1.
Germany
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Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a federal parliamentary republic in central-western Europe. It includes 16 constituent states, covers an area of 357,021 square kilometres, with about 82 million inhabitants, Germany is the most populous member state of the European Union. After the United States, it is the second most popular destination in the world. Germanys capital and largest metropolis is Berlin, while its largest conurbation is the Ruhr, other major cities include Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf and Leipzig. Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity, a region named Germania was documented before 100 AD. During the Migration Period the Germanic tribes expanded southward, beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation, 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 German Revolution of 1918–1919, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic, the establishment of the national socialist dictatorship in 1933 led to World War II and the Holocaust. After a period of Allied occupation, two German states were founded, the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, in 1990, the country was reunified. In the 21st century, Germany is a power and has the worlds fourth-largest economy by nominal GDP. As a global leader in industrial and technological sectors, it is both the worlds third-largest exporter and importer of goods. Germany is a country with a very high standard of living sustained by a skilled. It upholds a social security and universal health system, environmental protection. Germany was a member of the European Economic Community in 1957. It is part of the Schengen Area, and became a co-founder of the Eurozone in 1999, Germany is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G8, the G20, and the OECD. The national military expenditure is the 9th highest in the world, the English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine. This in turn descends from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz popular, derived from *þeudō, descended from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂- people, the discovery of the Mauer 1 mandible shows that ancient humans were present in Germany at least 600,000 years ago. The oldest complete hunting weapons found anywhere in the world were discovered in a mine in Schöningen where three 380, 000-year-old wooden javelins were unearthed
2.
Party of Democratic Socialism (Germany)
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The Party of Democratic Socialism was a democratic socialist political party in Germany active between 1989 and 2007. It was the successor to the Socialist Unity Party of Germany. From 1990 through to 2005, the PDS had been seen as the party of the East. On 16 June 2007, the two merged to form a new party called The Left. The party had many progressive policies, including support for legalisation of same-sex marriage. Internationally, the Left Party. PDS was a co-founder of the Party of the European Left and was the largest party in the European United Left–Nordic Green Left group in the European Parliament. By the time of a party conference on 16 December 1989. During the second session the party accepted a proposal from Gysi, who had become party chairman earlier in the month, Gysi felt a name change was necessary to distance the reformed party from its repressive past. Above all Schumanns speech opened the way for the party to reinvent itself, using a phrase that was much quoted. A brief transitional period as the SED/PDS followed, by the end of 1989, the last hardline members of the partys Central Committee had either resigned or been pushed out, followed in 1990 by 95% of the SEDs 2.3 million members. On 4 February 1990, the party was renamed the PDS. However, neo-Marxist and communist minority factions continued to exist, by the time the party had formally renamed itself the PDS, it had expelled most of the remaining prominent Communist-era leaders from its ranks—including Honecker and Krenz. This was not enough to save the party when it faced the voters for the first time in the 1990 East German elections—the first and only free elections held in East Germany. The PDS had experience as a coalition partner in two federal states —Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania— where it co-governed until 2006 with the Social Democratic Party of Germany. Political responsibility has burnished the Lefts reputation as a pragmatic, rather than ideological party and it remained strong in local government in eastern Germany, with more than 6,500 town councillors and 64 elected mayors. In the first all-German elections in 1990, the PDS won only 2. 4% of the nationwide vote, however, a one-time exception to Germanys electoral law allowed eastern-based parties to qualify for representation if they won five percent of the vote in the former East Germany. As a result, the PDS entered the Bundestag with 17 deputies led by Gysi, one of Germanys most charismatic, however, it was only reckoned as a group within the Bundestag, and not a full-fledged parliamentary fraction. In the 1994 federal election, in spite of an anti-communist Red Socks campaign by the then-ruling Christian Democrats aimed at scaring off eastern voters, more importantly, Gysi was reelected from his Berlin seat, and three other PDS members were elected from eastern districts
3.
