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"Deutschland"
Historically consisting of many clans or tribes with their own history, distinct german dialects, culture and religious beliefs, Germany was a territory that continualy changed it's boundries through conquests and wars. It was not truely recognized as one unified soverign state until after the Franco-Prussian War in 1871. But prior to that, in the 5th century, it was an area on the continent of Europe that was inhabited by barbarians and identified by many names. The "Merovignian" Dynasty The Merovingians were a dynasty of Frankish kings who ruled frequently fluctuating areas, from the 5th to the 8th century within the region largely corresponding to ancient Gaul. The Merovingian kings adhered to the Germanic practice of dividing their lands among their sons, and the frequent division, reunification and re-division of territories often resulted in murder and warfare within the leading families. The dynasty owes its name to Merovech, leader of the Salian Franks from 447 to 457 AD, and gains legendary fame in history with the victories of his son Childeric against the Visigoths, Saxons, and Alemanni. Childeric reigned from 457 to 481 AD. Upon Childeric's death in 481 he was succeeded by his son Clovis I as King of the Salian Franks. The Frankish Empire ~ 481 - 843 The Frankish Empire at the time was known as the Frankish Realm and more commonly known as Francia in the 5th through 10th century. It referred to the territory of the Franks that spread across western Europe from the North Sea and English Channel to Upper Italy and the Adriatic Sea and from the Pyrenees Mountains to the Elbe and Danube Rivers. During the 5th century the Franks lived mostly on or near the banks of the Rhine but several of the barbarian tribes occupied what is now northern Belgium and southern Netherlands. Clovis, one of the early Frankish leaders, and his barbarian warriors sought to conquer Gaul in the 5th century and thereby expand the borders of Frankish territory. In ancient times Gaul was the region of Western Europe this is comprised of present-day northern Italy, France, Belgium, western Switzerland and parts of the Netherlands and Germany. Clovis conquered the neighboring Frankish tribes, united the Frankish kingdoms and established himself as Clovis I, the king of the Frankish Empire. This marked the beginning of an empire that would endure for many centuries.
 In 493 AD Clovis married the Catholic Burgundian princess Clothilde and converted to Roman Christianity. This helped to increase his standing in the eyes of the Pope and the other orthodox Christian rulers. Clovis' conversion signaled the conversion of the rest of the Franks. Because they were able to worship with their Catholic neighbors, the newly-Christianized Franks gained acceptance from the local Gallo-Roman population. Upon Clovis' death the Frankish Empire was divided among his four sons, Theuderic, Chlodomer, Childebert, and Clotaire. This created the new political units of the Kingdoms of Reims, Orléans, Paris and Soissons and inaugurated a period of disunity that lasted until the end of the Merovingian dynasty in 751 AD. The Merovingians fell to the next Frankish line, the Carolingians. The "Carolingians" Dynasty Charlemagne, meaning Charles the Great, was the King of the Franks from768 AD until his death in 814 AD. He conquered Italy and on a visit to Rome in 800 AD, he was crowned Emperor by Pope Leo III on Christmas Day. By his foreign conquests and internal reforms, Charlemagne helped define Western Europe and the Middle Ages. The Carolingian Empire is sometimes used to refer to the realm of the Franks under the dynasty of the Carolingians and begins with Charlemagne's coronation. This did not actually constitute a new empire because both Charles as well as his ancestors had been rulers of the Frankish Empire earlier. In fact, his grandfather, Charles Martel, had essentially founded the Carolingian Empire during his lifetime. The last Emperor and King of the Franks was Louis I, also known as Louis the Pious who reigned from the time of Charlemagne's death in 814 AD to his death in 840 AD. With his death came a civil war that lasted for three years. The war ended in 843 AD with the signing of the Treaty of Verdun, which split the Frankish realm for the final time into the Western and Eastern Kingdoms. The resulting Kingdoms eventually developed into the nations of France and Germany. The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation ~ 843-1806
The Confederation of the Rhine ~ 1806-1813
On 12 July 1806, on signing the "Rheinbundakte" otherwise known as the Treaty of the Confederation of the Rhine, sixteen states in present Germany formally left the Holy Roman Empire and joined together in a confederation. They called it the "Rheinbund" and Napoleon was its "protector". On 6 August, following an ultimatum by Napoleon, Francis II gave up his title of Emperor and declared the Holy Roman Empire dissolved. In the years that followed, twenty-three more German states joined the Confederation. Francis' Habsburg dynasty would rule the remainder of the empire as Austria. Only Austria, Prussia, Danish Holstein and Swedish Pomerania stayed outside the confederation, not counting the west bank of the Rhine, which was annexed by the French empire. According to the treaty, the confederation was to be run by common constitutional bodies, but the individual states wanted unlimited sovereignty. Instead of a feudal, rather nominal head of state, as the Holy Roman Emperor had been, its highest office was the Grand Duke of Frankfurt am Main and Napoleon's close ally. The Confederation was above all a military alliance and the members had to supply France with large numbers of military personnel. In return for their cooperation some state rulers were given higher statuses: Baden, Hessen, Cleves and Berg were made into grand duchies and Württemberg and Bavaria became kingdoms. After Prussia lost to France in 1806, many medium-sized and small states decided to join the Rheinbund. It was at its largest in 1808 and included four kingdoms, five grand duchies, thirteen duchies, seventeen principalities and the towns of Hamburg, Lübeck and Bremen. After Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo when Napoleon's campaign in Russia failed the Confederation of the Rhine collapsed. On 30 May 1814 the Treaty of Paris declared the German states independent. The defeat of Napoleon enabled regimes such as the Kingdom of Prussia, the Austrian Empire and Tsarist Russia to survive, laying the groundwork for the Congress of Vienna In 1815. The German Confederation ~ 1815-1866 The Congress of Vienna redrew the continent's political map. The Great Powers at the Congress of Vienna aimed to restore Europe to its pre-war conditions and by creating barriers around France. With Austria's position on the continent now intact and secure, the Habsburg empire would serve as a barrier to contain the emergence of Italian and German nation-states in addition to containing France. Only minor changes were made to inner-German borders, and the resulting German Confederation consisted more or less of the same members as the Confederation of the Rhine.
