Germany Notes

German Recent History and Government

• After a history of division and two world wars, Germany is now a unified country.

• In 1914, European national rivalries led to World War I.

Germany and those fighting with her were defeated in 1918.

Germany was blamed for starting the war.

• Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party took power in Germany in 1933.

• Germany invaded Austria, Czechoslovakia, and then Poland to begin WW2 in 1939.

• Germany and Italy had conquered most of Europe by 1942. Japan also fought with Germany.

German Recent History and Government

• Over six million Jews and millions of elderly, handicapped, and others were murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust.

• The Allied forces that eventually defeated Germany included the United States, Great Britain (UK) the Soviet Union, and others.

The Allied leaders –

Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt,

and Josef Stalin

German Recent History and Government

• After the war, Germany was divided into occupation zones. France, Britain and the US formed a democratic West Germany, while the Soviet Union set up a communist East Germany.

• In 1961, East Germany built the Berlin Wall to stop East Germans from escaping into the West. The East was not as prosperous as the West.

• In 1989, the wall came down. Germany experienced reunification shortly afterward.

Map of Occupied Germany

German Recent History and Government• Much money

has been spent in recent years to improve all of Germany’s infrastructure.

• Germany is now a democracy with a Parliament that elects a Prime Minister, called a Chancellor.

The Bundestag (Parliament) in Berlin

German Culture

• During the 1500s, Germany was the center of the Reformation, a movement—led by Martin Luther—to reform Christianity. Reformers were called Protestants.

• Today, many Germans have no religious affiliation because the Communists suppressed it from 1945 until 1990.

• The Germans began the tradition of the Christmas tree.

Door of the Schlosskirche (castle church) to which Luther is said to have nailed his 95 Theses, sparking the Reformation.

German Culture

•Superhighways called autobahns link German cities—along with railroads.

•Famous German composers: Bach, Beethoven

•Famous German products: BMW, Mercedes, Volkswagen

•The German autobahn sign

•A stretch of the German autobahn