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.
Weimar Republic
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Weimar Republic is an unofficial, historical designation for the German state between 1919 and 1933. The name derives from the city of Weimar, where its constitutional assembly first took place, the official name of the state was still Deutsches Reich, it had remained unchanged since 1871. In English the country was known simply as Germany. A national assembly was convened in Weimar, where a new constitution for the Deutsches Reich was written, in its fourteen years, the Weimar Republic faced numerous problems, including hyperinflation, political extremism, and contentious relationships with the victors of the First World War. The people of Germany blamed the Weimar Republic rather than their leaders for the countrys defeat. However, the Weimar Republic government successfully reformed the currency, unified tax policies, Weimar Germany eliminated most of the requirements of the Treaty of Versailles, it never completely met its disarmament requirements, and eventually paid only a small portion of the war reparations. Under the Locarno Treaties, Germany accepted the borders of the republic. From 1930 onwards President Hindenburg used emergency powers to back Chancellors Heinrich Brüning, Franz von Papen, the Great Depression, exacerbated by Brünings policy of deflation, led to a surge in unemployment. In 1933, Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler as Chancellor with the Nazi Party being part of a coalition government, the Nazis held two out of the remaining ten cabinet seats. Von Papen as Vice Chancellor was intended to be the éminence grise who would keep Hitler under control, within months the Reichstag Fire Decree and the Enabling Act of 1933 had brought about a state of emergency, it wiped out constitutional governance and civil liberties. Hitlers seizure of power was permissive of government by decree without legislative participation and these events brought the republic to an end, as democracy collapsed, a single-party state founded the Nazi era. The Weimar Republic is so called because the assembly that adopted its constitution met at Weimar, Germany from 6 February 1919 to 11 August 1919, but this name only became mainstream after 1933. To the right of the spectrum the politically engaged rejected the new democratic model, the Catholic Centre party, Zentrum favoured the term Deutscher Volksstaat while on the moderate left the Chancellors SPD preferred Deutsche Republik. Only during the 1930s did the term become mainstream, both within and outside Germany, after the introduction of the republic, the flag and coat of arms of Germany were officially altered to reflect the political changes. The Weimar Republic retained the Reichsadler, but without the symbols of the former Monarchy and this left the black eagle with one head, facing to the right, with open wings but closed feathers, with a red beak, tongue and claws and white highlighting. If the Reichs Eagle is shown without a frame, the charge and colors as those of the eagle of the Reichs coat of arms are to be used. The patterns kept by the Federal Ministry of the Interior are decisive for the heraldic design, the artistic design may be varied for each special purpose. The achievements and signs of movement were mostly done away with after its downfall
3.
Western Germany
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Western Germany is a region in the west of Germany. The exact area defined by the term is not constant, the Saarland and Rhineland-Palatinate are also sometimes included but are usually considered Southwestern Germany. Hesse is often considered as Central Germany, politically, Germans often still identify the term Westdeutschland with the Bonn Republic, the Cold War-era West Germany. Therefore, the English-language distinction between West Germany and Western Germany is rarely made in German, however, the latter can be specified as der Westen Deutschlands, the West of Germany. Where a city has different names in English and German, the English name is given first, Central Germany Eastern Germany Northern Germany Southern Germany
4.
Flag of Germany
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The flag of Germany is a tricolour consisting of three equal horizontal bands displaying the national colours of Germany, black, red, and gold. The flag was first adopted as the flag of modern Germany in 1919. Germany has two competing traditions of national colours, black-red-gold and black-white-red, which have played an important role in the history of Germany. The black-red-gold tricolour first appeared in the early 19th century and achieved prominence during the 1848 Revolutions, the short-lived Frankfurt Parliament of 1848–1850 proposed the tricolour as a flag for a united and democratic German state. With the formation of the Weimar Republic after World War I, following World War II, the tricolour was designated as the flag of both West and East Germany in 1949. The two flags were identical until 1959, when the East German flag was augmented with the coat of arms of East Germany, since reunification on 3 October 1990, the black-red-gold tricolour has become the flag of reunified Germany. After the Austro-Prussian War in 1866, the Prussian-dominated North German Confederation adopted a tricolour of black-white-red as its flag and this flag later became the flag of the German Empire, formed following the unification of Germany in 1871, and was used until 1918. The colours of the flag are associated with the republican democracy formed after World War I. There are many theories in regarding the origins of the colour scheme used in the 1848 flag. Another claim goes back to the uniforms of the Lützow Free Corps, comprising mostly university students, the German national flag or Bundesflagge, containing only the black-red-gold tricolour, was introduced as part of the German constitution in 1949. Following the creation of government and military flags in later years. The government flag of Germany is officially known as the Dienstflagge der Bundesbehörden or Bundesdienstflagge for short, introduced in 1950, the government flag is the civil flag defaced with the Bundesschild, which overlaps with up to one fifth of the black and gold bands. The government flag may only be used by government authorities and its use by others is an offence. However, public use of similar to the Bundesdienstflagge is tolerated. In addition to the horizontal format, many public buildings in Germany use vertical flags. Most town halls fly their town flag together with the flag in this way. The proportions of these flags are not specified. When hung like a banner or draped, the band should be on the left
5.
Coat of arms of Germany
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The coat of arms of Germany displays a black eagle with red feet, beak and tongue on a golden field, blazoned, Or, an eagle displayed sable beaked langued and membered gules. This is the Bundesadler or Federal Eagle, formerly the Reichsadler or Imperial Eagle and it is a re-introduction of the coat of arms of the Weimar Republic adopted by the Federal Republic of Germany in 1950. The current official design is due to Tobias Schwab and was introduced in 1928, the single-headed Prussian Eagle was used as an escutcheon to represent the Prussian Kings as dynasts of the German Empire. The Weimar Republic introduced a version in which the escutcheon and other symbols were removed. By the 13th century the coat of arms was generally recognised as, Or. During the medieval period the imperial eagle was usually single-headed, a double-headed eagle is attributed as the arms of Frederick II in the Chronica Majora. In 1433 the double-headed eagle was adopted by Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor, thereafter the double-headed eagle was used as the arms of the German emperor, and hence as the symbol of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. From the 12th century the Emperors also used a coat of arms separate from the imperial arms. From the reign of Albert II, the Emperors bore the old Imperial arms with an inescutcheon of pretence of his family arms. Coats of arms of the Holy Roman Empire In 1815, a German Confederation of 39 loosely united German states was founded on the territory of the former Holy Roman Empire, until 1848, the confederation did not have a coat of arms of its own. The Federal Diet meeting at Frankfurt am Main used a seal which carried the emblem of the Austrian Empire and it showed a black, double-headed eagle, which Austria had adopted just before the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. During the 1848 revolution, a new Reich coat of arms was adopted by the National Assembly that convened in St. Pauls Church in Frankfurt. The black double-headed eagle was retained, but without the four symbols of the emperor, the sword, the orb, the sceptre. The eagle rested on a shield, above was a five-pointed golden star. On both sides the shield was flanked by three flags with the colours black-red-gold, the emblem, however, never gained general acceptance. In 1867, the North German Confederation was established without Austria, a new coat of arms was adopted, which consisted of a shield with the colours black-white-red, flanked by two wild men holding cudgels and standing on a pedestal. The Reichsadler had already introduced at the Proclamation of Versailles. The design of the eagle was altered at least twice during the German Empire and it shows the imperial eagle, a comparatively realistic black eagle, with the crown of the Holy Roman Empire
6.
Deutschlandlied
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The Deutschlandlied, or part of it, has been the national anthem of Germany since 1922, except in East Germany, whose anthem was Auferstanden aus Ruinen from 1949 to 1990. Since World War II and the fall of Nazi Germany, only the third stanza has been used as the national anthem. The stanzas beginning, Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit is considered the national motto of Germany, and is inscribed on modern German Army belt buckles. The song is well known by the beginning and refrain of the first stanza, Deutschland, Deutschland über alles. Along with the flag of Germany, it was one of the symbols of the March Revolution of 1848, in order to endorse its republican and liberal tradition, the song was chosen as the national anthem of Germany in 1922, during the Weimar Republic. West Germany adopted the Deutschlandlied as its national anthem in 1952 for similar reasons. Upon German reunification in 1990, only the third stanza was confirmed as the national anthem, the melody of the Deutschlandlied was originally written by Joseph Haydn in 1797 to provide music to the poem Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser by Lorenz Leopold Haschka. The song was a birthday anthem honouring Francis II, Habsburg emperor and it has been conjectured that Haydn took the first four measures of the melody from a Croatian folk song. Supporters of this note that a similar melody appears in a composition by Telemann. This hypothesis has never achieved unanimous agreement, the theory is that Haydns original tune was adapted from a folk song of different origin. The same melody was used by Haydn as the basis for the second movement of his Opus 76 No. 3, a quartet, often called the Emperor or Kaiser quartet. The melody in this movement is termed the Emperors Hymn. It should be noted that Haydns music and Hanns Eislers composition for the GDRs anthem Auferstanden aus Ruinen can be used interchangeably for both texts because the texts have the same meter. The Holy Roman Empire, stemming from the Middle Ages, was already disintegrating when the French Revolution, however, hopes for the Enlightenment, human rights and republican government after Napoleon Is defeat in 1815 were dashed when the Congress of Vienna reinstated many small German principalities. The German Confederation was a federation of 35 monarchical states and four republican free cities. They began to remove internal customs barriers during the Industrial Revolution, in 1840 Hoffmann wrote a song about the Zollverein, also to Haydns melody, in which he praised the free trade of German goods which brought Germans and Germany closer. After the 1848 March Revolution, the German Confederation handed over its authority to the Frankfurt Parliament, however, after 1849 the two largest German monarchies, Prussia and Austria, put an end to this liberal movement toward national unification
7.
