1.
Gendarmenmarkt
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The Gendarmenmarkt is a square in Berlin and the site of an architectural ensemble including the Konzerthaus and the French and German Churches. In the centre of the stands an monumental statue of Germanys renowned poet Friedrich Schiller. The square was created by Johann Arnold Nering at the end of the century as the Linden-Markt. The Gendarmenmarkt is named after the cuirassier regiment Gens dArmes, which had stables at the square until 1773, during World War II, most of the buildings were badly damaged or destroyed. Today all of them have been restored, Gendarmenmarkt was first built in 1688. It was a marketplace and part of the citys Western expansion of Friedrichstadt, the French Church is the older of the two churches, was built by the Huguenot community between 1701 and 1705. It was modelled after the destroyed Huguenot church in Charenton-Saint-Maurice, France, the tower and porticoes, designed by Carl von Gontard, were added to the building in 1785. The French Church has a platform, a restaurant and a Huguenot museum. The German Church is located to the south of the Gendarmenmarkt and it has a pentagonal structure and was designed by Martin Grünberg and built in 1708 by Giovanni Simonetti. This church belonged to the Lutheran community and it too was modified in 1785 by Carl von Gontard, who built the domed tower. The German Church was completely destroyed by fire in 1945, during World War II, after German reunification it was rebuilt, finished in 1993 and re-opened in 1996 as a museum of German history. The Konzerthaus Berlin is the most recent building on the Gendarmenmarkt and it was built by Karl Friedrich Schinkel in 1821 as the Schauspielhaus. It was based on the ruins of the National Theatre, which had destroyed by fire in 1817. Parts of the building columns and some outside walls from the destroyed building. Like the other buildings on the square, it was badly damaged during World War II. The reconstruction, finished in 1984, turned the theatre into a concert hall, today, it is the home of the Konzerthausorchester Berlin. The Gendarmenmarkt hosts one of Berlins most popular Christmas markets, website of das Konzerthaus Der Gendarmenmarkt on Berlin Tourism Gendarmenmarkt Panorama
2.
German language
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German is a West Germanic language that is mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, South Tyrol, the German-speaking Community of Belgium and it is also one of the three official languages of Luxembourg. Major languages which are most similar to German include other members of the West Germanic language branch, such as Afrikaans, Dutch, English, Luxembourgish and it is the second most widely spoken Germanic language, after English. One of the languages of the world, German is the first language of about 95 million people worldwide. The German speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of publication of new books. German derives most of its vocabulary from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, a portion of German words are derived from Latin and Greek, and fewer are borrowed from French and English. With slightly different standardized variants, German is a pluricentric language, like English, German is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects, with many unique varieties existing in Europe and also other parts of the world. The history of the German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the migration period, when Martin Luther translated the Bible, he based his translation primarily on the standard bureaucratic language used in Saxony, also known as Meißner Deutsch. Copies of Luthers Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region that translated words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Roman Catholics initially rejected Luthers translation, and tried to create their own Catholic standard of the German language – the difference in relation to Protestant German was minimal. It was not until the middle of the 18th century that a widely accepted standard was created, until about 1800, standard German was mainly a written language, in urban northern Germany, the local Low German dialects were spoken. Standard German, which was different, was often learned as a foreign language with uncertain pronunciation. Northern German pronunciation was considered the standard in prescriptive pronunciation guides though, however, German was the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire, which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe. Until the mid-19th century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of the Empire and its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality. Some cities, such as Prague and Budapest, were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain, others, such as Pozsony, were originally settled during the Habsburg period, and were primarily German at that time. Prague, Budapest and Bratislava as well as cities like Zagreb, the most comprehensive guide to the vocabulary of the German language is found within the Deutsches Wörterbuch. This dictionary was created by the Brothers Grimm and is composed of 16 parts which were issued between 1852 and 1860, in 1872, grammatical and orthographic rules first appeared in the Duden Handbook. In 1901, the 2nd Orthographical Conference ended with a standardization of the German language in its written form
3.