The Left (Germany)
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The Left, also commonly referred to as the Left Party, is a democratic socialist and left-wing populist political party in Germany. The party was founded in 2007 as the merger of the Party of Democratic Socialism, since mid-2012, its co-chairs have been Katja Kipping and Bernd Riexinger. Its parliamentary group is the third largest among the four groups in the German Bundestag, the Left is a founding member of the Party of the European Left, and is the largest party in the European United Left–Nordic Green Left group in the European Parliament. According to official party figures, the Left Party had 63,784 registered members as of December 2013, after protests, the party was forced to give up its monopoly of power on 1 December 1989. Honeckers successor, Egon Krenz, resigned two days later, and Gysi was named party chairman, by the end of 1989, the last hardline members of the partys Central Committee had either resigned or been pushed out. In 1990, 95% of SEDs 2.3 million members had left the party, by the time of a special congress in December 1989, the party was no longer a Marxist–Leninist party, though neo-Marxist and communist minority factions continued to be part of the party. At the congress, the party adopted a program of democratic reform, Gysi remained its leader, and soon became one of the most well-known faces within German politics. By the end of February, the PDS had expelled most of the remaining prominent Communist-era leaders from its ranks - including Honecker and Krenz. However, this was not enough to save the party when it faced the voters at the 18 March general election, the first free election in East Germany. The party came in a distant third with only 16. 4% of the vote, behind the East German branches of the West German-based Christian Democratic Union and Social Democratic Party. The two major parties formed a coalition, led by the Alliance for Germany, built around the East German CDU. In the first all-German Bundestag elections in 1990, the PDS won only 2. 4% of the nationwide vote, under normal circumstances, a party must win at least five percent of the vote to qualify for mixed member proportional representation in the Bundestag. However, for the 1990 elections only, an exception allowed eastern-based parties to qualify for list representation if they won at least five percent of the vote in the former East Germany. Also, Gysi was elected from a Berlin-area district, representatives elected directly through the First Vote are always guaranteed a seat regardless of their partys national vote. As a result, the PDS entered the 1990 Bundestag with 17 deputies led by Gysi, in the 1994 federal election the PDS managed to increase its share of the vote to 4.4 percent. e. More importantly, Gysi was reelected from his Berlin-area seat, and this allowed the PDS to qualify for MMP even though it came up just short of the five percent threshold. The PDS thus entered the new Bundestag with a caucus of 30 deputies. In 1998, the party reached its highest result to date, with 37 deputies elected on 5. 1% of the national vote, gysis resignation in 2000 after losing a policy debate with leftist factions brought conflict to the PDS
4.
Bundestag
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The Bundestag is a constitutional and legislative body at the federal level in Germany. For its similar function, it is described as a lower house of parliament along the lines of the US House of Representatives. The German constitution, however, does not define the Bundestag, since 1999 it has met in the Reichstag Building in Berlin. Norbert Lammert is the current President of the Bundestag, Members of the Bundestag are usually elected every four years by all adult German citizens in a mixed system of constituency voting and list voting. There are currently 631 seats, however, one – belonging to the CDU – remains vacant. The Election Day, however, can be if the Federal Chancellor loses a vote of no confidence. In the 19th century the name Bundestag was the designation for the assembly of the sovereigns and mayors of the Monarchies. Its seat was in the Free City of Frankfurt on the Main, two decades later, the current parliament building was erected. The Reichstag delegates were elected by direct and equal male suffrage, the Reichstag did not participate in the appointment of the Chancellor until the parliamentary reforms of October 1918. After this the Reichstag met only rarely, usually at the Krolloper following the Reichstag fire starting in 1933 to unanimously rubber-stamp the decisions of the government and it last convened on 26 April 1942. With the new constitution of 1949, the Bundestag was established as the new German parliament, the Bundeshaus in Bonn is the former Parliament Building of Germany. The sessions of the German Bundestag were held there from 1949 until its move to Berlin in 1999, today it houses the International Congress Centre Bundeshaus Bonn and in the north areas the branch office of the Bundesrat. The southern areas became part of German offices for the United Nations in 2008, the former Reichstag building housed a history exhibition and served occasionally as a conference center. The Reichstag building was occasionally used as a venue for sittings of the Bundestag and its committees and the Bundesversammlung. In 2005, an aircraft crashed close to the German parliament. It was then decided to ban private air traffic over Central Berlin, together with the Bundesrat, the Bundestag is the legislative branch of the German political system. The committees play a prominent role in this process, Plenary sessions provide a forum for members to engage in public debate on legislative issues before them, but they tend to be well attended only when significant legislation is being considered. This check on executive power can be employed through binding legislation, public debates on government policy, investigations, for example, the Bundestag can conduct a question hour, in which a government representative responds to a previously submitted written question from a member
5.
