Portal:Germany
Welcome to the Germany Portal!
Willkommen im Deutschland-Portal!
Germany (German: Deutschland), officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central and Western Europe, lying between the Baltic and North Seas to the north and the Alps to the south. It borders Denmark to the north, Poland and the Czech Republic to the east, Austria and Switzerland to the south, France to the southwest, and Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands to the west.
Germany includes 16 constituent states, covers an area of 357,578 square kilometres (138,062 sq mi) and has a largely temperate seasonal climate. With 83 million inhabitants, it is the second most populous state of Europe after Russia, the most populous state lying entirely in Europe, as well as the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is a very decentralized country. Its capital and largest metropolis is Berlin, while Frankfurt serves as its financial capital and has the country's busiest airport.
In 1871, Germany became a nation-state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the Revolution of 1918–19, the empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic. The Nazi seizure of power in 1933 led to World War II, and the Holocaust. After the end of World War II in Europe and a period of Allied occupation, two new German states were founded: West Germany, formed from the American, British, and French occupation zones, and East Germany, formed from the western part of the Soviet occupation zone, reduced by the newly established Oder-Neisse line. Following the Revolutions of 1989 that ended communist rule in Central and Eastern Europe, the country was reunified on 3 October 1990.
Today, Germany is a federal parliamentary republic led by a chancellor. It is a great power with a strong economy. The Federal Republic of Germany was a founding member of the European Economic Community in 1957 and the European Union in 1993. Read more...
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In early 1914, the German government sent Detzner to explore and chart the interior of Kaiser-Wilhelmsland, the imperial protectorate on the island of New Guinea. When World War I broke out in Europe, he was well into the interior, without radio contact. He refused to surrender to Australian troops when they occupied German New Guinea, concealing himself in the jungle with a band of approximately 20 soldiers. For four years, Detzner and his troops provocatively marched through the bush, singing "Watch on the Rhine" and flying the German Imperial flag. He led at least one expedition from the Huon Peninsula to the north coast, and a second by a mountain route, to attempt an escape to the neutral Dutch colony. He explored areas of the Guinean interior formerly unseen by Europeans and surrendered in full dress uniform, flying the Imperial flag, to Australian forces in January 1919.
Detzner received a hero's welcome when he returned to Germany. More...
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- History
- Holy Roman Empire (900–1806)
- East Germany (1949–1990)
- Neighbouring countries
Anniversaries for November 9
- November 9 in German history
- 1848 – Revolutionary Robert Blum is executed
- 1885 – Birth of mathematician Hermann Weyl
- 1918 – Germany is declared a republic in the German Revolution
- 1923 – End of the Beer Hall Putsch, Adolf Hitler's failed attempt to seize power
- 1938 – A massive pogrom against the Jewish population of Germany is started, known as Kristallnacht
- 1989 – Fall of the Berlin Wall
Did you know...
- ... that Marie Marcks sarcastically caricatured gender roles like no one before, according to Jutta Limbach?
- ... that the Niederdollendorf stone (pictured), the Grésin plaque, and the Landelinus buckle are each controversially conjectured to depict a pagan-inspired Jesus Christ?
- ... that Prussian-born Samuel Conrad Schwach founded the first newspaper in Norway in 1763?
- ... that Gerda Philipsborn, a German woman, dedicated her life to the development of Jamia Millia Islamia, a national university in New Delhi?
- ... that a German pastor let a deposed East German head of state stay in his house?
- ... that after Hitler came to power in 1933, the newspaper Hakenkreuzbanner acquired an office building and printing presses by seizing them from a Social Democratic publication?
- ... that according to tradition Saint Ludger healed the Frisian bard Bernlef of his blindness and taught him to play psalms on his harp?
- ... that Margrit Waltz has ferried planes to points on five continents?
Selected cuisines, dishes and foods
Due to its centuries-old history as a major port town the cuisine of Hamburg is very diversified and sapid as ingredients' supply was safe. Until the 20th century, the cuisine of Hamburg was predominantly characterized by the extensive choice of different kinds of fish from the river Elbe and the nearby Baltic Sea. The region of Vierlande supplied Hamburg with fresh vegetables. Fruit came from the area Altes Land and until industrialization the neighbourhood of Wilhelmsburg was considered the ‘milk isle’ of Hamburg. International trade in the Port of Hamburg made spices and exotic nutrition items from India and South America available since the 16th century, which were soon incorporated into civic kitchens.
On this basis, the cuisine of Hamburg developed which regrettably lost some of its characteristics nowadays due to the supraregional harmonization of the North German cuisine. But due to its high economic importance, Hamburg does feature many internationally recognized gourmet restaurants from which 11 were repeatedly awarded with a Michelin star in 2010. (Full article...)Topics
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- Requests: German Archaeological Institute at Rome , Deutsche Familienversicherung , Dietlof von Arnim-Boitzenburg , Rolf von Bargen , Hennes Bender , Georg Bernhard (1875–1944), Eduard Georg von Bethusy-Huc , Rolf Brandt (1886–1953), Jan Philipp Burgard , Lisa Feller , Georg Arbogast von und zu Franckenstein , Georg Gafron , Ferdinand Heribert von Galen , Gundula Gause , Karl-Heinz Hagen , Herbert Helmrich , Nils von der Heyde , Monty Jacobs (1875–1945), Hans Katzer , Siegfried Kauder , Matze Knop , Wolfgang Kryszohn , Claus Larass , Isidor Levy (1852–1929), Markus Löning , Tobias Mann , Mathias Müller von Blumencron ,Günther Nonnenmacher Anke Plättner , Hans Heinrich X. Fürst von Pless , Gerd Poppe , Victor-Emanuel Preusker , Günter Prinz , Ulrich Reitz , Hans Sauer (inventor) , Franz August Schenk von Stauffenberg , Paul Schlesinger (1878-1928),Oscar Schneider , Hajo Schumacher , Otto Theodor von Seydewitz , Christoph Sieber (comedian) , Dorothea Siems , Werner Sonne , Anton Stark , Udo zu Stolberg-Wernigerode , Christoph Strässer , Joseph von Utzschneider , Jürgen Wieshoff , Hans Wilhelmi , Dietmar Wischmeyer , Alexandra Würzbach
- Unreferenced: Unreferenced BLPs, Bundesautobahn 93, Benjamin Trinks, Steeler (German band), Amelie Beese, Zoologisches Museum in Kiel, Emil Krebs, Prussian semaphore system, Partenstein, Peter Krieg, Porsche 597, Christa Bauch, Curt Cress, Stefan Beuse
- Cleanup: 53541 issues in total as of 2024-03-03
- Translate: Articles needing translation from German Wikipedia
- Stubs: Albersdorf, Thuringia, Ingo Friedrich, Berndt Seite, Federal Social Court; 118 articles in Category:German MEP stubs
- Update: Deutsches Wörterbuch
- Portal maintenance: Update News, Did you know, announcements and the todo list
- Orphans: Orphaned articles in Germany
- Photo: Take/Add requested photographs
- Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character ",".
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