East Germany
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East Germany, formally the German Democratic Republic, was an Eastern Bloc state during the Cold War period. The Soviet zone surrounded West Berlin, but did not include it, as a result, the German Democratic Republic was established in the Soviet Zone, while the Federal Republic was established in the three western zones. East Germany, which lies culturally in Central Germany, was a state of the Soviet Union. Soviet occupation authorities began transferring administrative responsibility to German communist leaders in 1948, Soviet forces, however, remained in the country throughout the Cold War. Until 1989, the GDR was governed by the Socialist Unity Party, though other parties participated in its alliance organisation. The economy was centrally planned, and increasingly state-owned, prices of basic goods and services were set by central government planners, rather than rising and falling through supply and demand. Although the GDR had to pay war reparations to the USSR. Nonetheless it did not match the growth of West Germany. Emigration to the West was a significant problem—as many of the emigrants were well-educated young people, the government fortified its western borders and, in 1961, built the Berlin Wall. Many people attempting to flee were killed by guards or booby traps. In 1989, numerous social and political forces in the GDR and abroad led to the fall of the Berlin Wall, the following year open elections were held, and international negotiations led to the signing of the Final Settlement treaty on the status and borders of Germany. The GDR was dissolved and Germany was unified on 3 October 1990, internally, the GDR also bordered the Soviet sector of Allied-occupied Berlin known as East Berlin which was also administered as the states de facto capital. It also bordered the three sectors occupied by the United States, United Kingdom and France known collectively as West Berlin. The three sectors occupied by the Western nations were sealed off from the rest of the GDR by the Berlin Wall from its construction in 1961 until it was brought down in 1989, the official name was Deutsche Demokratische Republik, usually abbreviated to DDR. West Germans, the media and statesmen purposely avoided the official name and its abbreviation, instead using terms like Ostzone, Sowjetische Besatzungszone. The centre of power in East Berlin was referred to as Pankow. Over time, however, the abbreviation DDR was also used colloquially by West Germans. However, this use was not always consistent, for example, before World War II, Ostdeutschland was used to describe all the territories east of the Elbe, as reflected in the works of sociologist Max Weber and political theorist Carl Schmitt
4.
Prussian Academy of Sciences
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The Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences was an academic academy established in Berlin on 11 July 1700, four years after the Akademie der Künste or Arts Academy, to which Berlin Academy may also refer. In the 18th century it was a French-language institution, and its most active members were Huguenots who had fled persecution in France. Unlike other academies, the Prussian Academy was not directly funded out of the state treasury, Frederick granted it the monopoly on producing and selling calendars in Brandenburg, a suggestion by Leibniz. As Frederick was crowned King in Prussia in 1701, creating the Kingdom of Prussia, while other academies focused on a few topics, the Prussian Academy was the first to teach both sciences and humanities. In 1710, the statute was set, dividing the academy in two sciences and two humanities classes. This was not changed until 1830, when the physics-mathematics and the philosophy-history classes replaced the four old classes, the reign of King Frederick II saw major changes to the academy. In 1744, the Nouvelle Société Littéraire and the Society of Sciences were merged into the Königliche Akademie der Wissenschaften, an obligation from the new statute were public calls for ideas on unsolved scientific questions with a monetary reward for solutions. However, those were taken over by the University of Berlin Aarsleff notes that before Frederick came to the throne in 1740, Frederick made French the official language and speculative philosophy the most important topic of study. The membership was strong in mathematics and philosophy and included Immanuel Kant, Jean DAlembert, Pierre-Louis de Maupertuis, by contrast d Alembert took a republican rather than monarchical approach and emphasized the international Republic of Letters as the vehicle for scientific advance. By 1789, however, the academy had gained an international repute while making contributions to German culture. Frederick invited Joseph-Louis Lagrange to succeed Leonhard Euler as director, both were world-class mathematicians, other intellectuals attracted to the philosophers kingdom were Francesco Algarotti, dArgens, and Julien Offray de La Mettrie. Immanuel Kant published religious writings in Berlin which would have been censored elsewhere in Europe, beginning in 1815, research businesses led by academy committees were founded at the