Germany - jûrˈmənē, Ger. Deutschland, officially Federal Republic of Germany, republic (1995 est. pop. 81,338,000), 137,699 sq mi (356,733 sq km). Located in the center of Europe, it borders the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France on the west; Switzerland and Austria on the south; the Czech Republic and Poland on the east; Denmark on the north; and the Baltic Sea on the northeast. The official capital and largest city is
Berlin, but many administrative functions are still carried on in
Bonn, the former capital of West Germany.
Land and People Germany as a whole can be divided into three major geographic regions: the low-lying N German plain, the central German uplands, and, in the south, the ranges of the Central Alps and other uplands. The climate is temperate although there is considerable variation. Almost two thirds of the country's extensive forests are coniferous; among the broadleafs, beech predominates. N Germany, drained by the Ems, Weser, Elbe, and Oder rivers, is heavily farmed, despite poor soil; crops include wheat, rye, barley, oats, potatoes, and sugar beets. Dairy cattle are widely raised, especially in Schleswig-Holstein; pork, beef, and chicken are other livestock products. The region also includes the major industrial and transportation centers of
Kiel,
Rostock Hamburg, Bremen,
Hanover, and
Magdeburg, as well as Berlin. The central uplands include the Rhenish Slate and Harz mts., and the Thuringian Forest. The
Rhine River runs through W Germany and, between Bingen and Bonn, flows through a steep gorge, famous for its scenery, vineyards, and castles. Along the northern rim of the Rhenish Slate Mts. lies Germany's chief mining and industrial region, which includes the
Ruhr and Saar basins and takes in the cities of
Düsseldorf,
Duisburg,
Krefeld,
Essen,
Wuppertal,
Bochum,
Gelsenkirchen, and
Dortmund. In the east, industrial centers are located along and near the Elbe River and its tributaries. The major cities include
Leipzig,
Dresden,
Chemnitz,
Halle, and
Erfurt. The southern section of the Rhineland, which contains the Eifel and Hunsrück mts., is largely agricultural and has famous vineyards, especially in the
Moselle valley. The southern part of Germany is drained by the Danube, Iller, Lech, Isar, Inn, Neckar, and Main rivers. Rising to the Zugspitze (9,721 ft/2,963 m) in the Bavarian Alps, the highest point in Germany, it consists of plateaus and forested mountains, e.g., the Black Forest, the highlands of Swabia, and the Bohemian Forest. Lake Constance, in the Alps, is a popular tourist area. Notable agricultural products of the region are fruit, wheat, barley, and dairy goods. Important industrial centers include
Munich,
Frankfurt,
Augsburg,
Nuremberg,
Stuttgart, and
Karlsruhe. About 38% of the population is Protestant, mostly in the north, and 34% is Roman Catholic, primarily in the south and west. There is a small Jewish minority. About half the population in the area that was formerly East Germany has no religious affiliation. Catholic and Protestant churches and Jewish synagogues receive government support through a church surtax levied on members of these denominations. Virtually all citizens of the country speak German. Danes, Frisians, Gypsies, and Sorbs or Wends comprise the indigenous non-German-speaking minorities. Since the early 1970s, millions of "guest workers" from other countries (mostly former Yugoslavia, plus Turkey and Italy) have come to Germany for employment. These residents include about 2 million Muslims, mainly Turks and Kurds. Economy The Federal Republic of Germany has for many years benefited from a highly skilled population that enjoys a high standard of living and an extensive social welfare program. Since unification, however, Germany has faced the economic challenge of transforming the former East Germany from a deteriorating command economy dependent on low-quality heavy industrial products to a technologically advanced market economy. Unemployment in the east has remained consistently higher than that in the west, and although several larger urban centers there have begun to revive economically, most E German industrially cities remain depressed. Since the postwar years, the German economy has emphasized management-labor consensus, which, while generally avoiding labor strife, has also created a relatively inflexible labor environment where employers are reluctant to hire more than the minimum required number of skilled workers, since it is difficult to fire them once they are hired. Manufacturing and service industries are the dominant economic activities; agriculture accounts for about 1% of the gross national product (GNP) and occupies about 3% of the workforce. Manufactures include iron and steel, motor vehicles, machinery and machine tools, chemicals, electronics, ships, food and beverages, cement, and textiles. Hard coal and lignite are mined. Overall, the principal German agricultural products are potatoes, wheat, barley, rye, sugar beets, cabbage, fruit, and dairy products. Large numbers of cattle, hogs, and poultry are raised. Germany is one of the world's largest exporters; it conducts over 50% of its trade with other European Union countries. Government Germany is a federal republic whose 16 states have their own constitutions, legislatures, and governments, which can pass laws on all matters except those that are the exclusive right of the federal government such as defense, foreign affairs, and finance. Education, local law enforcement, culture, and environmental protection are controlled by the states. The 16 states (Länder) are