Sahra Wagenknecht
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Sahra Wagenknecht is a German left-wing politician, economics graduate, author and publicist. She is a member of the National Committee of the Left Party and, since May 2010, since 2009, she has been a member of the Bundestag. Wagenknecht was born on 16 July 1969 in the East German city of Jena and her father is Iranian and her mother, who worked for a state-run art distributor, is German. She was cared for primarily by her grandparents until 1976, when she, while in Berlin, she became a member of the Free German Youth. She completed her Abitur exams in 1988 and joined the Socialist Unity Party in early 1989, from 1990 she studied Philosophy and New German Literature as an undergraduate in Jena and Berlin but dropped out. She then enrolled as a student at the University of Groningen where she earned an MA in 1996 for a thesis on the young Karl Marxs interpretation of Hegel. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the transformation of the SED into the Party of Democratic Socialism and she also joined the PDSs Communist Platform, an orthodox Marxist faction. In the 1998 German federal election, Wagenknecht ran as the PDS candidate in a district of Dortmund, following the 1999 European elections, she was elected as a PDS representative to the European Parliament. Among her duties in the parliament is serving on the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Delegation, following the merger of the PDS and the WASG that formed the Left Party, Wagenknecht considered campaigning for the position of party vice-chair. However, party leaders such as Lothar Bisky and Gregor Gysi objected to the idea primarily because of her sympathies for the former German Democratic Republic. Following the controversy, she announced that she would not run for the post, Wagenknecht successfully contested a seat in the 2009 federal election in North Rhine-Westphalia. She became the Left Partys spokesperson for economic politics in the Bundestag, on 15 May 2010 she was at last elected vice-president of the Left Party with 75. 3% of the vote. At the start of 2012 it emerged that Wagenknecht was one of 27 Left Party Bundestag members kept under surveillance by the security services. Wagenknecht has argued that the Left Party must pursue radical and anticapitalist goals, thereby remaining distinct from the more moderate Social Democratic Party and Green Party. She has criticized the Left Partys participation in coalition governments, especially the Berlin state government and she has expressed strong support for the rise of left-wing leaders in Latin America, such as Hugo Chávez and SYRIZAs 2015 electoral victory in Greece. She serves as a spokesperson for the Venezuela Avanza solidarity network, Wagenknecht married businessman Ralph-Thomas Niemeyer in May 1997. However, on 12 November 2011, politician Oskar Lafontaine stated publicly that he, at the time, Wagenknecht and Lafontaine had already separated from their respective spouses, and on 22 December 2014, they married. Reichtum ohne Gier, Wie wir uns vor dem Kapitalismus retten, Campus, Frankfurt am Main 2016, ISBN 978-3-5935-0516-9
6.