academy. They employed mostly scientists to work alongside the corresponding committees members, University departments emanated from some of these businesses after 1945. Under Nazi rule, the academy was subject to the Gleichschaltung, the new academy statute went in effect on 8 June 1939, reorganizing the academy according to the Nazi leader principle. Following World War II, the Soviet Military Administration in Germany or SMAD reorganized the academy under the name of Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin on 1 July 1946, on 25 November 1915 Albert Einstein presented his field equations of general relativity to the Academy. In 1972, it was renamed Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR or AdW, at its height, the AdW had 400 researchers and 24,000 employees in locations across East Germany. 60 of the AdW members broke off and created the private Leibniz Society in 1993,1763 Immanuel Kant, foreign member 1786 Voltaire, c. Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, formerly the Prussian Academy of Sciences
5.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
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Leibnizs notation has been widely used ever since it was published. It was only in the 20th century that his Law of Continuity and he became one of the most prolific inventors in the field of mechanical calculators. He also refined the number system, which is the foundation of virtually all digital computers. Leibniz, along with René Descartes and Baruch Spinoza, was one of the three great 17th-century advocates of rationalism and he wrote works on philosophy, politics, law, ethics, theology, history, and philology. Leibnizs contributions to this vast array of subjects were scattered in various learned journals, in tens of thousands of letters and he wrote in several languages, but primarily in Latin, French, and German. There is no complete gathering of the writings of Leibniz in English, Gottfried Leibniz was born on July 1,1646, toward the end of the Thirty Years War, in Leipzig, Saxony, to Friedrich Leibniz and Catharina Schmuck. Friedrich noted in his journal,21. Juny am Sontag 1646 Ist mein Sohn Gottfried Wilhelm, post sextam vespertinam 1/4 uff 7 uhr abents zur welt gebohren, in English, On Sunday 21 June 1646, my son Gottfried Wilhelm is born into the world a quarter after six in the evening, in Aquarius. Leibniz was baptized on July 3 of that year at St. Nicholas Church, Leipzig and his father died when he was six and a half years old, and from that point on he was raised by his mother. Her teachings influenced Leibnizs philosophical thoughts in his later life, Leibnizs father had been a Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Leipzig, and the boy later inherited his fathers personal library. He was given access to it from the age of seven. Access to his fathers library, largely written in Latin, also led to his proficiency in the Latin language and he also composed 300 hexameters of Latin verse, in a single morning, for a special event at school at the age of 13. In April 1661 he enrolled in his fathers former university at age 15 and he defended his Disputatio Metaphysica de Principio Individui, which addressed the principle of individuation, on June 9,1663. Leibniz earned his masters degree in Philosophy on February 7,1664, after one year of legal studies, he was awarded his bachelors degree in Law on September 28,1665. His dissertation was titled De conditionibus, in early 1666, at age 19, Leibniz wrote his first book, De Arte Combinatoria, the first part of which was also his habilitation thesis in Philosophy, which he defended in March 1666. His next goal was to earn his license and Doctorate in Law, in 1666, the University of Leipzig turned down Leibnizs doctoral application and refused to grant him a Doctorate in Law, most likely due to his relative youth. Leibniz then enrolled in the University of Altdorf and quickly submitted a thesis, the title of his thesis was Disputatio Inauguralis de Casibus Perplexis in Jure. Leibniz earned his license to practice law and his Doctorate in Law in November 1666 and he next declined the offer of an academic appointment at Altdorf, saying that my thoughts were turned in an entirely different direction
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Academy
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Academy is a type of secondary or tertiary education institutions. The word comes from the Academy in ancient Greece, which derives from the Athenian hero, outside the city walls of Athens, the gymnasium was made famous by Plato as a center of learning. The sacred space, dedicated to the goddess of wisdom, Athena, had formerly been an olive grove, in these gardens, the philosopher Plato conversed with followers. Plato developed his sessions into a method of teaching philosophy and in 387 BC, by extension academia has come to mean the cultural accumulation of knowledge, its development and transmission across generations and its practitioners and transmitters. In the 17th century, British, Italian and French scholars used the term to describe types of institutions of higher learning, in ancient Greece, after the establishment of the original Academy, Platos