1.
Christlich Demokratische Union Deutschlands
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The Christian Democratic Union of Germany is a Christian democratic and liberal-conservative political party in Germany. It is the major party of the centre-right in German politics. The CDU forms the CDU/CSU grouping, also known as the Union, the leader of the CDU, Angela Merkel, is the current Chancellor of Germany. The CDU is a member of the Centrist Democrat International, International Democrat Union, immediately following the collapse of the Nazi dictatorship at the end of World War II, the need for a new political order in Germany was paramount. Simultaneous yet unrelated meetings began occurring throughout Germany, each with the intention of planning a Christian-democratic party, the Christlich-Demokratische Union was established in Berlin on 26 June 1945, and in Rheinland and Westfalen in September of the same year. The founding members of the CDU consisted primarily of members of the Centre Party, German Democratic Party, German National Peoples Party. In the Cold War years, after World War II up to the 1960s, a prominent anti-Nazi member was theologian Eugen Gerstenmaier who became Acting Chairman of the Foreign Board. One of the lessons learned from the failure of the Weimar Republic was that disunity among the parties ultimately allowed for the rise of the Nazi Party. It was therefore crucial to create a party of Christian Democrats – a Christian Democratic Union. The result of meetings was the establishment of an inter-confessional party influenced heavily by the political tradition of liberal conservatism. The latter was more nationalist and sought German reunification, even at the expense of concessions to the Soviet Union, the Western powers appreciated the CDUs moderation, its economic flexibility and its value as an oppositional force to the Communists, which appealed to European voters at the time. Also, Adenauer was trusted by the British, the party was split over issues of rearmament within the Western alliance and German unification as a neutral state. Adenauer staunchly defended his position and outmanoeuvred some of his opponents. He also refused to consider the SPD as a party of the coalition until he felt sure that they shared his anti-Communist position, the CDU was the dominant party for the first two decades following the establishment of West Germany in 1949. Konrad Adenauer remained the leader until 1963, at which point the former minister of economics Ludwig Erhard replaced him. As the Free Democratic Party withdrew from the coalition in 1966 due to disagreements over fiscal and economic policy. Consequently, a coalition with the SPD took over government under CDU Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger. The CDU continued its role as opposition until 1982, when the FDP’s withdrawal from the coalition with the SPD allowed the CDU to regain power, CDU Chairman Helmut Kohl became the new Chancellor of West Germany and his CDU-FDP coalition was confirmed in the 1983 federal election
2.
Volksschule
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The German term Volksschule generally refers to compulsory education, denoting an educational institution every person is required to attend. In Germany and Switzerland it is equivalent to a primary and lower secondary education. In Austria, Volksschule solely is used for school from Year One to Year Four. First secular schools followed during the movement from the late 17th century onwards and were further promoted by the advocates of the Enlightenment. In 1717 King Frederick William I of Prussia decreed the education of children from the age of five to twelve. They had to be able to read and write and were obliged to memorise the Protestant catechism, in 1763 King Frederick the Great enacted a first Prussian general school law, elaborated by the theologian Johann Julius Hecker. Attendance was supposedly compulsory, but a 1781 census reveals that one fourth of school-age children attended. At the time, this was one of the few examples of state-supported schooling, sending ones children to school was binding by law only from 1840 in the Austrian Empire. Spielvogel, Jackson J. 1999-2000, Western Civilization, Comprehensive Volume, ISBN 0-534-56835-1
3.
Landtag Nordrhein-Westfalen
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The parliament is the central legislative body in the political system of North Rhine-Westphalia. In addition to passing of laws, its most important tasks are the election of the Minister-President of the state, the current parties of government are a coalition of the Social Democratic Party and the Alliance 90/The Greens, supporting the cabinet of Minister-President Hannelore Kraft. The last state election took place on 13 May 2012, the State Parliament is the central legislative body of the state. It establishes or changes laws that fall within its authority, which includes the regulation of education, police matters. Bills can be brought before the parliament by a group or a group of at least seven members of parliament. Additionally, the government itself can bring relevant bill proposals to parliament for consideration. In practice, most bill proposals originate from the government and these generally are detailed proposals submitted in writing. If necessary, the proposal will also be delivered to external experts that are in contact with lobby groups. The specific parliamentary committees will then pass the bill with recommended decisions back to the parliament at large for a second reading. At this stage, members of parliament again make suggestions regarding the bill, each member has the ability to make suggestions to change the bill, and afterwards, the assembly will vote on each proposed amendment individually before finally voting on the entire bill. Bills are enacted by majority vote, as the constitution does not require any more stringent criteria for passage, the parliament operates by a quorum decision making process, meaning that only half of its legal members must be present. Constitutional amendments and the budget must go through the process three times, instead of the standard two. For any proposed legislature, a reading, deliberation, or committee counseling can be requested either by a party or by at least a quarter of the assembly. The President of the Parliament delivers each ratified law to the Minister-President, the law enters into force after it is written in the Law and Ordinance Record for the State of North Rhine-Westphalia. Referendums in Germany are similar to bill proposals from parliament and the government in that they can be submitted by the people to parliament to undergo the same legislative process. If parliament rejects the referendum, then a plebiscite is undertaken in which the people at large can vote, a successful plebiscite leads to the referendum being passed as law. A plebiscite can also be enacted at the request of the government, in practice, this form of direct democracy does not play a large role in the legislative process. The authority of the parliament in numerous legal areas has waned in the last few decades
4.