Bonn
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The Federal City of Bonn is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of 311,287. About 24 km south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr region, Germanys largest metropolitan area, the title of Federal City reflects its particular political status within Germany. Founded in the 1st century BC as a Roman settlement, Bonn is one of Germanys oldest cities, from 1597 to 1794, Bonn was the capital of the Electorate of Cologne, and residence of the Archbishops and Prince-electors of Cologne. Composer Ludwig van Beethoven was born here in 1770, from 1949 to 1990, Bonn was the capital of West Germany, and it is here where Germanys present constitution, the Grundgesetz, was declared in 1949. From 1990 to 1999, Bonn served as the seat of government, two DAX-listed corporations, Deutsche Post DHL and Deutsche Telekom, have headquarters in Bonn. The city is the location of the University of Bonn, spanning an area of more 141.2 km2 on both sides of the River Rhine, almost three quarters of the city lie on the rivers left bank. To the south and to the west, Bonn is bordering the Eifel region which encompasses the Rhineland Nature Park, to the north, Bonn borders the Cologne Lowland. Natural borders are constituted by the River Sieg to the north-east, the largest extension of the city in north-south dimensions is 15 km and 12.5 km in west-east dimensions. The city borders have a length of 61 km. The geographical centre of Bonn is the Bundeskanzlerplatz in Bonn-Gronau, the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia is divided into five governmental districts, and Bonn is part of the governmental district of Cologne. Within this governmental district, the city of Bonn is an district in its own right. The urban district of Bonn is then divided into four administrative municipal districts. These are Bonn, Bonn-Bad Godesberg, Bonn-Beuel and Bonn-Hardtberg, in 1969, the independent towns of Bad Godesberg and Beuel as well as several villages were incorporated into Bonn, resulting in a city more than twice as large as before. In the south of the Cologne lowland in the Rhine valley, the history of the city dates back to Roman times. In about 12 BC, the Roman army appears to have stationed a small unit in what is presently the historical centre of the city, even earlier, the army had resettled members of a Germanic tribal group allied with Rome, the Ubii, in Bonn. The Latin name for that settlement, Bonna, may stem from the population of this and many other settlements in the area. The Eburoni were members of a tribal coalition effectively wiped out during the final phase of Caesars War in Gaul. After several decades, the gave up the small camp linked to the Ubii-settlement
8.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
9.
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
10.
Federalism
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Federalism is the mixed or compound mode of government, combining a general government with regional governments in a single political system. It can thus be defined as a form of government in there is a division of powers between two levels of government of equal status. Leading examples of the federation or federal state include the United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Germany, Switzerland, some also today characterize the European Union as the pioneering example of federalism in a multi-state setting, in a concept termed the federal union of states. The terms federalism and confederalism both have a root in the Latin word foedus, meaning treaty, pact or covenant and their common meaning until the late eighteenth century was a simple league or inter-governmental relationship among sovereign states based upon a treaty. It was in this sense that James Madison in Federalist 39 had referred to the new United States as neither a national nor a federal Constitution, thus, this article relates to the modern usage of the word federalism. Modern federalism is a based upon democratic rules and institutions in which the power to govern is shared between national and provincial/state governments. The term federalist describes several political beliefs around the world depending on context, however, in some countries, those skeptical of federal prescriptions believe that increased regional autonomy is likely to lead to secession or dissolution of the nation. In Syria, federalization proposals have failed in part because Syrians fear that these borders could turn out to be the same as the ones that the parties have currently carved out. Federations such as Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia collapsed as soon as it was possible to put the model to the test, cultural-historical theories, which hold that federal institutions are more likely to be adopted in societies with culturally or ethnically fragmented populations. Infrastructural power theories, which hold that federalism is likely to emerge when the subunits of a potential federation already have highly developed infrastructures. In Europe, Federalist is sometimes used to describe those who favor a federal government. Most European federalists want this development to continue within the European Union, European federalism originated in post-war Europe, one of the more important initiatives was Winston Churchills speech in Zürich in 1946. In the United States, federalism originally referred to belief in a central government. Constitution was being drafted, the Federalist Party supported a central government. This is very different from the usage of federalism in Europe. The distinction stems from the fact that federalism is situated in the middle of the spectrum between a confederacy and a unitary state. Constitution was written as a reaction to the Articles of Confederation, in contrast, Europe has a greater history of unitary states than North America, thus European federalism argues for a weaker central government, relative to a unitary state. The modern American usage of the word is closer to the European sense
11.
Parliamentary system
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In a parliamentary system, the head of state is usually a different person from the head of government. Since ancient times, when societies were tribal, there were councils or a headman whose decisions were assessed by village elders, eventually these councils have slowly evolved into the modern Parliamentary system. The first parliaments date back to Europe in the Middle Ages, for example in 1188 Alfonso IX, the modern concept of parliamentary government emerged in the Kingdom of Great Britain and its contemporary, the Parliamentary System in Sweden. In England, Simon de Montfort is remembered as one of the fathers of representative government for holding two famous parliaments, the first, in 1258, stripped the King of unlimited authority and the second, in 1265, included ordinary citizens from the towns. Later, in the 17th century, the Parliament of England pioneered some of the ideas and systems of liberal democracy culminating in the Glorious Revolution, in the Kingdom of Great Britain, the monarch, in theory, chaired cabinet and chose ministers. In practice, King George Is inability to speak English led the responsibility for chairing cabinet to go to the minister, literally the prime or first minister. By the nineteenth century, the Great Reform Act of 1832 led to parliamentary dominance, with its choice invariably deciding who was prime minister, hence the use of phrases like Her Majestys government or His Excellencys government. Nineteenth century urbanisation, industrial revolution and, modernism had already fueled the political struggle for democracy. In the radicalised times at the end of World War I, a parliamentary system may be either bicameral, with two chambers of parliament or unicameral, with just one parliamentary chamber. Scholars of democracy such as Arend Lijphart distinguish two types of parliamentary democracies, the Westminster and Consensus systems, the Westminster system is usually found in the Commonwealth of Nations and countries which were influenced by the British political tradition. These parliaments tend to have a more style of debate. The Australian House of Representatives is elected using instant-runoff voting, while the Senate is elected using proportional representation through single transferable vote, regardless of which system is used, the voting systems tend to allow the voter to vote for a named candidate rather than a closed list. The Western European parliamentary model tends to have a more consensual debating system, Consensus systems have more of a tendency to use proportional representation with open party lists than the Westminster Model legislatures. The committees of these Parliaments tend to be more important than the plenary chamber, some West European countries parliaments implement the principle of dualism as a form of separation of powers. In countries using this system, Members of Parliament have to resign their place in Parliament upon being appointed minister, ministers in those countries usually actively participate in parliamentary debates, but are not entitled to vote. Some countries such as India also require the prime minister to be a member of the legislature, the head of state appoints a prime minister who will likely have majority support in parliament. The head of state appoints a minister who must gain a vote of confidence within a set time. The head of state appoints the leader of the party holding a plurality of seats in parliament as prime minister
12.
Republic
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It is a government where the head of state is not a monarch. Both modern and ancient republics vary widely in their ideology, composition, in the classical and medieval period of Europe, many states were fashioned on the Roman Republic, which referred to the governance of the city of Rome, between it having kings and emperors. The Italian medieval and Renaissance political tradition, today referred to as humanism, is sometimes considered to derive directly from Roman republicans such as Sallust. Republics were not equated with classical democracies such as Athens, but had a democratic aspect, Republics became more common in the Western world starting in the late 18th century, eventually displacing absolute monarchy as the most common form of government in Europe. In modern republics, the executive is legitimized both by a constitution and by popular suffrage, for instance, Article IV of the United States Constitution guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican form of Government. The term originates as the Latin translation of Greek word politeia, cicero, among other Latin writers, translated politeia as res publica and it was in turn translated by Renaissance scholars as republic. The term politeia can be translated as form of government, polity, or regime, and is therefore not always a word for a specific type of regime as the modern word republic is. And also amongst classical Latin, the term republic can be used in a way to refer to any regime. In medieval Northern Italy, a number of city states had commune or signoria based governments, in the late Middle Ages, writers, such as Giovanni Villani, began writing about the nature of these states and the differences from other types of regime. They used terms such as libertas populi, a free people, the terminology changed in the 15th century as the renewed interest in the writings of Ancient Rome caused writers to prefer using classical terminology. To describe non-monarchical states writers, most importantly Leonardo Bruni, adopted the Latin phrase res publica. While Bruni and Machiavelli used the term to describe the states of Northern Italy, which were not monarchies, the term can quite literally be translated as public matter. It was most often used by Roman writers to refer to the state and government, in subsequent centuries, the English word commonwealth came to be used as a translation of res publica, and its use in English was comparable to how the Romans used the term res publica. Notably, during The Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell the word commonwealth was the most common term to call the new monarchless state, likewise, in Polish, the term was translated as rzeczpospolita, although the translation is now only used with respect to Poland. Presently, the term republic commonly means a system of government which derives its power from the rather than from another basis. After the classical period, during the Middle Ages, many cities developed again. The modern type of itself is different from any type of state found in the classical world. Nevertheless, there are a number of states of the era that are today still called republics
13.
President of Germany
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The President of Germany, officially the President of the Federal Republic of Germany, is the head of state of Germany. Germany has a system of government in which the Chancellor is the nations leading political figure. However, the President has a role which, while not an executive post, is more than ceremonial, Presidents have extensive discretion regarding the way they exercise their official duties. The President gives direction to general political and societal debates and has some important reserve powers in case of political instability. Furthermore, all laws must be signed by the President before they can come into effect. The President, by his or her actions and public appearances, represents the state itself, its existence, its legitimacy, the Presidents office involves an integrative role and the control function of upholding the law and the constitution. In order to exercise power, he/she traditionally acts above party politics. The 12th and current officeholder is Frank-Walter Steinmeier who was elected on 12 February 2017, the convention consists of all Bundestag members as well as an equal number of electors elected by the state legislatures in proportion to their respective population. However it is not required that state electors themselves be members of a legislature, the body is convened and chaired by the President of the German Bundestag. From 1979 to 2009, all these conventions were held on 23 May, in the first two rounds of the election, the Federal Convention attempts to elect a president by an absolute majority of votes cast. If, after two votes, no candidate has received this level of support, in the third. The result of the election is determined by party politics. Usually, the candidate of the majority party or coalition in the Bundestag is considered to be the likely winner, however, if the opposition has turned in a strong showing in state elections, it can potentially have enough support to defeat the governments candidate. For this reason, presidential elections can indicate the result of a general election. According to a long-standing adage in German politics, if you can create a president, you can form a government. The office of president is open to all Germans who are entitled to vote in Bundestag elections and have reached the age of 40, but no one may serve more than two consecutive five-year terms. As yet, only four Presidents have been elected for a second term, the president must not be a member of the federal government or of a legislature at either the federal or state level. On taking office the President must take the oath, stipulated by Article 56 of the Basic Law, in a joint session of the Bundestag
14.
