1.
Berlin
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Berlin is the capital and the largest city of Germany as well as one of its constituent 16 states. With a population of approximately 3.5 million, Berlin is the second most populous city proper, due to its location in the European Plain, Berlin is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. Around one-third of the area is composed of forests, parks, gardens, rivers. Berlin in the 1920s was the third largest municipality in the world, following German reunification in 1990, Berlin once again became the capital of all-Germany. Berlin is a city of culture, politics, media. Its economy is based on high-tech firms and the sector, encompassing a diverse range of creative industries, research facilities, media corporations. Berlin serves as a hub for air and rail traffic and has a highly complex public transportation network. The metropolis is a popular tourist destination, significant industries also include IT, pharmaceuticals, biomedical engineering, clean tech, biotechnology, construction and electronics. Modern Berlin is home to world renowned universities, orchestras, museums and its urban setting has made it a sought-after location for international film productions. The city is known for its festivals, diverse architecture, nightlife, contemporary arts. Since 2000 Berlin has seen the emergence of a cosmopolitan entrepreneurial scene, the name Berlin has its roots in the language of West Slavic inhabitants of the area of todays Berlin, and may be related to the Old Polabian stem berl-/birl-. All German place names ending on -ow, -itz and -in, since the Ber- at the beginning sounds like the German word Bär, a bear appears in the coat of arms of the city. It is therefore a canting arm, the first written records of towns in the area of present-day Berlin date from the late 12th century. Spandau is first mentioned in 1197 and Köpenick in 1209, although these areas did not join Berlin until 1920, the central part of Berlin can be traced back to two towns. Cölln on the Fischerinsel is first mentioned in a 1237 document,1237 is considered the founding date of the city. The two towns over time formed close economic and social ties, and profited from the right on the two important trade routes Via Imperii and from Bruges to Novgorod. In 1307, they formed an alliance with a common external policy, in 1415 Frederick I became the elector of the Margraviate of Brandenburg, which he ruled until 1440. In 1443 Frederick II Irontooth started the construction of a new palace in the twin city Berlin-Cölln
2.
Walter Schott
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Walter Schott was a German sculptor and art professor. His father Eduard was a well-known metallurgist who was the manager, after completing his standard education, he studied in Hanover then, from 1880 to 1883, at the Prussian Academy of Arts under Fritz Schaper. After 1885, he worked as a sculptor in Berlin. In 1930, he wrote an autobiography, defending his position and his remains were cremated and his ashes placed in an urn at his fathers grave in Ilsenburg. Mecklenburg Nymphenbrunnen, The original is in the park of Schlitz Castle near Lake Malchin but there are copies, most notably one in Central Park, New York. Other copy is present in the front of the Kasteel Den Brandt in De Brandt park located in Antwerpen. Berlin Figure Group 1 in the Siegesallee project of Wilhelm II, consisting of Albert the Bear as the figure, flanked by Bishop Wigger von Brandenburg. The statues were vandalized shortly after their dedication in 1898 and were damaged in World War II. They are now on display at the Spandau Citadel, grave memorial for Else von Falckenberg in the Jerusalem II Friedhof am Halleschen Tor. Statue of William I, Prince of Orange in front of the Stadtschloss, the original was destroyed in World War II, but a copy of the statue in Wiesbaden, dating from 1908, still exists. Presented as a gift to the city of Berlin by the AEG in 1953, currently in Humboldthain Park, Berlin-Gesundbrunnen Saalburg Bust of Kaiser Wilhelm II. It was placed in storage by the Communist government in 1955 and was restored in 1998 as part of the ceremonies accompanying the 100th anniversary of the Saalburgs restoration, battlefield at Gravelotte in Alsace Monument honoring the First Foot Guards. It was unique among monuments relating to the Franco-Prussian War in that it honored the fallen French soldiers. This was done at the suggestion of the Kaiser, after World War I, when Alsace was once again part of France, the French government removed the central angel figure and offered to sell it back to Germany. When the offer was refused, the statue was melted down, the base of the monument is still there. Walter Schott, Ein Künstler-Leben und Gesellschaftliche Erinnerungen aus Kaiserlicher Zeit, artNet, Various versions of the Kugelspielerin, Schotts most popular small sculpture. Literature by and about Walter Schott in the German National Library catalogue
3.