Nordrhein-Westfalen
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North Rhine-Westphalia is the most populous state of Germany, with a population of approximately 18 million, and the fourth largest by area. Its capital is Düsseldorf, the most populous city is Cologne, four of Germanys ten largest cities—Cologne, Düsseldorf, Dortmund, and Essen—are located within the state, as well as the largest metropolitan area on the European continent, Rhine-Ruhr. North Rhine-Westphalia was formed in 1946 as a merger of the provinces of North Rhine and Westphalia, the state has been run by a coalition of the Social Democrats and Greens since 2010. The Ubii and some other Germanic tribes such as the Cugerni were later settled on the west side of the Rhine in the Roman province of Germania Inferior, North of the Sigambri and the Rhine region were the Bructeri. By the 8th century the Frankish dominion was established in western Germany. But at the time, to the north, Westphalia was being taken over by Saxons pushing south. The Merovingian and Carolingian Franks eventually built an empire which controlled first their Ripuarian kin, the Ottonian dynasty had both Saxon and Frankish ancestry. As the central power of the Holy Roman Emperor weakened, the Rhineland split into small independent principalities, each with its separate vicissitudes. Such struggles as the War of the Limburg Succession therefore continued to create military, Aachen was the place of coronation of the German emperors, and the ecclesiastical principalities of the Rhine bulked largely in German history. Prussia first set foot on the Rhine in 1609 by the occupation of the Duchy of Cleves and about a century later Upper Guelders and Moers also became Prussian. At the peace of Basel in 1795 the whole of the bank of the Rhine was resigned to France. In 1920, the districts of Eupen and Malmedy were transferred to Belgium, around 1 AD there were numerous incursions through Westphalia and perhaps even some permanent Roman or Romanized settlements. The Battle of Teutoburg Forest took place near Osnabrück and some of the Germanic tribes who fought at this came from the area of Westphalia. Charlemagne is thought to have spent considerable time in Paderborn and nearby parts and his Saxon Wars also partly took place in what is thought of as Westphalia today. Popular legends link his adversary Widukind to places near Detmold, Bielefeld, Lemgo, Osnabrück, Widukind was buried in Enger, which is also a subject of a legend. Along with Eastphalia and Engern, Westphalia was originally a district of the Duchy of Saxony, in 1180 Westphalia was elevated to the rank of a duchy by Emperor Barbarossa. The Duchy of Westphalia comprised only an area south of the Lippe River. Parts of Westphalia came under Brandenburg-Prussian control during the 17th and 18th centuries, the Peace of Westphalia of 1648, signed in Münster and Osnabrück, ended the Thirty Years War
5.
Wahlkreis
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An electoral district is a territorial subdivision for electing members to a legislative body. Generally, only voters who reside within the district are permitted to vote in an election held there, from a single district, a single member or multiple members might be chosen. Members might be chosen by a first-past-the-post system or a representative system. Members might be chosen through an election under universal suffrage. The names for electoral districts vary across countries and, occasionally, the term constituency is commonly used to refer to an electoral district, it can also refer to the body of eligible voters within the represented area. Similarly, in Australia and New Zealand, electoral districts are called electorates, the term Chûnāô-Kshetra is used while referring to an electoral district in general irrespective of the legislature. When referring to a particular constituency, it is simply referred to as Kshetra along with the name of the legislature. Electoral districts for municipal or other bodies are called wards. In Canada, districts are colloquially called ridings, in French, circonscription or comté, local electoral districts are sometimes called wards, a term which also designates administrative subdivisions of a municipality. In local government in the Republic of Ireland voting districts are called electoral areas, district magnitude is the number of representatives elected from a given district to the same legislative body. A single-member district has one representative, while a district has more than one. Under proportional representation systems, district magnitude is an important determinant of the makeup of the elected body, the geographic distribution of minorities also affects their representation - an unpopular nationwide minority can still secure a seat if they are concentrated in a particular district. District magnitude can vary within the same system during an election. In the Republic of Ireland, for instance, national elections to Dáil Éireann are held using a combination of 3,4, main articles, Apportionment and Redistricting Apportionment is the process of allocating a number of representatives to different regions, such as states or provinces. Apportionment changes are accompanied by redistricting, the redrawing of electoral district boundaries to accommodate the new number of representatives. This redrawing is necessary under single-member district systems, as each new representative requires their own district, multi-member systems, however, vary depending on other rules. Apportionment is generally done on the basis of population, the United States Senate, by contrast, is apportioned without regard to population, every state gets exactly two senators. Malapportionment occurs when voters are under- or over-represented due to variation in district population, given the complexity of this process, software is increasingly used to simplify the task, while better supporting reproducible and more justifiable results
6.
Gemeinsame Normdatei
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The Integrated Authority File or GND is an international authority file for the organisation of personal names, subject headings and corporate bodies from catalogues. It is used mainly for documentation in libraries and increasingly also by archives, the GND is managed by the German National Library in cooperation with various regional library networks in German-speaking Europe and other partners. The GND falls under the Creative Commons Zero license, the GND specification provides a hierarchy of high-level entities and sub-classes, useful in library classification, and an approach to unambiguous identification of single elements. It also comprises an ontology intended for knowledge representation in the semantic web, available in the RDF format
7.
Virtual International Authority File
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The Virtual International Authority File is an international authority file. It is a joint project of national libraries and operated by the Online Computer Library Center. The project was initiated by the US Library of Congress, the German National Library, the National Library of France joined the project on October 5,2007. The project transitions to a service of the OCLC on April 4,2012, the aim is to link the national authority files to a single virtual authority file. In this file, identical records from the different data sets are linked together, a VIAF record receives a standard data number, contains the primary see and see also records from the original records, and refers to the original authority records. The data are available online and are available for research and data exchange. Reciprocal updating uses the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting protocol, the file numbers are also being added to Wikipedia biographical articles and are incorporated into Wikidata. VIAFs clustering algorithm is run every month, as more data are added from participating libraries, clusters of authority records may coalesce or split, leading to some fluctuation in the VIAF identifier of certain authority records
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