Theodor Heuss
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Theodor Heuss was a liberal German politician who served as the first President of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1949 to 1959. Beside the stern chancellor Konrad Adenauer, Heusss cordial manners largely contributed to the stabilization of democracy in West Germany during the Wirtschaftswunder years, Heuss was born in Brackenheim, a small town in Württemberg near Heilbronn. This “wine community” lies close to the border of Swabian to the Franconian area and he studied economics, art history and political science at the universities of Munich and Berlin, receiving his doctorate in 1905 in Munich with Lujo Brentano as his thesis adviser. On 11 April 1908, he married Elly Heuss-Knapp, with whom he had a son, the minister at the Lutheran wedding ceremony held in Straßburg was Albert Schweitzer, a close friend of Ellys. After his studies Heuss worked as a political journalist in Berlin, from 1912 to 1918, he was editor in chief of the Neckarzeitung in Heilbronn. In Berlin, he worked as editor for the weekly newsletter Deutsche Politik, with Naumann, Heuss in 1903 he joined the liberal Free-minded Union, which in 1910 merged in the Progressive Peoples Party, in which he was engaged until its dissolution in 1918. After World War I, Heuss between 1923 and 1926 published the magazine Die Deutsche Nation, on 23 March 1933, along with his four fellow DStP parliamentarians, Heuss voted in favour of the Enabling Act, granting Chancellor Adolf Hitler quasi-dictatorial powers. He had set out to abstain, but after Heinrich Brüning indicated that with regard to the Reichskonkordat the Centre Party MPs would assent, alternative views of Hermann Dietrich, Weimar Republic finance minister claim that he was part of the majority in favor of voting for the enabling law. Following the end of his term he returned to private life, during the Third Reich he stayed in contact with a network of liberals, leading to contacts with the German resistance towards the end of the war, though he was not an active resister. In 1936 Heuss faced a ban, nevertheless in 1941 he became an employee of the Frankfurter Zeitung. Heuss wrote under pseudonyms until publishing of the paper was prohibited in 1943. He spent the following years writing a biography of Robert Bosch, Heuss also taught history at the Stuttgart Institute of Technology in 1946 and 1947, receiving the title of an honorary professor in 1948. He advocated uniting all parties in the Western occupation zones. In 1948, he was a member of the Parlamentarischer Rat at Bonn with considerable influence in the drafting of West Germanys constitution, Heuss was a member of the Evangelical Church in Germany. He took the oath required by article 56 of the Basic Law before a joint session of the Bundestag and the Bundesrat on the same date. Heusss plans for a new national anthem were aborted by Adenauer, a widower since 1952, Heuss was re-elected in 1954 with practically no opposition, after the Social Democrats had renounced the nomination of a rival candidate. Not until May 1956, could he make his first state visit and he held office until the end of his term on 12 September 1959, succeeded by Heinrich Lübke. He had declined a third term in office, as this would have necessitated changing the constitution, Heuss shaped the office of president by his non-partisan governing
15.
Gustav Heinemann
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Gustav Walter Heinemann was a German politician. He was named after his mothers father, a roof tiler in the city of Barmen, with radical-democratic, left-liberal. His maternal grandfather, Heinemanns great-grandfather, had part in the Revolution of 1848. Had s father, Otto Heinemann, a manager at the Krupp steelworks in Essen, in his youth, Gustav already felt called upon to preserve and promote the liberal and democratic traditions of 1848. Throughout his life, he fought against all kinds of subservience and this attitude helped him to maintain his intellectual independence even in the face of majorities in political parties and in the Church. Having finished his secondary education in 1917, Heinemann briefly became a soldier in the First World War. From 1918, he studied law, economics, and history at the universities of Münster, Marburg, Munich, Göttingen and he received a Ph. D in 1922 and a doctorate of law in 1929. The friendships that Heinemann formed during his student years often lasted for a lifetime, at the beginning of his career, Heinemann joined a renowned firm of solicitors in Essen. In 1929, he published a book about legal questions in the medical profession, from 1929 to 1949, he worked as a legal adviser to the Rheinische Stahlwerke in Essen, and from 1936 to 1949, he was also one of its directors. The steelworks were considered to be essential for the war so Heinemann was not drafted into the army and he was a lecturer at the law school of the University of Cologne between 1933 and 1939. It was probably his refusal to become a member of the Nazi Party that finished his academic career. He was also invited to join the board of directors of the Rheinisch-Westfaelisches Kohlesyndikat in 1936, in 1926, Heinemann married Hilda Ordemann, who had been a student of Rudolf Bultmann, the famous Protestant theologian. His wife and the minister of his wifes parish, Wilhelm Graeber, through his sister-in-law, he became acquainted with Swiss theologian Karl Barth, who strongly influenced him such as in his condemnation of nationalism and antisemitism. Gustav and Hilda Heinemann had three daughters, Uta, Christa and Barbara, they also had a son, Peter, Heinemann was an elder in Wilhelm Graebers parish in Essen, when Graeber was sacked in 1933 by the new church authorities who co-operated with the Nazis. Opposition against those German Christians came from the Confessing Church, and Heinemann became a member of its synod, information sheets of the Confessing Church were printed in the cellar of Heinemanns house at Schinkelstrasse 34 in Essen, Moltkeviertel, and distributed all over Germany. From 1936 to 1950, Heinemann was head of the YMCA in Essen, in August 1945, he was elected as a member of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany. The Council issued the Stuttgart Declaration of Guilt in October 1945 in which it confessed guilt for the failure of the Protestant church not to oppose the Nazis, Heinemann regarded the declaration as a linchpin in his work for the church. From 1949 to 1955, Heinemann was president of the all-German Synod of the Protestant Churches of Germany and he was among the founders of the German Protestant Church Congress, a congress of the Protestant laity
16.
Walter Scheel
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Walter Scheel was a German politician. A member of the Free Democratic Party of Germany, he first served in government as Federal Minister of Economic Cooperation and he led the FDP from 1968-74. During the Chancellorship of Willy Brandt, Scheel was Foreign Minister, Scheel became acting Chancellor of West Germany from 7-16 May 1974 following Brandts resignation after the Guillaume Affair. He was elected shortly after as President of West Germany, remaining in the role until 1979, Scheel was a member of the Evangelical Church in Germany. He completed his abitur at the Reformrealgymnsasium Schwertstraße, Scheel became a member of the Nazi Party in 1942. During World War II, he served in the Luftwaffe during the last years of the war as an operator on a Bf 110 night fighter. He continued in office under Chancellor Ludwig Erhard but brought about the downfall of the latter in late 1966 by resigning. A Christian Democratic/Social Democratic Grand Coalition followed, during this time, in 1968, Scheel took over the party presidency from right wing liberal Erich Mende. ”In 1969, he led his party to form a new coalition with the Social Democrats. Under Chancellor Willy Brandt, Scheel became Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor, under their leadership, West Germany pursued a course of rapprochement and détente with the Soviet block and officially recognized the existence of the German Democratic Republic. This policy caused a public debate, with various Free. Though an attempt to oust Brandt failed, the coalition had lost its slender majority, the parliamentary stalemate was ended by the dissolution of parliament and early elections in 1972, which brought great gains to the Social Democrats and enabled the coalition to continue. Henry Kissinger believed he was an idiot and a bad foreign minister, on 7 May 1974, Brandt resigned as Chancellor after one of his aides, Günter Guillaume, was arrested as a spy for the East German state. Though this had been suspected since 1973, Brandt accepted responsibility. Scheel, as acting chancellor, chaired the government meetings for a little over a week, hans Dietrich Genscher became Scheels successor as party chairman and as minister. Scheel was elected President of West Germany, a week after relinquishing his other government roles and he held the office from July 1974 until June 1979. At the funeral of Hanns Martin Schleyer in October 1977, Scheel gave a speech entitled shame, after the federal presidency, Scheel was Chairman of the Bilderberg Conference as well as President of the European Movement in Germany from 1980-85. From 1980-89 he was also President of the German section of the Union of European Federalists and he was named honorary chairman of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation in 1991. Scheel died on 24 August 2016, at age 97, following a long illness, Scheel holds the record as the longest-lived German head of state, either imperial or elected
17.
Karl Carstens
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Karl Carstens was a German politician. He served as President of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1979 to 1984, Carstens was born in the City of Bremen, the son of a commercial school teacher, who had been killed at the Western Front of World War I shortly before his birth. In 1949 he also received a Master of Laws degree from Yale Law School, from 1939 to 1945, during the Second World War, Carstens was a member of an anti-aircraft artillery unit in the Wehrmacht, reaching the rank of Leutnant by the wars end. In 1940 he joined the Nazi Party, reportedly, he had applied for admission in 1937 to avoid detrimental treatment when he worked as a law clerk and he had, however, joined the Nazi SA paramilitary organisation already in 1934. In 1944 Carstens married the medical student Veronica Prior in Berlin, after the war he became a lawyer in his hometown Bremen, and from 1949 acted as a councillor of the citys Senate. From 1950 he also worked as lecturer at the University of Cologne, in 1954 he joined the diplomatic service of the German Foreign Office, serving as West German representative at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. In 1955 he joined the Christian Democratic Union under Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, in July 1960 Carstens reached the position of secretary of state at the Foreign Office and in the same year was also appointed as professor for public and international law at Cologne University. In 1972 Carstens was first elected into the Bundestag, of which he was a member until 1979, from May 1973 until October 1976 he was chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, succeeding Rainer Barzel. He also famously denounced the author and Nobel laureate Heinrich Böll as a supporter of left-wing terrorism for his 1974 novel The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum. After the 1976 federal elections, which made the CDU/CSU the largest group in parliament, on 23 May 1979, Carstens was elected as the fifth President of the Federal Republic of Germany, prevailing against the SPD candidate Annemarie Renger in the first ballot. During his term of office, Carstens was well known for hiking Germany in order to decrease the gulf between politics and the people. Though already former Chancellor Willy Brandt had similarly proceeded in 1972, on 7 January 1983, President Carstens nonetheless dissolved the Bundestag and called for new elections. In February 1983 his decision was approved by the Federal Constitutional Court so that 1983 general elections could take place on 6 March, in 1984 Carstens decided not to seek a second term on account of his age and left office on 30 June 1984. He was succeeded by Richard von Weizsäcker, Carstens was a member of the Evangelical Church in Germany. Wahlperiode, München 2007, ISBN 978-3-7892-8201-0 Interview with Karl Carstens at Historical Archives of the EU in Florence
18.