Saxony-Anhalt
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Saxony-Anhalt is a landlocked federal state of Germany surrounded by the federal states of Lower Saxony, Brandenburg, Saxony and Thuringia. Its capital is Magdeburg and its largest city is Halle, Saxony-Anhalt covers an area of 20,447.7 square kilometres and has a population of 2.34 million. Saxony-Anhalt should not be confused with Saxony or Lower Saxony, also German states, Saxony-Anhalt is one of 16 Bundesländer of Germany. It is located in the part of eastern Germany. By size, it is the 8th largest state in Germany and it borders four fellow Bundesländer, Lower Saxony to the north-west, Brandenburg to the north-east, Saxony to the south-east, and Thuringia to the south-west. In the north, the Saxony-Anhalt landscape is dominated by plain, the old Hanseatic towns Salzwedel, Gardelegen, Stendal, and Tangermünde are located in the sparsely populated Altmark. The Colbitz-Letzlingen Heath and the Drömling near Wolfsburg mark the transition between the Altmark region and the Elbe-Börde-Heath region with its fertile, sparsely wooded Magdeburg Börde. Notable towns in the Magdeburg Börde are Haldensleben, Oschersleben, Wanzleben, Schönebeck, Aschersleben, the Harz mountains are located in the south-west, comprising the Harz National Park, the Harz Foreland and Mansfeld Land. The highest mountain of the Harz is Brocken, with an elevation of 1,141 meters, in this area, one can find the towns of Halberstadt, Wernigerode, Thale, Eisleben and Quedlinburg. The wine-growing area Saale-Unstrut and the towns of Zeitz, Naumburg, Weißenfels, the metropolitan area of Halle forms an agglomeration with Leipzig in Saxony. This area is known for its highly developed industry, with major production plants at Leuna, Schkopau. Finally, in the east, Dessau-Roßlau and Wittenberg are situated on the Elbe in the Anhalt-Wittenberg region, the capital of Saxony-Anhalt is Magdeburg. It is the second-largest city in the state, closely after Halle, from 1994 to 2003, the state was divided into three regions, Dessau, Halle and Magdeburg, and, below the regional level,21 districts. Since 2004, however, this system has replaced by 11 rural districts. In April 1945 the US Army took control of most of the western and northern area of the future Saxony-Anhalt, group Control Council, Germany appointed the first non-Nazi officials in leading positions in the area. So Erhard Hübener, furloughed by the Nazis, was reappointed Landeshauptmann. By early July the US Army withdrew from the former Prussian Province of Saxony to make way for the Red Army to take it as part of the Soviet occupation zone, the previously Saxon Erfurt governorate had become a part of Thuringia. For the earlier history see the articles of these entities before 1945
4.
