2.4%, other 6.1% (made up largely of Serbo-Croatian, Italian, Russian, Greek, Polish, Spanish) Religions: Protestant 38%, Roman Catholic 34%, Muslim 1.7%, unaffiliated or other 26.3% Languages: German
Government type: federal republic Capital: Berlin National holiday: German Unity Day (Day of Unity), 3 October (1990) Constitution: 23 May 1949, known as Basic Law; became constitution of the united German people 3 October 1990 Legal system: civil law system with indigenous concepts; judicial review of legislative acts in the Federal Constitutional Court; has not accepted compulsory ICJ jurisdiction
Labor force: 41.9 million (2001) Unemployment rate: 10.7% (2003 est.) Exports - commodities: machinery, vehicles, chemicals, metals and manufactures, foodstuffs, textiles Imports - commodities: machinery, vehicles, chemicals, foodstuffs, textiles, metals Currency: euro (EUR)
Military branches: Army, Navy (includes Naval Air Arm), Air Force, Medical Corps, Border Police, Coast Guard Military expenditures - dollar figure: $35.063 billion (2003) |
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Source of background and statistical data: The World Factbook
For more on Germany, click here |
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