Konrad Adenauer
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Konrad Hermann Joseph Adenauer was a German statesman who served as the first post-war Chancellor of Germany from 1949 to 1963. He led his country from the ruins of World War II to a productive and prosperous nation that forged close relations with France, the United Kingdom, during his years in power West Germany achieved democracy, stability, international respect and economic prosperity. He was the first leader of the Christian Democratic Union, a Christian Democratic party that under his leadership became one of the most influential parties in the country, Adenauer, the Chancellor till age 87 was dubbed Der Alte. British historian Roy Jenkins says he was the oldest statesman ever to function in elected office and he belied his age by his intense work habits and his uncanny political instinct. He displayed a strong dedication to a vision of market-based liberal democracy. A shrewd politician, Adenauer was deeply committed to a Western-oriented foreign policy and he worked to restore the West German economy from the destruction of World War II to a central position in Europe, presiding over the German Economic Miracle. He reestablished the German military in 1955 and he came to terms with France, which made possible the economic unification of Western Europe. Adenauer opposed rival East Germany and made his nation a member of NATO, a devout Roman Catholic, he had been a leading Centre Party politician in the Weimar Republic, serving as Mayor of Cologne and as president of the Prussian State Council. Konrad Adenauer was born as the third of five children of Johann Konrad Adenauer and his wife Helene in Cologne, Rhenish Prussia and his siblings were August, Johannes, Lilli and Elisabeth, who died shortly after birth in c. In 1894, he completed his Abitur and began studying law and politics at the universities of Freiburg, Munich and Bonn. In 1896, at the age of 20, he was conscripted into the German army and he was a member of several Roman Catholic students associations under the K. St. V. He graduated in 1900 and afterwards worked as a lawyer at the court in Cologne and he was strongly interested in the use of medicinal herbs, according to famous French herbalist Maurice Messugue, whom he met and befriended. These were his favorite medicinal plants according to Messugue, though he had knowledge of a wide range of plants. He agreed with Messugue that plants had to be free of sprays and he told Messugue that he owed his good health to the plants, to nature. Adenauer found relaxation and great enjoyment in the Italian game of bocce, as a devout Catholic, he joined the Centre Party in 1906 and was elected to Colognes city council in the same year. In 1909, he became Vice-Mayor of Cologne, a metropolis with a population of 635,000 in 1914. From 1917 to 1933, he served as Mayor of Cologne, Adenauer headed Cologne during World War I, working closely with the army to maximize the citys role as a rear base of supply and transportation for the Western Front. He paid special attention to the food supply, enabling the residents to avoid the worst of the severe shortages that beset most German cities during 1918–19
19.
Ludwig Erhard
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Ludwig Wilhelm Erhard was a German politician affiliated with the CDU and the second Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1963 until 1966. He is often famed for leading German postwar economic reforms and economic recovery in his role as Minister of Economics under Chancellor Konrad Adenauer from 1949 to 1963. During that period he promoted the concept of the market economy. In his tenure as chancellor, however, Erhard failed to win confidence in his handling of a deficit and his direction of foreign policy. He resigned his chancellorship on 1 December 1966, born in Fürth, Kingdom of Bavaria, Erhard was a commercial apprentice from 1913 to 1916. After his apprenticeship he worked as retail salesman in his fathers drapers shop, in 1916, during World War I, he joined the German forces as an artilleryman. He fought in Romania and was injured near Ypres in 1918. Because of his injury he could no longer work as a draper and he received his Ph. D. from the University of Frankfurt in 1925, for a dissertation written under Franz Oppenheimer. During his time in Frankfurt he married Luise Lotter, widow Schuster, after his graduation they moved to Fürth and he became executive in his parents company in 1925. After three years he became assistant at the Institut für Wirtschaftsbeobachtung der deutschen Fertigware, a research institute. Later, he became deputy director of the institute, during World War II, he worked on concepts for a postwar peace, however, officially such studies were forbidden by the Nazis, who had declared total war. As a result, Erhard lost his job in 1942 but continued to work on the subject by order of the Reichsgruppe Industrie, in 1944 he wrote War Finances and Debt Consolidation. In this study he assumed that Germany had already lost the war and he sent his thoughts to Carl Friedrich Goerdeler, a central figure in the German resistance to Nazism, who recommended Erhard to his comrades. Erhard also discussed his concept with Otto Ohlendorf, deputy secretary of state in the Reichsministerium für Wirtschaft, Ohlendorf himself spoke out for active and courageous entrepreneurship, which was intended to replace bureaucratic state planning of the economy after the war. After the war Erhard became an economic consultant, in April 1948 Erhard was elected director of economics by the Bizonal Economic Council. On 20 June 1948, the Deutsche Mark was introduced, Erhard abolished the price-fixing and production controls that had been enacted by the military administration. This exceeded his authority, but he succeeded with this step, in the first free elections following the Nazi era, Erhard stood for election in a Baden-Württemberg district and was elected. He was appointed Minister for Economics, a position he would hold for the next 14 years, some of the societys members were members of the Allied High Commission and Erhard was able to make his case directly to them
20.
Kurt Georg Kiesinger
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Kurt Georg Kiesinger was a German politician who served as Chancellor of Germany from 1 December 1966 to 21 October 1969. Before he became Chancellor he served as Minister President of Baden-Württemberg from 1958 to 1966 and he was Chairman of the Christian Democratic Union from 1967 to 1971. Kiesinger studied law and worked as a lawyer in Berlin from 1935 to 1940, to avoid conscription, he found work at the Foreign Office in 1940, and became deputy head of the Foreign Offices broadcasting department. During his service at the Foreign Office, he was denounced by two colleagues for his anti-Nazi stance and he had nevertheless joined the Nazi Party in 1933, but remained a largely inactive member. In 1946 he became a member of the Christian Democratic Union and he was elected to the Bundestag in 1949, and was a member of the Bundestag until 1958 and again from 1969 to 1980. Kiesinger was considered an outstanding orator and mediator, and was dubbed Silver Tongue and he was an author of poetry and various books, and founded the universities of Konstanz and Ulm as Minister President of Baden-Württemberg. Born in Ebingen, Kingdom of Württemberg, Kiesinger studied law in Berlin, as a student, he joined the Roman Catholic corporations K. St. V. He became a member of the Nazi Party in February 1933, after the war, he was interned and spent 18 months in the Ludwigsburg camp before being released as a case of mistaken identity. They accused Kiesinger specifically of hampering anti-Jewish actions within his department, Kiesinger joined the Christian Democratic Union in 1946. From 1946 he gave lessons to law students, and in 1948 he resumed his practice as a lawyer. In 1947 he also became unpaid secretary-general of CDU in Württemberg-Hohenzollern, in the federal election in 1949 he was elected to the Bundestag. In 1951 he became a member of the CDU executive board, during that time, he became known for his rhetorical brilliance, as well as his in-depth knowledge of foreign affairs. However, despite the recognition he enjoyed within the Christian Democrat parliamentary faction, consequently, he decided to switch from federal to state politics. Kiesinger became Minister President of the state of Baden-Württemberg on 17 December 1958, as Minister President he founded two universities, the University of Konstanz and the University of Ulm. In 1966 following the collapse of the existing CDU/CSU-FDP coalition, Kiesinger was elected to replace Ludwig Erhard as Chancellor, the government formed by Kiesinger remained in power for nearly three years with the SPD leader Willy Brandt as Deputy Federal Chancellor and Foreign Minister. Kiesinger reduced tensions with the Soviet bloc nations establishing diplomatic relations with Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia, a number of progressive reforms were also realised during Kiesingers time as Chancellor. Pension coverage was extended in 1967 via the abolition of the income-ceiling for compulsory membership, vocational training legislation was also introduced, while a reorganisation of unemployment insurance promoted retraining schemes, counselling and advice services and job creation places. In addition, under the “Lohnfortzahlunggesetz” of 1969, employers had to pay all employees’ wages for the first 6 weeks of sickness, in August 1969, the Landabgaberente was introduced
21.
Willy Brandt
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He was the first Social Democrat chancellor since 1930. Brandt was originally considered one of the leaders of the wing of the SPD. He served as Foreign Minister and as Vice Chancellor in Kurt Georg Kiesingers cabinet, Brandt was controversial on both the right wing, for his Ostpolitik, and on the left wing, for his support of American policies, including the Vietnam War, and right-wing authoritarian regimes. The Brandt Report became a measure for describing the general North-South divide in world economics and politics between an affluent North and a poor South. Brandt was also known for his fierce anti-communist policies at the domestic level, Brandt resigned as chancellor in 1974, after Günter Guillaume, one of his closest aides, was exposed as an agent of the Stasi, the East German secret service. Willy Brandt was born Herbert Ernst Carl Frahm in the Free City of Lübeck on 18 December 1913 and his mother was Martha Frahm, a single parent, who worked as a cashier for a department store. His father was an accountant from Hamburg named John Möller, whom Brandt never met, as his mother worked six days a week, he was mainly brought up by his mothers stepfather, Ludwig Frahm, and his second wife, Dora. After passing his Abitur in 1932 at Johanneum zu Lübeck, he became an apprentice at the shipbroker and he joined the Socialist Youth in 1929 and the Social Democratic Party in 1930. He left the SPD to join the left wing Socialist Workers Party, which was allied to the POUM in Spain. In 1933, using his connections with the port and its ships and it was at this time that he adopted the pseudonym Willy Brandt to avoid detection by Nazi agents. In 1934, he took part in the founding of the International Bureau of Revolutionary Youth Organizations, Brandt was in Germany from September to December 1936, disguised as a Norwegian student named Gunnar Gaasland. The real Gunnar Gaasland was married to Gertrud Meyer from Lübeck in a marriage of convenience to protect her from deportation, Meyer had joined Brandt in Norway in July 1933. In 1937, during the Civil War, Brandt worked in Spain as a journalist, in 1938, the German government revoked his citizenship, so he applied for Norwegian citizenship. In 1940, he was arrested in Norway by occupying German forces, on his release, he escaped to neutral Sweden. In August 1940, he became a Norwegian citizen, receiving his passport from the Norwegian legation in Stockholm, in exile in Norway and Sweden Brandt learned Norwegian and Swedish. Brandt spoke Norwegian fluently, and retained a relationship with Norway. In late 1946, Brandt returned to Berlin, working for the Norwegian government, in 1948, he joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany and became a German citizen again, formally adopting the pseudonym Willy Brandt as his legal name. In 1950, Brandt, being a member of the federal parliament, being confronted with this during his life, Brandt always denied
22.