Henry the Lion
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Henry the Lion was a member of the Welf dynasty and Duke of Saxony, as Henry III, from 1142, and Duke of Bavaria, as Henry XII, from 1156, the duchies of which he held until 1180. At the height of his reign, Henry ruled over a vast territory stretching from the coast of the North and Baltic Seas to the Alps, Henry achieved this great power in part by his political and military acumen and in part through the legacies of his four grandparents. Born in Ravensburg, in 1129 or 1131, he was the son of Henry the Proud, Duke of Bavaria and Saxony, who was the son of Duke Henry the Black, Henrys father died in 1139, aged 32, when Henry was still a child. King Conrad III had dispossessed Henry the Proud of his duchies in 1138 and 1139, handing Saxony to Albert the Bear and this was because Henry the Proud had been his rival for the crown in 1138. Henry III, however, did not relinquish his claims to his inheritance, a participant in the 1147 Wendish Crusade, Henry also reacquired Bavaria by a decision of the new Emperor Frederick Barbarossa in 1156. However, the East Mark was not returned, which became Austria, Henry is the founder of Munich and Lübeck, he also founded and developed numerous other cities in Northern Germany and Bavaria, a. o. Augsburg, Hildesheim, Stade, Kassel, Güstrow, Lüneburg, Salzwedel, Schwerin, in Brunswick, his capital, he had a bronze lion, his heraldic animal, erected in the yard of his castle Dankwarderode in 1166 — the first bronze statue north of the Alps. Later, he had Brunswick Cathedral built close to the statue, in 1147, Henry married Clementia of Zähringen, thereby gaining her hereditary territories in Swabia. In 1165, Henry married Matilda, the daughter of King Henry II of England and Duchess Eleanor of Aquitaine, during Fredericks first invasion of northern Italy, Henry took part, among the others, in the victorious sieges of Crema and Milan. In 1172, Henry had taken a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, meeting with the Knights Templar and Knights Hospitaller, spending Easter of that year in Constantinople. By December 1172, he was back in Bavaria and in 1174 and he did not consider these Italian adventures worth the effort, unless Barbarossa presented Henry with the Saxon imperial city Goslar, a request Barbarossa refused. Barbarossas expedition into Lombardy ultimately ended in failure and he bitterly resented Henry for failing to support him. Declaring that Imperial law overruled traditional German law, the court had Henry stripped of his lands, Frederick then invaded Saxony with an Imperial army to bring his cousin to his knees. Henrys allies deserted him, and he finally had to submit in November 1181 at a Reichstag in Erfurt and he was exiled from Germany in 1182 for three years, stayed with his father-in-law, in Normandy before being allowed back into Germany in 1185. He was exiled again in 1188 and his wife Matilda died in 1189. When Frederick Barbarossa went on the Crusade of 1189, Henry returned to Saxony, mobilized an army of his faithful, only the churches were left standing. Henry the Lion remains a figure to this day. During World War I a nail man depicting Henry the Lion, nazi propaganda later declared Henry an antecessor of the Nazis Lebensraum policy and turned Brunswick Cathedral and Henrys tomb into a National Place of Consecration
5.
Stendal
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Hansestadt Stendal is a town in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is the capital of Stendal District and unofficial capital of the Altmark region, situated west of the Elbe valley, the Stendal town centre is located some 125 km west of Berlin, around 170 km east of Hanover, and 55 km north of the state capital Magdeburg. Stendal is the seat of a University of Applied Sciences and preserves an old town including a historic market. The nearby village Uchtspringe is home to a rehabilitation clinic. Stendal station is the most important interchange and rail hub in the north of Saxony-Anhalt, located on the Berlin–Lehrte railway and the parallel Hanover–Berlin high-speed railway line, it is regularly served by Intercity and Intercity-Express trains. A direct connection to the German Autobahn network is planned with the extension of the BAB14 from Magdeburg to Schwerin. A settlement named Steinedal in the Eastphalian Balsamgau of Saxony, then a possession of Saint Michael’s Abbey in Hildesheim, was mentioned in a deed issued by Emperor Henry II in 1022. However, the entry has proven to be a 12th-century forgery, the fortified town near the Elbe crossing at Tangermünde was actually founded and granted Magdeburg rights by the first Brandenburg margrave Albert the Bear about 1160. The parish church of St Marys was first mentioned in 1283, a Latin school is documented from 1338. In 1456 the Hohenzollern elector Frederick II Irontooth founded a convent of Augustinian nuns, in 1502 his descendant Elector Joachim I Nestor married Princess Elizabeth of Denmark at Stendal. Magnificent churches, the hall and the two remaining city gates are still proof of Stendals former wealth. The Stendal citizens turned Protestant in 1539, with the reformator Konrad Cordatus serving as superintendent, for centuries part of the Margraviate of Brandenburg, Stendal with the Altmark region passed to the Prussian Province of Saxony after the Napoleonic Wars. A Prussian garrison town since the 17th century, it hosted the 10th Hussars regiment from 1884, the town suffered from strategic bombing. In April 1945, the served as starting place of the Sonderkommando Elbe unit. On May 4, the commander of the Wehrmacht 12th Army, from 1949 until German reunification in 1990, the town belonged to East Germany, part of Bezirk Magdeburg from 1952. Until 1994, the Stendal barracks served as base for a riflemen division of the Soviet 2nd Guards Tank Army. In 1983 the construction of the Stendal Nuclear Power Plant was begun north of the town, in 2009 the Stendal citizens voted for the prefix Hansestadt. The area has a theatre named Theater der Altmark, Stendal and it was founded in 1946 and has always had a particular involvement in youth and childrens theatre
6.