Schleswig-Holstein,
Lower Saxony,
Bremen,
Hamburg,
Mecklenburg–West Pomerania,
North Rhine–Westphalia,
Saxony–Anhalt,
Brandenburg, Berlin
Hesse,
Thuringia,
SaxonyRhineland-Palatinate,
Saarland,
Baden-Württemberg, and
Bavaria. Germany has a parliamentary democracy with a bicameral legislature. The Bundesrat, the upper house, has 68 seats, with each state seating three to six representatives depending on the state's population; the term is not fixed. The Bundestag, the lower house, is the country's main legislative body. It has 603 deputies who are elected for four years using a mixed system of proportional representation and direct voting. Executive authority lies with the federal government, whose leader, the federal chancellor, is elected by an absolute majority of the Bundestag for a four-year term. Cabinet members are appointed by the president, upon the proposal of the chancellor. The federal president is a constitutional head of state with little influence on government. The president is elected for a five-year term by a federal convention, which meets only for this purpose and consists of the Bundestag and an equal number of members elected by the state parliaments. History Various aspects of the early, medieval, and early modern history of Germany are covered in the articles
Germans;
Germanic laws;
Germanic religion;
Holy Roman Empire;
Austria; and in the articles on the major historic German states (
Prussia,
Bavaria,
Saxony,
Württemberg,
Baden,
Thuringia,
Hesse, Mecklenburg (see under
Mecklenburg–West Pomerania,
Oldenburg,
Brunswick,
Anhalt,
Lippe,
Schaumburg-Lippe) and on the free cities of
Hamburg,
Bremen, and
Lübeck. The survey that follows is a very general outline of the complex history of Germany. History to the Early Middle Ages At the end of the 2d cent. b.c., the German tribes began to expand at the expense of the Celts, but they were confined by Roman conquests (1st cent. b.c.–1st cent. a.d.) to the region E of the Rhine and N of the Danube. The Romans penetrated briefly (12 b.c.–a.d. 9) as far east as the Elbe River (see
Teutoburg Forest), and from the late 1st cent. a.d. to the 3d cent. they held the Agri Decumates, protected against Germanic inroads by a fortified line from Cologne to Regensburg. In a series of great migrations (4th–5th cent.) the German tribes (who did not all come from present-day Germany) overran most of the Roman Empire, while Slavic tribes occupied Germany E of the Elbe. By the 6th cent., the
Anglo-Saxons had established themselves in Britain, and the
Franks had taken over nearly all of present-day France, W and S Germany, and Thuringia.
Clovis I, who first united the Franks late in the 5th cent., accepted Christianity, and St.
Boniface in the 8th cent. spread the gospel in the areas acquired by Clovis's successors. In 751, Pepin the Short deposed the dynasty of the
Merovingians and established his own, that of the
Carolingians. His son
Charlemagne conquered the
Saxons and extended the Frankish domain in Germany to the Elbe. He was crowned emperor at Rome in 800. In the first division (843) of Charlemagne's empire (see
Verdun, Treaty of) the kingdom of the Eastern Franks, under
Louis the German, emerged as the nucleus of the German state. The Treaty of
Mersen (870) enlarged it by the addition of part of
Lotharingia (Lorraine), but after the death (876) of Louis it was divided among his sons
Carloman,
Louis the Younger, and
Charles III (Charles the Fat). Emperor
Arnulf reunited the kingdom, but during his reign (887–99) and that of his son
Louis the Child (900–911), last of the Carolingian kings of Germany, the Norsemen, Slavs, and Magyars began to make devastating inroads. These contributed to economic breakdown and localization, manifest in the
manorial system. Political localization was evident in the emergence of powerful duchies and in the growth of
feudalism. The dukes of Franconia, Swabia, Bavaria, Saxony, and Upper and Lower Lorraine emerged as the most powerful magnates of Germany. On the death (911) of Louis the Child, they elected the Franconian duke
Conrad I as king. Conrad's reign was spent in struggles against the Magyars and against the |