Helmut Schmidt
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Helmut Heinrich Waldemar Schmidt was a German statesman and member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, who served as Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1974 to 1982. Before becoming Chancellor, he had served as Minister of Defence, in the latter role he gained credit for his financial policies. He had also served briefly as Minister of Economics and as acting Foreign Minister, as Chancellor, he focused on international affairs, seeking political unification of Europe in partnership with the United States. He was a diplomat who sought European co-operation and international economic co-ordination. He was re-elected chancellor in 1976 and 1980, but his coalition fell apart in 1982 with the switch by his coalition allies and he retired from Parliament in 1986, after clashing with the SPDs left wing, who opposed him on defence and economic issues. In 1986 he was a proponent of European monetary union. Helmut Schmidt was born as the eldest of two sons of teachers Ludovica Koch and Gustav Ludwig Schmidt in Barmbek, a rough working-class district of Hamburg, Schmidt studied at Hamburg Lichtwark School, graduating in 1937. This was confirmed publicly by Schmidt in 1984, after Valéry Giscard dEstaing revealed the fact to journalists, Schmidt himself was a non-practising Lutheran. Schmidt was a leader in the Hitler Youth organization until 1936. On 27 June 1942, he married his childhood sweetheart Hannelore Loki Glaser and they had two children, Helmut Walter, and Susanne, who works in London for Bloomberg Television. Schmidt resumed his education in Hamburg after the war, graduating in economics, Schmidt was conscripted into military service in 1937, and began serving with an anti-aircraft battery at Vegesack near Bremen during World War II. During his service in World War II, Schmidt was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class, toward the end of the war, from December 1944 onwards, he served as an Oberleutnant in the Flakartillery on the Western Front during the Battle of the Bulge and the Ardennes Offensive. He was captured by the British in April 1945 on Lüneburg Heath, Schmidt joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany in 1946, and from 1947 to 1948 was the leader of the Socialist German Student League, the student organisation of the SPD. Upon graduating from the University of Hamburg, where he read economics, he worked for the government of the city-state of Hamburg, beginning in 1952, under Karl Schiller, he was a senior figure heading up the Behörde für Wirtschaft und Verkehr. He was elected to the Bundestag in 1953, and in 1957 he became a member of the SPD parliamentary party executive, a vocal critic of conservative government policy, his outspoken rhetoric in parliament earned him the nickname Schmidt-Schnauze. In 1958, he joined the board of the SPD, and campaigned against nuclear weapons. He alarmed some in his party by taking part in manoeuvres as a officer in the newly formed Bundeswehr. In 1962, he gave up his seat in parliament to concentrate on his tasks in Hamburg, the government of the city-state of Hamburg is known as the Senate of Hamburg, and from 1961 to 1965, Schmidt was the Innensenator, the senator of the interior
23.
Helmut Kohl
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Helmut Josef Michael Kohl is a German statesman, who served as Chancellor of Germany from 1982 to 1998 and as the chairman of the Christian Democratic Union from 1973 to 1998. From 1969 to 1976, Kohl was the 3rd Minister President of Rhineland-Palatinate, Kohls 16-year tenure was the longest of any German Chancellor since Otto von Bismarck, and by far the longest of any democratically elected Chancellor. Kohl oversaw the end of the Cold War, and is regarded as the main architect of the German reunification. Together with French President François Mitterrand, Kohl is also considered to be the architect of the Maastricht Treaty, which established the European Union. Kohl has been described as the greatest European leader of the half of the 20th century by U. S. Presidents George H. W. Bush. With the death of Helmut Schmidt in November 2015, he became the oldest living former German chancellor, Helmut Kohl was born on 3 April 1930 in Ludwigshafen am Rhein, Germany, the third child of Hans Kohl, a civil servant, and his wife, Cäcilie. Kohls family was conservative and Roman Catholic, and remained loyal to the Catholic Centre Party before and his older brother died in the Second World War as a teenage soldier. At the age of ten, Kohl was obliged, like any child in Germany at the time, to join the Deutsches Jungvolk, a section of the Hitler Youth. Aged 15, on 20 April 1945, Adolf Hitlers birthday, Kohl was sworn in to the Hitler Youth by leader Artur Axmann at Berchtesgaden, just days before the end of the war. Kohl was also drafted for service in 1945, however, he was not involved in any combat. Kohl attended the Ruprecht Elementary School, and continued at the Max-Planck-Gymnasium, after graduating in 1950, Kohl began to study law in Frankfurt am Main, spending two semesters commuting between Ludwigshafen and Frankfurt. Here, Kohl heard lectures from Carlo Schmid and Walter Hallstein among others, in 1951, Kohl switched to the University of Heidelberg, where he majored in History and Political Science. Kohl was the first in his family to attend university, after graduating in 1956, Kohl became a fellow at the Alfred Weber Institute of the University of Heidelberg under Dolf Sternberger where he was an active member of the student society AIESEC. In 1958, Kohl received his degree for his thesis The Political Developments in the Palatinate. After that, Kohl entered business, first as an assistant to the director of a foundry in Ludwigshafen and, in April 1960, as a manager for the Industrial Union for Chemistry in Ludwigshafen. In 1960, Kohl married Hannelore Renner, after he had asked for her hand in marriage in 1953. Both had known each other since 1948, when met in a dancing class. They had two sons, born in 1963 and 1965, in 1946, Kohl joined the recently founded CDU, becoming a full member once he turned 18 in 1948
24.
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
25.
Cold War
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The Cold War was a state of geopolitical tension after World War II between powers in the Eastern Bloc and powers in the Western Bloc. Historians do not fully agree on the dates, but a common timeframe is the period between 1947, the year the Truman Doctrine was announced, and 1991, the year the Soviet Union collapsed. The term cold is used there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two sides, although there were major regional wars, known as proxy wars, supported by the two sides. The Cold War split the temporary alliance against Nazi Germany, leaving the Soviet Union. The USSR was a Marxist–Leninist state ruled by its Communist Party and secret police, the Party controlled the press, the military, the economy and all organizations. In opposition stood the West, dominantly democratic and capitalist with a free press, a small neutral bloc arose with the Non-Aligned Movement, it sought good relations with both sides. The two superpowers never engaged directly in full-scale armed combat, but they were armed in preparation for a possible all-out nuclear world war. The first phase of the Cold War began in the first two years after the end of the Second World War in 1945, the Berlin Blockade was the first major crisis of the Cold War. With the victory of the communist side in the Chinese Civil War and the outbreak of the Korean War, the USSR and USA competed for influence in Latin America, and the decolonizing states of Africa and Asia. Meanwhile, the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was stopped by the Soviets, the expansion and escalation sparked more crises, such as the Suez Crisis, the Berlin Crisis of 1961, and the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. The USSR crushed the 1968 Prague Spring liberalization program in Czechoslovakia, détente collapsed at the end of the decade with the beginning of the Soviet–Afghan War in 1979. The early 1980s were another period of elevated tension, with the Soviet downing of Korean Air Lines Flight 007, the United States increased diplomatic, military, and economic pressures on the Soviet Union, at a time when the communist state was already suffering from economic stagnation. In the mid-1980s, the new Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev introduced the reforms of perestroika and glasnost. Pressures for national independence grew stronger in Eastern Europe, especially Poland, Gorbachev meanwhile refused to use Soviet troops to bolster the faltering Warsaw Pact regimes as had occurred in the past. The result in 1989 was a wave of revolutions that peacefully overthrew all of the communist regimes of Central, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union itself lost control and was banned following an abortive coup attempt in August 1991. This in turn led to the dissolution of the USSR in December 1991. The United States remained as the only superpower. The Cold War and its events have left a significant legacy and it is often referred to in popular culture, especially in media featuring themes of espionage and the threat of nuclear warfare
26.
United Nations
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The United Nations is an intergovernmental organization to promote international co-operation. A replacement for the ineffective League of Nations, the organization was established on 24 October 1945 after World War II in order to prevent another such conflict, at its founding, the UN had 51 member states, there are now 193. The headquarters of the UN is in Manhattan, New York City, further main offices are situated in Geneva, Nairobi, and Vienna. The organization is financed by assessed and voluntary contributions from its member states, the UNs mission to preserve world peace was complicated in its early decades by the Cold War between the US and Soviet Union and their respective allies. The organization participated in actions in Korea and the Congo. After the end of the Cold War, the UN took on major military, the UN has six principal organs, the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the Secretariat, the International Court of Justice, and the UN Trusteeship Council. UN System agencies include the World Bank Group, the World Health Organization, the World Food Programme, UNESCO, the UNs most prominent officer is the Secretary-General, an office held by Portuguese António Guterres since 2017. Non-governmental organizations may be granted consultative status with ECOSOC and other agencies to participate in the UNs work, the organization won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001, and a number of its officers and agencies have also been awarded the prize. Other evaluations of the UNs effectiveness have been mixed, some commentators believe the organization to be an important force for peace and human development, while others have called the organization ineffective, corrupt, or biased. Following the catastrophic loss of life in the First World War, the earliest concrete plan for a new world organization began under the aegis of the US State Department in 1939. It incorporated Soviet suggestions, but left no role for France, four Policemen was coined to refer to four major Allied countries, United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and China, which emerged in the Declaration by United Nations. Roosevelt first coined the term United Nations to describe the Allied countries, the term United Nations was first officially used when 26 governments signed this Declaration. One major change from the Atlantic Charter was the addition of a provision for religious freedom, by 1 March 1945,21 additional states had signed. Each Government pledges itself to cooperate with the Governments signatory hereto, the foregoing declaration may be adhered to by other nations which are, or which may be, rendering material assistance and contributions in the struggle for victory over Hitlerism. During the war, the United Nations became the term for the Allies. To join, countries had to sign the Declaration and declare war on the Axis, at the later meetings, Lord Halifax deputized for Mr. Eden, Wellington Koo for T. V. Soong, and Mr Gromyko for Mr. Molotov. The first meetings of the General Assembly, with 51 nations represented, the General Assembly selected New York City as the site for the headquarters of the UN, and the facility was completed in 1952. Its site—like UN headquarters buildings in Geneva, Vienna, and Nairobi—is designated as international territory, the Norwegian Foreign Minister, Trygve Lie, was elected as the first UN Secretary-General
27.
German reunification
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The end of the unification process is officially referred to as German unity, celebrated on 3 October. Following German reunification, Berlin was once designated as the capital of united Germany. The East German regime started to falter in May 1989, when the removal of Hungarys border fence with Austria opened a hole in the Iron Curtain and it caused an exodus of thousands of East Germans fleeing to West Germany and Austria via Hungary. The united Germany is the continuation of the Federal Republic. For political and diplomatic reasons, West German politicians carefully avoided the term reunification during the run-up to what Germans frequently refer to as die Wende, after 1990, the term die Wende became more common. The term generally refers to the events led up to the actual reunification, in its usual context. When referring to the events surrounding unification, however, it carries the connotation of the time. However, anti-communist activists from Eastern Germany rejected the term Wende as it was introduced by SEDs Secretary General Egon Krenz, the capital city of Berlin was divided into four occupied sectors of control, under the Soviet Union, the United States, the United Kingdom and France. Germans lived under such imposed divisions throughout the ensuing Cold War, into the 1980s, the Soviet Union experienced a period of economic and political stagnation, and they correspondingly decreased intervention in Eastern Bloc politics. In 1987, US President Ronald Reagan gave a speech at Brandenburg Gate challenging Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down this wall that had separated Berlin. The wall had stood as an icon for the political and economic division between East and West, a division that Churchill had referred to as the Iron Curtain. In early 1989, under a new era of Soviet policies of glasnost, perestroika and taken to more progressive levels by Gorbachev. Further inspired by images of brave defiance, a wave of revolutions swept throughout the Eastern Bloc that year. In May 1989, Hungary removed their border fence and thousands of East Germans escaped to the West, however, events rapidly came to a head in early 1990. First, in March, the Party of Democratic Socialism—the former Socialist Unity Party of Germany—was heavily defeated in East Germanys first free elections. A grand coalition was formed under Lothar de Maizière, leader of the East German wing of Kohls Christian Democratic Union, on a platform of speedy reunification, second, East Germanys economy and infrastructure underwent a swift and near-total collapse. While East Germany had long been reckoned as having the most robust economy in the Soviet bloc, the East German mark had been practically worthless outside East Germany for some time before the events of 1989–90 further magnified the problem. Discussions immediately began for a merger of the German economies
28.