Ballenstedt
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Ballenstedt is a town in the Harz district, in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. It is situated at the rim of the Harz mountain range. The municipal area comprises the villages of Asmusstedt, Badeborn, Opperode, Radisleben, Ballenstedt ist a stop on the scenic Romanesque Road. The Saxon count Esico of Ballenstedt was mentioned in a 1030 entry in the chronicles of the Annalista Saxo. He was a son of one Count Adalbert, who held the office of a Vogt of Nienburg Abbey, and Hidda, Esico, whose sister Uta married Margrave Eckard II of Meissen is considered the progenitor of the House of Ascania. He had a church erected in Ballenstedt, dedicated to Saints Pancras and Abundius. Ballenstedt itself was not mentioned before 1073, when King Henry IV of Germany certified the donation of the estates by Esicos son Count Adalbert II to Nienburg Abbey. In 1123 Adalberts son Otto the Rich together with his son Albert the Bear, Albert and was buried at the crypt of the abbey church in 1070, a monument for him is located in the towns park. Alberts grandson Henry I became the first Prince of Anhalt in 1218, in 1512 the Ballenstedt citizens were vested with brewing rights by the Ascanian prince Wolfgang of Anhalt-Köthen. After Wolfgang met with Martin Luther at the 1521 Diet of Worms, Ballenstedt Abbey was stormed and plundered during the German Peasants War, whereafter Prince Wolfgang had the monastery secularised in 1525. He chose Ballenstedt as a residence and granted it town privileges in 1543 and it received city walls in 1551, a town hall was first mentioned in 1582. As the Anhalt princes supported King Christian IV of Denmark during the Thirty Years War, after the war, the town and the former monastery were rebuilt as a Baroque summer residence by the Ascanian princes of Anhalt-Bernburg. It was first manifested in 1560 after Ballenstedt received town rights, train service was suspended in 2003. A small asphalt runway is about 5 km outside the town
7.