Stralsund
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Stralsund, is a Hanseatic town in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. It is located at the Southern coast of the Strelasund, a sound of the Baltic Sea separating the island of Rügen from the mainland, the Strelasund Crossing with its two bridges and several ferry services connects Stralsund with Rügen. The Western Pomeranian town has been the capital of the Vorpommern-Rügen district since the 2011 district reforms and it is the fourth-largest city of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and, together with Greifswald, Stralsund forms an Oberzentrum, one of four high-level urban centers of the region. Stralsund was founded in 1234 and was one of the most prospering members of the medieval Hanseatic League, since 2002, Stralsunds old town with its rich heritage is honored as a UNESCO World Heritage, along with Wismar in Mecklenburg. The town of Stralsund is located in northeastern Germany in the region of Western Pomerania in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and its annual precipitation is 656 mm and comparatively low, falling within the lowest third of all precipitation values in Germany. The driest month is February, the most precipitation falls in July, the precipitation varies moderately across the year, at only 40% of weather stations in Germany are there lower seasonal variations. The town lies on the sound of Strelasund, a strait of the Baltic Sea, Stralsund is located close to the Western Pomerania Lagoon Area National Park. Stralsunds town borough includes municipal forest and three municipal ponds (the Knieperteich, Frankenteich and Moorteich, the three ponds and the Strelasund lend the Old Town, the original settlement site and historic center of the town, a protected island ambience. The highest point of the town is the Galgenberg on its western approaches, the towns territory covers an area of 38.97 km², which makes Stralsund, with its nearly 58,000 inhabitants one of the most densely populated towns in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The borough of the Hanseatic town of Stralsund is divided into as follows, The town also possesses estates in the area as well as on the islands of Rügen, Hiddensee. Larger towns or cities in the area are Greifswald and Rostock. In the local area around Stralsund there are also the towns of Barth, many of the smaller villages in the vicinity, like Prohn or Negast, have grown sharply after 1990 as a result of the influx of those living or working in Stralsund. In the Middle Ages the Stralsund area formed part of the West Slavic Principality of Rügen, at that time the Dänholm isle and fishing village, both at the site of the latter town, were called Strale or Stralow, Polabian for arrow. The full Polabian name is Strzałów, the village also had a ferry to the island of Rügen. In 1168 the Principality of Rügen became part of Kingdom of Denmark, in the course of German Ostsiedlung, many German settlers, gentry and merchants were invited to settle in the principality, and they eventually populated the Strale settlement. Merchants from other countries as well as locals were attracted to the area, the Danish navy used the isle as well. When the settlement had grown to size, prince Wizlaw I of Rügen granted Lübeck law to our town Stralow in 1234. In 1240, when the prince gave additional land to the town, the success of the settlement challenged the powerful Free City of Lübeck, which burnt Stralsund down in 1249
7.
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
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Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is a federal state in northern Germany. Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is the sixth largest German state by area, and the least densely populated, three of Germanys fourteen national parks are in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, in addition to several hundred nature conservation areas. Major cities include Rostock, Schwerin, Neubrandenburg, Stralsund, Greifswald, Wismar, the University of Rostock and the University of Greifswald are among the oldest in Europe. Mecklenburg-Vorpommern was the site of the 33rd G8 summit in 2007, due to its lengthy name, the state is often abbreviated as MV or shortened to MeckPomm. In English, it is translated as Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania or literally Mecklenburg-Cispomerania. Inhabitants are called either Mecklenburger or Pomeranians, the form is never used. The full name in German is pronounced and this is because the digraph <ck> marks a preceding short vowel in High German. Mecklenburg however is within the historical Low German language area, another explanation is that the c comes from a mannerism in High German officialese of writing unnecessary letters, a so-called Letternhäufelung. Human settlement in the area of modern Mecklenburg and Vorpommern began after the Ice Age, about two thousand years ago, Germanic peoples were recorded in the area. Most of them left during the Migration Period, heading towards Spain, Italy, in the 6th century Polabian Slavs populated the area. While Mecklenburg was settled by the Obotrites, Vorpommern was settled by the Veleti, along the coast, Vikings and Slavs established trade posts like Reric, Ralswiek and Menzlin. In the 12th century, Mecklenburg and Vorpommern were conquered by Henry the Lion and incorporated into the Duchy of Saxony, all of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern was settled with Germans in the Ostsiedlung process, starting in the 12th century. In the late 12th century, Henry the Lion, Duke of the Saxons, conquered the Obotrites, subjugated its Nikloting dynasty, in the course of time, German monks, nobility, peasants and traders arrived to settle here. After the 12th century, the territory remained stable and relatively independent of its neighbours, Mecklenburg first became a duchy of the Holy Roman Empire in 1348. Though later partitioned and re-partitioned within the dynasty, Mecklenburg always shared a common history. The states of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Mecklenburg-Strelitz became Grand Duchies in 1815, Vorpommern, litererally Fore-Pomerania, is the smaller, western part of the former Prussian Province of Pomerania, the eastern part became part of Poland after the end of World War II. In the Middle Ages, the area was ruled by the Pomeranian dukes as part of the Duchy of Pomerania, Pomerania was under Swedish rule after the Peace of Westphalia from 1648 until 1815 as Swedish Pomerania. Pomerania became a province of Prussia in 1815 and remained so until 1945, wartime In May 1945, the armies of the Soviet Union and the Western allies met east of Schwerin
8.