Deutsche Mark
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The Deutsche Mark, abbreviated DM or D-Mark, was the official currency of West Germany and unified Germany until the adoption of the euro in 2002. In English, but not in German, it is called the Deutschmark. Mark coins and banknotes continued to be accepted as valid forms of payment in Germany until 28 February 2002. However, in 2012, it was estimated that as many as 13.2 billion marks were in circulation, with polls showing a narrow majority of Germans favouring the currencys restoration. The Deutsche Bundesbank has guaranteed that all German marks in form may be changed into euros indefinitely. Banknotes and coins can even be sent to the Bundesbank by mail, on 31 December 1998, the Council of the European Union fixed the irrevocable exchange rate, effective 1 January 1999, for German mark to euros as DM1.95583 = €1. One Deutsche Mark was divided into 100 Pfennig, a mark had been the currency of Germany since its original unification in 1871. Before that time, the different German states issued a variety of different currencies, though most were linked to the Vereinsthaler, a silver coin containing 16 2⁄3 grams of pure silver. Although the mark was based on rather than silver, a fixed exchange rate between the Vereinsthaler and the mark of 3 marks =1 Vereinsthaler was used for the conversion. The first mark, known as the Goldmark, was introduced in 1873, with the outbreak of World War I, the mark was taken off the gold standard. The currency thus became known as the Papiermark, especially as inflation, then hyperinflation occurred. The Papiermark was replaced by the Rentenmark from November 15,1923, due to the strains between the Allies each zone was governed independently as regards monetary matters. The US occupation policy was governed by the directive JCS1067, as a consequence a separate monetary reform in the U. S. zone was not possible. Each of the Allies printed its own occupation currency, the Deutsche Mark was officially introduced on Sunday, June 20,1948 by Ludwig Erhard. Large amounts were exchanged for RM10 to 65 Pfennig, in addition, each person received a per capita allowance of DM60 in two parts, the first being DM40 and the second DM20. A few weeks later Erhard, acting against orders, issued an edict abolishing many economic controls which had been implemented by the Nazis. He did this, as he confessed, on Sunday because the offices of the American, British. He was sure if he had done it when they were open
29.
.de
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. de is the country code top-level domain for the Federal Republic of Germany. DENIC does not require specific second-level domains, and there are no official ccSLDs under. de ccTLD, the name is based on the first two letters of the German name for Germany. It is third after. com and. cn among all TLDs, the first point of registration for. de domains was at the Department of Computer Science of the University of Dortmund. Uni-dortmund. de was among the first registered. de-domains. de registrations may be ordered from DENIC. Previously, domain names had to be at least three letters long, there were a few two-letter domains registered before the rule was put in place, db. de, ix. de, and hq. de. A fourth domain, bb. de, was later deregistered, as of 23 October 2009, DENIC allowed the registration of single- and two-letter domains as well as number-only domains. Registrations of internationalized domain names are also accepted so that all diacritics of German, many diacritics of other languages, in many of the Romance languages, e. g. Spanish, French, Romanian and Portuguese, de expresses the genitive of a noun
30.
Telephone numbers in Germany
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The regulation of telephone numbers in Germany is the responsibility of the Federal Network Agency of the German government. The agency has a mandate to telecommunications in Germany and other infrastructure systems, Germany has an open telephone numbering plan. There used to be no fixed lengths for either area codes or subscriber telephone numbers, as a result, dialing sequences are generally of a variable length, except for some non-geographic area codes for which subscriber numbers use a fixed-length format. It is not possible to determine unambiguously the end of a number from a prefix or the digits already dialed. This feature allows the extension of the length of numbers without revoking or changing existing numbers. Cell phone numbers in Germany are not given geographic area codes, thus they can easily be told apart from other numbers. A new numbering plan was introduced on May 3,2010, since then new landline phone numbers have a standard length of 11 digits including the area code and omitting the trunk prefix 0. Area codes remain as they are and are variable in length. The German telephone network uses 5200 geographical area codes, the length of which varies from two to five digits, with area codes only being assigned in the New States. In general, geographic area codes start with digits 02 to 09, whereas other non-geographic area codes including those for cell phone usage are assigned to 01, geographic area codes have a length of two to five digits. The maximum total length is eleven digits, geographic numbers are assigned to carriers in blocks, from which these carriers can make derivative assignments to subscribers. Subscriber numbers do not start with 0 or 11 and can be called directly from landlines within the geographic area code. Originally, the first digits following the code would indicate a smaller area within these area codes or the type of the subscriber line. However, this is no longer true as subscribers can keep their numbers when moving within a code or when switching from analogue to ISDN. Further, new carriers assign numbers from different blocks, xxxx-xxxx This is the format used for the four largest geographic areas in Germany, Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt and Munich. Newly assigned numbers have a length of eight digits for the subscriber number. This is shorter than the maximum of eleven digits in other areas in order to avoid local numbers to be longer than eight digits, Numbers assigned in the past, which are generally grandfathered, may be as short as five digits. Xxxx-xxxx In area codes that use three digits, newly assigned numbers also have a length of eight digits, yielding a total length of eleven digits, grandfathered numbers may be as short as four digits
31.
Allied-occupied Germany
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The four powers divided Germany into four occupation zones for administrative purposes, into what is collectively known now as Allied-occupied Germany. This division was ratified at the Potsdam Conference, in Autumn 1944 the United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union had agreed on the zones by the London Protocol. The Final German Peace Treaty would result in the westward of Polands borders back to approximately as they were before 1722. In the closing weeks of fighting in Europe, United States forces had pushed beyond the boundaries for the future zones of occupation. The so-called line of contact between Soviet and American forces at the end of hostilities, mostly lying eastward of the July 1945-established inner German border was temporary. After two months in which they had areas that had been assigned to the Soviet zone. All territories annexed by Germany before the war from Austria and Czechoslovakia were returned to these countries, the Memel Territory, annexed by Germany from Lithuania before the war, was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1945 and transferred to the Lithuanian SSR. All territories annexed by Germany during the war from Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Poland, the American zone consisted of Bavaria and Hesse in Southern Germany, and the northern portions of the present-day German state of Baden-Württemberg. The ports of Bremen and Bremerhaven were also placed under American control because of the American request to have certain toeholds in Northern Germany, the headquarters of the American military government was the former IG Farben Building in Frankfurt am Main. Beginning in May 1945, many of the American combat troops and airmen in, Army, the Army Air Forces, and the U. S. Navy upon their return home. The Canadian Army was tied down in surrounding the Netherlands until the Germans there surrendered on 5 May 1945 – just two days before the surrender of the Wehrmacht in Western Europe to U. S. Then in July 1945, the British Army withdrew from small slices of Germany that had previously agreed to be occupied by the Soviet Army. Within the British Zone of Occupation, the CCG/BE re-established the German state of Hamburg, also in 1947, the German state Free Hanseatic City of Bremen became an exclave of the American Zone of Occupation located within the British Zone. In 1946, the Norwegian Brigade Group in Germany had 4,000 soldiers in Hanover, despite its being one of the Allied Powers, the French Republic was at first not granted an occupation zone in Germany. This created a French zone of occupation in the westernmost part of Germany and it consisted of two barely contiguous areas of Germany along the French border that met at just a single point along the Rhine River. It included the Saargebiet, which was disentangled from it on 16 February 1946, by 18 December 1946 customs controls were established between the Saar area and allied occupied Germany. The French zone ceded further adjacent municipalities to the Saar, included in the French zone was the town of Büsingen am Hochrhein, a German exclave separated from the rest of the country by a narrow strip of neutral Swiss territory. The Swiss government agreed to limited numbers of French troops to pass through its territory in order to maintain law
32.
Saar Protectorate
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The Saar Protectorate was a short-lived protectorate partitioned from Germany after its defeat in World War II, it was administered by the French Fourth Republic. On rejoining West Germany in 1957, it became the smallest area state and it is named after the Saar River. The region around the Saar River and its tributary valleys is a folded, mineral-rich, ethnically German, economically important. From 1920 to 1935, as a result of World War I, near the end of World War II it was heavily bombed by the Allies as part of their strategic bombing campaigns. Geographically, the post–World War II protectorate corresponded to the current German state of Saarland, cold War pressures for a stronger Germany allowed renewed industrialization, and the French returned control of the region to the government of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1957. The region had previously occupied by France during the Napoleonic Wars. Under the Treaty of Versailles, the Saar was occupied initially by combat units from the United Kingdom and this was sanctioned by a 15-year League of Nations mandate which stationed League of Nations troops from Italy, Sweden, and the United Kingdom in the Saar until 1935. The Saars coal industry, the dominant industry in the region at the time, was nationalized, others favoured the third option of a continued British–French occupation government. After political agitation and maneuvering by Chancellor Adolf Hitler for the re-union of the Saarland with the German Reich it was reincorporated in 1935 and its area was not redivided among the Prussian Rhine Province and the Bavarian Palatinate, but united with the latter as the Gau of Saar-Palatinate. In 1942 it was renamed Westmark of the Reich and this renaming intended its territorial enlargement by parts of German-occupied French Lorraine which, however, did not materialise. In July 1945, two months after World War II had ended in Europe, the Allied forces were redeploying from the areas they had conquered into their zones of occupation. On 10 July 1945, US forces left the Saar and French troops established their occupational administration, although French officials deported a total of 1,820 people from the Saar in 1946 and 1947, most of these individuals ultimately were allowed to return. Unlike the Soviets, the French expulsions did not amount to ethnic cleansing, however, native Sarrois returning from Nazi-imposed removals and war-related relocations were allowed to return to the areas under French control. France aimed at winning over the Saar population for a future annexation, the principal reason for the French desire for economic control of the Saar was the large coal deposits. France was offered compensation for the return of the Saar to Germany, with effect of 20 July 1946,109 municipalities of the Prussian Rhine Province within the French zone were added to the Saar Protectorate. By 18 December 1946 customs controls were established between the Saar and allied occupied Germany. On 16 July 1947 the Saar mark replaced the Reichsmark as legal tender in the Saar Protectorate, while only French franc banknotes circulated from 1954 on, Saar franc coins, designed similar to French coins, were issued too. On 15 December 1947 the Saar was constituted by its constitution as the Saarland, on 23 March 1948 the customs union with France was confirmed, taking effect on 1 April
33.