Lusatia
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Lusatia is a region in Central Europe. The region is the home of the group of Lusatian Sorbs. Historically, Lusatia belonged to different countries. Being part of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown for three hundred years, alongside them it passed to the Habsburg Monarchy and from it to the Electorate of Saxony, the greater part passed to the Kingdom of Prussia in 1815 and the whole region merged into Germany in 1871. In the Polish part today Polish is spoken, and in the German part German, Upper-, the biggest Lusatian town is Cottbus. The name derives from the Sorbian word łužicy meaning swamps or water-hole, Lusatia is the Latinised form which spread in the English and Romance languages area. Lusatia comprises two both scenically and historically different parts, a hilly southern section and a lower region. Neighbouring regions were Silesia in the east, Bohemia in the south, the Margraviate of Meissen and the Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg in the west as well as the Margraviate of Brandenburg in the north. Upper Lusatia is today part of the German state of Saxony, except for a part east of the Neisse River around Lubań. Among those villages are Niedercunnersdorf, Obercunnersdorf, Wehrsdorf, Jonsdorf, Sohland an der Spree with Taubenheim, Oppach, most of the area belonging to the German state of Brandenburg today is called Lower Lusatia and is characterised by forests and meadows. In the course of much of the 19th and the entire 20th century, it was shaped by the lignite industry, important towns include Cottbus, Eisenhüttenstadt, Lübben, Lübbenau, Spremberg, Finsterwalde, Senftenberg, and Żary, which is now considered the capital of Polish Lusatia. Between Upper and Lower Lusatia is a called the Grenzwall, literally meaning border dyke. In the Middle Ages this area had forests, so it represented a major obstacle to civilian. Some of the villages were damaged or destroyed by the open-pit lignite mining industry during the DDR era. The Lusatian Lake District will become Europes largest artificial lake district, some of the biggest lakes are Lake Senftenberg and Bluno Southern Lake. The Upper Lusatian Heath and Pond Landscape is the region richest in ponds in Germany, as Lusatia is not, and never has been, a single administrative unit, Upper and Lower Lusatia have different, but in some aspects similar, histories. The city of Cottbus is the largest in the region, and though it is recognized as the capital of Lower Lusatia. Historically, the centres of Lower Lusatia were at Luckau and Lübben
8.
Bohemia
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Bohemia is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech lands in the present-day Czech Republic. Bohemia was a duchy of Great Moravia, later an independent principality, a kingdom in the Holy Roman Empire, and subsequently a part of the Habsburg Monarchy, after World War I and the establishment of an independent Czechoslovak state, Bohemia became a part of Czechoslovakia. Between 1938 and 1945, border regions with sizeable German-speaking minorities of all three Czech lands were joined to Nazi Germany as the Sudetenland, in 1990, the name was changed to the Czech Republic, which become a separate state in 1993 with the dissolution of Czechoslovakia. Until 1948, Bohemia was a unit of Czechoslovakia as one of its lands. Bohemia was bordered in the south by Upper and Lower Austria, in the west by Bavaria and in the north by Saxony and Lusatia, in the northeast by Silesia, and in the east by Moravia. In the 2nd century BC, the Romans were competing for dominance in northern Italy, the Romans defeated the Boii at the Battle of Placentia and the Battle of Mutina. After this, many of the Boii retreated north across the Alps, much later Roman authors refer to the area they had once occupied as Boiohaemum. The earliest mention was by Tacitus Germania 28, and later mentions of the name are in Strabo. The name appears to include the tribal name Boi- plus the Germanic element *haimaz home and this Boiohaemum was apparently isolated to the area where King Marobods kingdom was centred, within the Hercynian forest. The Czech name Čechy is derived from the name of the Slavic ethnic group, the Czechs, Bohemia, like neighbouring Bavaria, is named after the Boii, who were a large Celtic nation known to the Romans for their migrations and settlement in northern Italy and other places. Another part of the nation moved west with the Helvetii into southern France, to the south, over the Danube, the Romans extended their empire, and to the southeast in Hungaria, were Sarmatian peoples. In the area of modern Bohemia the Marcomanni and other Suebic groups were led by their king Marobodus and he took advantage of the natural defenses provided by its mountains and forests. In late classical times and the early Middle Ages, two new Suebic groupings appeared to the west of Bohemia in southern Germany, the Alemanni, many Suebic tribes from the Bohemian region took part in such movements westwards, even settling as far away as Spain and Portugal. With them were also tribes who had pushed from the east, such as the Vandals, other groups pushed southwards towards Pannonia. These are precursors of todays Czechs, though the amount of Slavic immigration is a subject of debate. The Slavic influx was divided into two or three waves, the first wave came from the southeast and east, when the Germanic Lombards left Bohemia. Soon after, from the 630s to 660s, the territory was taken by Samos tribal confederation and his death marked the end of the old Slavonic confederation, the second attempt to establish such a Slavonic union after Carantania in Carinthia. Other sources divide the population of Bohemia at this time into the Merehani, Marharaii, Beheimare, Christianity first appeared in the early 9th century, but only became dominant much later, in the 10th or 11th century
9.