colleagues and pupils developed spin-offs of his method. Arcesilaus, a Greek student of Plato established the Middle Academy, carneades, another student, established the New Academy. In 335 BC, Aristotle refined the method with his own theories, the library of Alexandria in Egypt was frequented by intellectuals from Africa, Europe and Asia studying various aspects of philosophy, language and mathematics. The University of Timbuktu was a university in Timbuktu, present-day Mali. During its zenith, the university had an attendance of around 25,000 students within a city of around 100,000 people. In China a higher education institution Shang Xiang was founded by Shun in the Youyu era before the 21st century BC, in the 8th century another kind of institution of learning emerged, named Shuyuan, which were generally privately owned. There were thousands of Shuyuan recorded in ancient times, the degrees from them varied from one to another and those advanced Shuyuan such as Bailudong Shuyuan and Yuelu Shuyuan can be classified as higher institutions of learning. Taxila or Takshashila, in ancient India, modern-day Pakistan, was an early Buddhist centre of learning and it is considered as one of the ancient universities of the world. According to scattered references which were only fixed a millennium later it may have dated back to at least the 5th century BC, some scholars date Takshashilas existence back to the 6th century BC. The school consisted of several monasteries without large dormitories or lecture halls where the instruction was most likely still provided on an individualistic basis. Takshashila is described in detail in later Jātaka tales, written in Sri Lanka around the 5th century AD. It became a centre of learning at least several centuries BC. Takshashila is perhaps best known because of its association with Chanakya, the famous treatise Arthashastra by Chanakya, is said to have been composed in Takshashila itself. Chanakya, the Maurya Emperor Chandragupta and the Ayurvedic healer Charaka studied at Taxila, generally, a student entered Takshashila at the age of sixteen
7.
Socialist Unity Party of Germany
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The partys dominant figure from 1950 to 1971, and effective leader of East Germany, was Walter Ulbricht. In 1953, an uprising against the Party was met with violent suppression by the Ministry of State Security and the Soviet Army. In 1971, Ulbricht was succeeded by Erich Honecker who presided over a period in the development of the GDR until he was forced to step down during the 1989 revolution. The partys last leader, Egon Krenz, was unsuccessful in his attempt to retain the SEDs hold on political governance of the GDR and was imprisoned after German reunification, the SEDs long-suppressed reform wing took over the party in the fall of 1989. In hopes of changing its image, on 16 December it renamed itself the Party of Democratic Socialism, abandoning Marxism–Leninism and it received 16. 4% of the vote in the 1990 parliamentary elections. In 2007, the PDS merged with Labour and Social Justice into The Left, official East German and Soviet histories portrayed this merger as a voluntary pooling of efforts by the socialist parties. However, there is evidence that the merger was more troubled than commonly portrayed. By all accounts, the Soviet occupation authorities applied pressure on the SPDs eastern branch to merge with the KPD. The newly merged party, with the help of the Soviet authorities, however, these elections were held under less-than-secret conditions, thus setting the tone for the next four decades. A truer picture of the SEDs support came with the elections in Berlin. In that contest, the SED received less than half the votes of the SPD, the bulk of the Berlin SPD remained aloof from the merger, even though Berlin was deep inside the Soviet zone. The Soviet Military Administration in Germany directly governed the areas of Germany following World War II. Also reported was a deal of difficulty in convincing the masses that the SED was a German political party. Soviet intelligence claimed to have a list of names of an SPD group within the SED that was covertly forging links with the SPD in the West, a problem for the Soviets that they identified with the early SED was its potential to develop into a nationalist party. At large party meetings, members applauded speakers who talked of nationalism much more than when they spoke of solving social problems, although it was nominally a merger of equals, from the beginning the SED was dominated by Communists. By the late 1940s, the SED began to purge most recalcitrant Social Democrats from its ranks, by the time of East Germanys formal establishment in 1949, the SED was a full-fledged Communist party—essentially the KPD under a new name. It began to develop along lines similar to other Communist parties in the Soviet bloc, over the years, the SED gained a reputation as one of the most hardline parties in the Soviet bloc. When Mikhail Gorbachev initiated reforms in the Soviet Union in the 1980s, the party organisation was based on, and co-located with, the institutions of the German Democratic Republic
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