History of Germany since 1990
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The history of Germany since 1990 spans the period following the Reunification of Germany, when West Germany and East Germany were reunited after being divided during the Cold War. Germany after 1990 is referred to by historians as the Berlin Republic and this time-period is also determined by the ongoing process of the inner reunification of the formerly divided country. The reunified Berlin became the capital of Germany on October 3, December 2 marks the first elections for the city parliament after reunification. The first federal election after reunification, the German federal election,1990, the CDU became the largest party with 43. 8%, followed by the SPD and the Free Democratic Party of Germany. On June 20,1991, the Bundestag decided that the parliament and parts of the government and central administration would be relocated from Bonn to the capital, at this time, the term Berlin Republic emerged. Roman Herzog, a former Judge at the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany, was elected President of Germany in 1994, following the German federal election,1994, Helmut Kohl was reelected as Chancellor for his fifth and last term. Joschka Fischer, a leading Green politician, became Vice Chancellor, shortly after the formation of the government, Minister of Finance Oskar Lafontaine, a former SPD chairman and rival of Schröder, resigned from the cabinet. He was succeeded as Minister of Finance by Hans Eichel, in 1998, it became known that the CDU/CSU had received anonymous funding. Helmut Kohl subsequently resigned as party chairman, and in 2000. Angela Merkel, the Secretary General of the CDU since 1998, in 1999, Johannes Rau was elected President of Germany. Rau had tried to be elected President for several years, a large tax reform was implemented in 2000. After 2003, the government enacted a number of reforms in social and health policy. The Schröder government also stressed environmental issues and promoted the reduction of greenhouse gas, Germany took part in the NATO war against Yugoslavia in 1999, when German forces saw combat for the first time since World War II. Chancellor Schröder supported the war on terror following the September 11 attacks against the United States, Germany also sent forces to Kosovo and other parts of the world. In 1999, Germany partially adopted the Euro, which replaced the Deutsche Mark as the currency of Germany in 2002. Several German cities, notably Dresden and Magdeburg, experienced severe flooding during the 2002 European floods, in 2002, Edmund Stoiber was the candidate for Chancellor for the CDU/CSU, the first time a CSU politician was chancellor candidate since the candidacy of Franz Josef Strauss in 1980. Both CDU/CSU and the SPD polled 38. 5% in the German federal election,2002, since the Greens became larger than the liberals, Gerhard Schröders government was reelected. Germany and France vehemently opposed the 2003 Iraq War, leading the administration of George W. Bush to label Germany and France as the Old Europe, however, Germany supported the United States militarily in other parts of the world, notably in the Horn of Africa and Kuwait
34.
Federal Statistical Office of Germany
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The Federal Statistical Office is a federal authority of Germany. It reports to the Federal Ministry of the Interior, the Office is responsible for collecting, processing, presenting and analysing statistical information concerning the topics economy, society and environment. The purpose is providing objective, independent and highly qualitative statistical information for the whole public, about 2780 staff members are employed in the departments in Wiesbaden, Bonn and Berlin. The department in Wiesbaden is the office and runs the largest library specialised in statistical literature in Germany. It is also the Office of the President who is also by tradition, but not by virtue of the office, in this position he or she is the supervisor of the elections of the German Parliament and of the European Parliament. Census in Germany List of statistical offices in Germany Official website of the Federal Statistical Office of Germany
35.
Saarland
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The Saarland is one of the sixteen states of the Federal Republic of Germany. With its capital at Saarbrücken, it has an area of 2,570 km², in terms of both area and population size – apart from the city-states of Berlin, Bremen and Hamburg – it is Germanys smallest state. Prior to its creation as the Territory of the Saar Basin by the League of Nations after World War I, until then, some parts of it had been Prussian while others belonged to Bavaria. The inhabitants voted to rejoin Germany in a referendum held in 1935, from 1947 to 1956 the Saarland was a French-occupied territory separate from the rest of Germany. Between 1950 and 1956, Saarland was a member of the Council of Europe, in 1955, in another referendum, the inhabitants were offered independence, but voted instead for the territory to become a state of West Germany. From 1920 to 1935, and again from 1947 to 1959, Saarland is the result of a regulation of the treaty of Versailles and was created in 1919. Prior to this creation, there never existed a comparable administrative unit or a feeling of togetherness, the region of the Saarland was settled by the Celtic tribes of Treveri and Mediomatrici. The most impressive relic of their time is the remains of a fortress of refuge at Otzenhausen in the north of the Saarland, in the 1st century BC, the Roman Empire made the region part of its province of Belgica. The Celtic population mixed with the Roman immigrants, the region gained wealth, which can still be seen in the remains of Roman villas and villages. Roman rule ended in the 5th century, when the Franks conquered the territory, for the next 1,300 years the region shared the history of the Kingdom of the Franks, the Carolingian Empire and of the Holy Roman Empire. The region of the Saarland was divided into small territories. Most important of the rulers were the counts of Nassau-Saarbrücken. It was not the king of France but the armies of the French Revolution who terminated the independence of the states in the region of the Saarland, after 1792 they conquered the region and made it part of the French Republic. While a strip in the west belonged to the Département Moselle, the centre in 1798 became part of the Département de Sarre, after the defeat of Napoleon in 1815, the region was divided again. Most of it part of the Prussian Rhine Province. Another part in the east, corresponding to the present Saarpfalz district, was allocated to the Kingdom of Bavaria, a small part in the northeast was ruled by the Duke of Oldenburg. On 31 July 1870, the French Emperor Napoleon III ordered an invasion across the River Saar to seize Saarbrücken, the first shots of the Franco-Prussian War 1870/71 were fired on the heights of Spichern, south of Saarbrücken. The Saar region became part of the German Empire which came into existence on 18 January 1871, in 1920 the Saargebiet was occupied by Britain and France under the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles
36.
French franc
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The franc, also commonly distinguished as the French franc, was a currency of France. Between 1450 and 1999, it was the name of coins worth 1 livre tournois and it was revalued in 1960, with each new franc being worth 100 old francs. The French franc was a commonly held reserve currency of reference in the 19th and 20th centuries. The first franc was a gold coin introduced in 1360 to pay the Ransom of King John II of France and this coin secured the kings freedom and showed him on a richly decorated horse earning it the name franc à cheval. The obverse legend, like other French coins, gives the title as Francorum Rex. Its value was set as one livre tournois, john’s son, Charles V, continued this type. It was copied exactly at Brabant and Cambrai and, with the arms on the horse cloth changed, conquests led by Joan of Arc allowed Charles VII to return to sound coinage and he revived the franc à cheval. John II, however, was not able to strike enough francs to pay his ransom, John II died as a prisoner in England and his son, Charles V was left to pick up the pieces. Charles V pursued a policy of reform, including stable coinage, an edict dated 20 April 1365 established the centerpiece of this policy, a gold coin officially called the denier d’or aux fleurs de lis which had a standing figure of the king on its obverse. Its value in money of account was one livre tournois, just like the franc à cheval, in accordance with the theories of the mathematician, economist and royal advisor Nicolas Oresme, Charles struck fewer coins of better gold than his predecessors. In the accompanying deflation both prices and wages fell, but wages fell faster and debtors had to settle up in better money than they had borrowed, the Mayor of Paris, Etienne Marcel, exploited their discontent to lead a revolt which forced Charles V out of the city. The States General which met at Blois in 1577 added to the pressure to stop currency manipulation. Henry III agreed to do this and he revived the franc and this coin and its fractions circulated until 1641 when Louis XIII of France replaced it with the silver Écu. Nevertheless, the franc continued in accounting as a synonym for the livre tournois. The decimal franc was established as the currency by the French Revolutionary Convention in 1795 as a decimal unit of 4.5 g of fine silver. This was slightly less than the livre of 4.505 g, silver coins now had their denomination clearly marked as “5 FRANCS” and it was made obligatory to quote prices in francs. e. Coinage with explicit denominations in decimal fractions of the franc also began in 1795, decimalization of the franc was mandated by an act of 7 April 1795, which also dealt with of weights and measures. France’s first decimal coinage used allegorical figures symbolizing revolutionary principles, like the designs the United States had adopted in 1793
37.
Saar franc
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Although local notes and coins were issued during both periods, legally the Saar franc was never an independent currency. The new French administration of the mines was granted the right to process all financial transactions with French francs. Due to the shortage of metal, the coal mines administration began to print its own banknotes. After 1930, these notes were replaced by the usual French notes, after the plebiscite of 1935, when the Saar Territory was unified with the German Reich again, the Reichsmark was immediately introduced. The official exchange rate was 1 franc =0.1645 ℛℳ, on 16 July 1947, banknotes were issued for Saar denominated in marks, which replaced the German Reichsmark. But in November 1947, the French government reintroduced the French franc as the official currency, between 20 November 1947 and 15 January 1948, all notes and coins had to be exchanged, the exchange course being 20 Saar marks =1 franc. It was not before 1954 when the government of the Protectorate issued new coins denominated in 10,20,50 and 100 francs. But the coins resembled the coins of the French franc and were officially and legally not a currency of their own, after a referendum about the future status of the region, Saarland was incorporated into the Federal Republic of Germany as a Bundesland on 1 January 1957. The economic integration into Germany was completed with the withdrawal of all Saar-Franken two years later.8507 Deutsche Mark, the conversion had been brought forward by half a year because of the accelerating depreciation of the French franc. The date was kept secret to avoid speculation, and only published two days in advance. The freedom to fix new prices was maintained, but especially temporarily or permanently fixed obligations, pictures on coins of Saar Protectorate always depicted things related to the industry and mining in the region. Also the coat of arms of the Saar Protectorate appears on every coin, coins of 10,20 and 50 francs depicted a factory and mining tower, with the coat of arms of the Saar Protectorate in front of them. 100-franc coins depicted a gearwheel, again with the coat of arms of Saar Protectorate in front of it, all four coins were identical to the official French coins in color, size and weight, only the writing and the picture was different. There were no genuine smaller coins, as the usual French coins were used instead, all French coins were accepted in the protectorate, whereas the Saar coins were usually not accepted in France, except in the bigger cities adjacent to the border. A detailed list with all coins of Saarland
38.