Berlin-Karlshorst
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Karlshorst is a locality in the borough of Lichtenberg in Berlin. Located there are a racing track and the Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Berlin, the largest University of Applied Sciences in Berlin. The locality encompasses the Waldsiedlung, a city laid out between 1919 and 1921 according to plans by Peter Behrens. From 1945 to 1949 the building served as the headquarters of the Soviet Military Administration in Germany. After the establishment of the German Democratic Republic it hosted the 6th Independent Motorized Rifle Brigade, the former headquarters has been made the home of the German-Russian Museum Berlin-Karlshorst, formerly called the Capitulation Museum. Karlshorst has access to the Berlin S-Bahn network at Berlin-Karlshorst railway station, which is also served by RegionalExpress trains of the Deutsche Bahn
9.
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
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The Communist Party of the Soviet Union, abbreviated in English as CPSU, was the founding and ruling political party of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The party was founded in 1912 by the Bolsheviks, a group led by Vladimir Lenin which seized power in the aftermath of the October Revolution of 1917. The party was dissolved on 29 August 1991 on Soviet territory soon after a failed coup détat and was abolished on 6 November 1991 on Russian territory. The highest body within the CPSU was the party Congress, which convened every five years, when the Congress was not in session, the Central Committee was the highest body. Because the Central Committee met twice a year, most day-to-day duties and responsibilities were vested in the Politburo, the Secretariat, and the Orgburo. The party leader was the head of government and held the office of either General Secretary, Premier or head of state, or some of the three offices concurrently—but never all three at the same time. The CPSU, according to its party statute, adhered to Marxism–Leninism, a based on the writings of Vladimir Lenin and Karl Marx. The party pursued state socialism, under which all industries were nationalized, a number of causes contributed to CPSUs loss of control and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Some historians have written that Gorbachevs policy of glasnost was the root cause, Gorbachev maintained that perestroika without glasnost was doomed to failure anyway. Others have blamed the stagnation and subsequent loss of faith by the general populace in communist ideology. The Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, the worlds first constitutionally socialist state, was established by the Bolsheviks in the aftermath of the October Revolution. Immediately after the Revolution, the new, Lenin-led government implemented socialist reforms, including the transfer of estates, in this context, in 1918, RSDLP became Russian Communist Party and remained so until 1997. Lenin supported world revolution he sought peace with the Central Powers. The treaty was voided after the Allied victory in World War I, in 1921, Lenin proposed the New Economic Policy, a system of state capitalism that started the process of industrialization and recovery from the Civil War. On 30 December 1922, the Russian SFSR joined former territories of the Russian Empire in the Soviet Union, on 9 March 1923, Lenin suffered a stroke, which incapacitated him and effectively ended his role in government. He died on 21 January 1924 and was succeeded by Joseph Stalin, after emerging victorious from a power struggle with Trotsky, Stalin obtained full control of the party and Stalinism was installed as the only ideology of the party. The partys official name was All-Union Communist Party in 1925, Stalins political purge greatly affected the partys configuration, as many party members were executed or sentenced for slave labour. Happening during the timespan of the Great Purge, fascism had ascened to power in Italy, seeing this as a potential threat, the Party actively sought to form collective security alliances with Anti-fascist western powers such as France and Britain
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