Aschersleben
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Aschersleben is a town in the Salzlandkreis district, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is situated approximately 22 km east of Quedlinburg, and 45 km northwest of Halle, Aschersleben was first mentioned in 753, making it the oldest town of Saxony-Anhalt. The Latin name of the castle, Ascharia, provided the name of the House of Ascania. From 1252–1315 Aschersleben was the capital of Anhalt-Aschersleben, after which it passed to the Bishopric of Halberstadt, after the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, it became part of the Principality of Halberstadt. Aschersleben became part of the Prussian Province of Saxony in 1815, a Junkers serial fuselage production facility was located in Aschersleben during the time of Nazi Germany. In April 1935 tools were transferred to Aschersleben, and by May 1935 the first fuselages were built there, the facility was located in the Wilslebener Strasse 9 near the so-called Seewiesen, where an airfield was erected as well. The Aschersleben shop area reached 564,000 square metres and about 6,000 people were employed at it, during World War II, a subcamp of the Buchenwald concentration camp was located in the town. It was established to provide labour for Junkers and Motorenwerk. Since July 1944 about 950 KZ prisoners were forced to work at the Junkers Flugzeugwerke in Aschersleben, in April 1945 the production was ceased. On 17 April U. S. forces occupied Aschersleben, but on 23 May the city was handed over to the British forces, Aschersleben was bombed on the following dates during the war,1 April 1942 first British bomb attack 20 February 1944 U. S. Most installations were dismantled and transferred to Kiev in the Soviet Union by the Soviets in 1946, the remaining facility buildings at Aschersleben were later used by VEB Kombinat Fritz Heckert. Today the area is used by Schiess AG, Aschersleben was part of East Germany until 1990, when it became part of Saxony-Anhalt during German reunification. On 1 January 2008, the municipalities of Drohndorf, Freckleben and Mehringen were incorporated into Aschersleben, several architectural styles are represented in Aschersleben. The historic centre is dominated by romanesque, gothic, renaissance, there is a ring of buildings in neoclassical and Jugendstil styles around the historic Old Town. This, in turn, is surrounded and interspersed with buildings of early modernism like the Heckner-Bauten, large new areas are mainly in the north and south-east of the city. Aschersleben is one of few German towns showing large segments of the city wall preserved through the centuries. The city wall defines a ring around the historic Old Town. In the 19th century, several city gates and towers had been demolished, there are few half-timbered buildings in the old town of Aschersleben
10.
Italy
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Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino, Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate and Mediterranean climate. Due to its shape, it is referred to in Italy as lo Stivale. With 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth most populous EU member state, the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom, which eventually became a republic that conquered and assimilated other nearby civilisations. The legacy of the Roman Empire is widespread and can be observed in the distribution of civilian law, republican governments, Christianity. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science, exploration, Italian culture flourished at this time, producing famous scholars, artists and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. The weakened sovereigns soon fell victim to conquest by European powers such as France, Spain and Austria. Despite being one of the victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil. The subsequent participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in defeat, economic destruction. Today, Italy has the third largest economy in the Eurozone and it has a very high level of human development and is ranked sixth in the world for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military, cultural and diplomatic affairs, as a reflection of its cultural wealth, Italy is home to 51 World Heritage Sites, the most in the world, and is the fifth most visited country. The assumptions on the etymology of the name Italia are very numerous, according to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning land of young cattle. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now Southern Italy – according to Antiochus of Syracuse, but by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name Italia to a larger region, excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Palaeolithic period, some 200,000 years ago, modern Humans arrived about 40,000 years ago. Other ancient Italian peoples of undetermined language families but of possible origins include the Rhaetian people and Cammuni. Also the Phoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily, the Roman legacy has deeply influenced the Western civilisation, shaping most of the modern world