NATO
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The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on 4 April 1949. The organization constitutes a system of collective defence whereby its member states agree to mutual defence in response to an attack by any external party, three NATO members are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and are officially nuclear-weapon states. NATOs headquarters are located in Haren, Brussels, Belgium, while the headquarters of Allied Command Operations is near Mons. NATO is an Alliance that consists of 28 independent member countries across North America and Europe, an additional 22 countries participate in NATOs Partnership for Peace program, with 15 other countries involved in institutionalized dialogue programmes. The combined military spending of all NATO members constitutes over 70% of the global total, Members defence spending is supposed to amount to 2% of GDP. The course of the Cold War led to a rivalry with nations of the Warsaw Pact, politically, the organization sought better relations with former Warsaw Pact countries, several of which joined the alliance in 1999 and 2004. N. The Treaty of Brussels, signed on 17 March 1948 by Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, the treaty and the Soviet Berlin Blockade led to the creation of the Western European Unions Defence Organization in September 1948. However, participation of the United States was thought necessary both to counter the power of the USSR and to prevent the revival of nationalist militarism. He got a hearing, especially considering American anxiety over Italy. In 1948 European leaders met with U. S. defense, military and diplomatic officials at the Pentagon, marshalls orders, exploring a framework for a new and unprecedented association. Talks for a new military alliance resulted in the North Atlantic Treaty and it included the five Treaty of Brussels states plus the United States, Canada, Portugal, Italy, Norway, Denmark and Iceland. The first NATO Secretary General, Lord Ismay, stated in 1949 that the goal was to keep the Russians out, the Americans in. Popular support for the Treaty was not unanimous, and some Icelanders participated in a pro-neutrality, the creation of NATO can be seen as the primary institutional consequence of a school of thought called Atlanticism which stressed the importance of trans-Atlantic cooperation. The members agreed that an attack against any one of them in Europe or North America would be considered an attack against them all. The treaty does not require members to respond with military action against an aggressor, although obliged to respond, they maintain the freedom to choose the method by which they do so. This differs from Article IV of the Treaty of Brussels, which states that the response will be military in nature. It is nonetheless assumed that NATO members will aid the attacked member militarily, the treaty was later clarified to include both the members territory and their vessels, forces or aircraft above the Tropic of Cancer, including some Overseas departments of France. The creation of NATO brought about some standardization of allied military terminology, procedures, and technology, the roughly 1300 Standardization Agreements codified many of the common practices that NATO has achieved
39.
Warsaw Pact
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The Warsaw Pact was the military complement to the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, the regional economic organization for the communist states of Central and Eastern Europe. While the Warsaw Pact was established as a balance of power or counterweight to NATO, instead, the conflict was fought on an ideological basis and in proxy wars. Both NATO and the Warsaw Pact led to the expansion of military forces and its largest military engagement was the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968, which, in part, resulted in Albania withdrawing from the pact less than a month later. The Pact began to unravel in its entirety with the spread of the Revolutions of 1989 through the Eastern Bloc, beginning with the Solidarity movement in Poland, East Germany and Poland withdrew from the Pact in 1990. On 25 February 1991, the Pact was declared at an end at a meeting of defence, the USSR itself was dissolved in December 1991, although most of the former Soviet republics formed the Collective Security Treaty Organization shortly thereafter. Throughout the following 20 years, the seven Warsaw Pact countries outside the USSR each joined NATO, in the Western Bloc, the Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance is often called the Warsaw Pact military alliance—abbreviated WAPA, Warpac, and WP. Therefore, although ostensibly an international collective security alliance, the USSR dominated the Warsaw Treaty armed forces, the strategy behind the formation of the Warsaw Pact was driven by the desire of the Soviet Union to dominate Central and Eastern Europe. The Soviets wanted to keep their part of Europe theirs and not let the Americans take it from them and this policy was driven by ideological and geostrategic reasons. Ideologically, the Soviet Union arrogated the right to define socialism and communism, geostrategic principles also drove the Soviet Union to prevent invasion of its territory by Western European powers. Before the creation of the Warsaw Pact, Czechoslovak leadership, fearful of a rearmed Germany, sought to create a security pact with East Germany and these states protested strongly against the re-militarization of West Germany. The Warsaw Pact was primarily put in place as a consequence of the rearming of West Germany inside NATO, Soviet leaders, like many European countries on both sides of the Iron Curtain, feared Germany being once again a military power and a direct threat. The terrible consequences of German militarism remained a fresh memory among the Soviets, previously, in March 1954, the USSR, fearing the restoration of German militarism in West Germany, requested admission to NATO. The Soviet request to join NATO arose in the aftermath of the Berlin Conference of January–February 1954. James Dunn, who met in Paris with Eden, Adenauer and Robert Schuman, affirmed that the object should be to avoid discussion with the Russians, according to John Gaddis there was little inclination in Western capitals to explore this offer from USSR. But Eden, Dulles and Bidault opposed the proposal, the Soviets then decided to make a new proposal to the governments of the USA, UK and France to accept the participation of the USA in the proposed General European Agreement. Again all proposals, including the request to join NATO, were rejected by the UK, US, emblematic was the position of British General Hastings Ismay, supporter of NATO expansion, who said that NATO must grow until the whole free world gets under one umbrella. He opposed the request to join NATO made by the USSR in 1954 saying that the Soviet request to join NATO is like an unrepentant burglar requesting to join the police force, in April 1954 Adenauer made his first visit to the USA meeting Nixon, Eisenhower and Dulles. Ratification of EDC was delaying but the US representatives made it clear to Adenauer that EDC would have to become a part of NATO, memories of the Nazi occupation were still strong, and the rearmament of Germany was feared by France too
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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
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Inner German border
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The inner German border was the border between the German Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany from 1949 to 1990. Not including the similar and physically separate Berlin Wall, the border was 1,393 kilometres long and it was formally established on 1 July 1945 as the boundary between the Western and Soviet occupation zones of former Nazi Germany. It was patrolled by 50,000 armed East German guards who faced tens of thousands of West German, British and US guards, in the hinterlands behind the border were more than a million North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and Warsaw Pact troops. The border was a manifestation of Winston Churchills metaphorical Iron Curtain that separated the Soviet. It marked the boundary between two ideological systems – capitalism and communism and it caused widespread economic and social disruption on both sides, East Germans living in the region suffered especially draconian restrictions. The better-known Berlin Wall was a separate, less elaborate. On 9 November 1989, the East German government announced the opening of the Berlin Wall, over the following days, millions of East Germans poured into the West to visit. Little remains of the inner German borders fortifications and its route has been declared part of a European Green Belt linking national parks and nature reserves along the course of the old Iron Curtain from the Arctic Circle to the Black Sea. Museums and memorials along the old border commemorate the division and reunification of Germany and, in some places, the inner German border originated from the Second World War Allies plans to divide a defeated Germany into occupation zones. The boundaries between these zones were drawn along the boundaries of 19th-century German states and provinces that had largely disappeared with the unification of Germany in 1871. Three zones were agreed on, each covering roughly a third of Germanys territories, a British zone in the north-west, an American zone in the south, france was later given a zone in the far west of Germany, carved out of the British and American zones. The division of Germany was put into effect on 1 July 1945, the redeployment of Western troops prompted many Germans to flee to the West to escape the Soviet takeover of the remainder of the Soviet zone. The wartime Allies initially worked together under the auspices of the Allied Control Council for Germany, cooperation between the Western Allies and the Soviets ultimately broke down because of disagreements over Germanys political and economic future. In May 1949, the three occupation zones were merged to form the Federal Republic of Germany with a freely elected government. The Soviet zone became the German Democratic Republic, under communist rule, from the outset, West Germany and the Allies rejected East Germanys legitimacy. The creation of East Germany was deemed a communist/Soviet fait accompli, West Germany regarded German citizenship and rights as applying equally to East and West German citizens. East Germans thus had an incentive to move to the West. In the early days of the occupation, the Allies controlled traffic between the zones to manage the flow of refugees and prevent the escape of former Nazi officials and intelligence officers
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West Berlin
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West Berlin was an enclave which comprised the western part of the city of Berlin during the Cold War. It was formally controlled by the Western Allies and formed a de facto part of West Germany, and was entirely surrounded by the Soviet-controlled East Berlin and East Germany. West Berlin had great significance during the Cold War, as it was widely considered by westerners as an island of freedom. A wealthy city, West Berlin was noted for its liberal and cosmopolitan character. With about two million inhabitants, West Berlin had the biggest population of any city in Cold War Germany and it was 100 miles east of the Inner German border and only accessible by land from West Germany by narrow rail and highway corridors. It consisted of the American, British, and French occupation sectors established in 1945 and was de facto part of West Germany and it had a special and unique legal status because its administration was formally conducted by the Western Allies. East Berlin, de jure occupied and administered by the Soviet Union, was the de facto capital of East Germany, the Berlin Wall, built in 1961, physically divided West Berlin from its East German surroundings until it fell in 1989. The Potsdam Agreement established the framework for the occupation of Germany in the wake of World War II. The territory of Germany, as it existed in 1937, would be reduced by most of Eastern Germany thus creating the former territories of Germany. The remaining territory would be divided into four zones, each administered by one of the allied countries, according to the agreement, the occupation of Berlin would end only as a result of a quadripartite agreement. The Western Allies were guaranteed three air corridors to their sectors of Berlin, and the Soviets also informally allowed road, at first, this arrangement was intended to be only a temporary administrative structure, with all parties declaring that Germany and Berlin would soon be reunited. However, as the relations between the allies and the Soviet Union soured and the Cold War began, the joint administration of Germany. Soon, Soviet-occupied Berlin and western-occupied Berlin had separate city administrations, in 1948, the Soviets tried to force the Western Allies out of Berlin by imposing a land blockade on the western sectors—the Berlin Blockade. The West responded by using its air corridors for supplying their part of the city with food, in May 1949, the Soviets lifted the blockade, and West Berlin as a separate city with its own jurisdiction was maintained. Following the Berlin Blockade, normal contacts between East and West Berlin resumed, however, in cases this proved only temporary. In 1952, the East German government began sealing its borders, as a direct result the electrical grids were separated and phone lines were cut. However, the culmination of the schism did not occur until 1961 with the construction of the Berlin Wall. From the legal theory followed by the Western Allies, the occupation of most of Germany ended in 1949 with the declaration of the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic
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