The German Confederation, or "Deutscher Bund", was the association of Central European states created by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 to organize the surviving states of the Holy Roman Empire, which had been abolished in 1806. The Confederation had roughly the same boundaries as the Empire at the time of the French Revolution, less what is now Belgium. The member states, drastically reduced to about three dozen from more than 200 under the Holy Roman Empire, were recognized as fully sovereign. The members pledged themselves to mutual defence, and jointly maintained the fortresses at Mainz, the city of Luxembourg, Rastatt, Ulm, and Landau. A federal diet under Austrian presidency met at Frankfurt.
North German Confederation ~ 1866-1871 The Confederation was dissolved in 1866 after the Austro-Prussian War, and was 'succeeded' in 1866 by the Prussian-dominated North German Confederation. This misguidingly named Confederation was in fact a federation and true state. Its territory comprised the parts of the German Confederation north of the river Main, plus Prussia's eastern territories and the Duchy of Schleswig, but excluded Luxembourg. The North German Confederation was renamed the German Empire on 18 January 1871, under Prussia's Hohenzollern dynasty. In 1871 all the constituent states of the German Confederation became part of the "Empire", known as the "Kaiserreich" in Germany, except the Dutch province of Limburg and the presently independent countries remaining in the Austro-Hungarian Empire which were Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Austria, Czech Republic, parts of Italy, Poland, and Slovenia. German Empire ~ 1871-1918 The German Empire "Deutsches Kaiserreich" is the name of the German state from the time of the proclamation of Wilhelm I of Prussia as German Emperor on January 18, 1871 to the abdication of Wilhelm II on November 9, 1918. The official name of the state in Germany was Deutsches Reich but this continued in official use until 1943 so it does not exclusively refer to the period of imperial rule. The phrase Second Reich is also applied to this period. The term was popularised in the 1920s, and drew an explicit link with the earlier Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation serving as the First Reich. The unification of Germany meant the absorption of the entire Kingdom of Prussia into the new empire. German nationalism rapidly shifted from its liberal and democratic character in 1848 to Prussian prime minister Otto von Bismarck's authoritarian Realpolitik. Bismarck wanted to unify the rival German states to achieve his aim of a conservative, Prussian-dominated German state. Thus, Prussia created a sufficiently powerful military machine not only capable of challenging rivals on the continent such as Austria and France, but able to make its presence known in the arena of international politics. German Emigration to America The Largest number of Germans emigrated to America between 1830 and 1910. Those 80 years can be broken down into three major periods: 1683-1820 ~ This emigration was largely caused by religious persecutions from the changes brought about by the Thirty Years War, and by economic hardship. Many were Protestants from the Palatinate area of Germany.
World War I Germany ~ 1914-1918 On June 28, 1914, in Sarajevo, Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand who was the heir to the Austrian throne and his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg. Princip was a member of a secret society organization named Young Bosnia, a group whose aims included the unification of the Slavs and independence from Austria-Hungary. The assassination in Sarajevo set into motion a series of fast-moving events that escalated into a full-scale world war.
Three years later, a German submarine attacked several American merchant ships, sinking three of them. Also the RMS Lusitania was torpedoed by a submarine which was carrying 150 Americans, and was sunk. This prompted president Woodrow Wilson and the U.S. Congress to declare war on Germany on April 6, 1917. The U.S. also declared war on Austria-Hungary in December 1917. The major allied powers in the war was Serbia, the Russian Empire, France, United Kingdom, the British Commonwealth, Italy and the United States. The major central powers were Austro-Hungarian Empire, the German Empire, the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria. Due to strong allied victories in the summer and autumn it was evident that Germany could no longer mount a successful defense, let alone a counterattack. Numerically on the frontline they were increasingly outnumbered. Rations were cut for men and horses because the food supply was critical. By October 1, 1918 Germany had only two ways out of the War—total annihilation or an armistice. During October, Pershing’s artillery continued to unrelentingly pound the exhausted and bewildered Germans. The Allied pressure did not let up until the end of the war. Over the coarse of four years Germany had suffered 6 million casualties and further fighting became impossible. The collapse of the Central Powers came swiftly. Bulgaria was the first to sign an armistice on September 29, 1918. Prince Maximilian of Baden (Max von Baden) was appointed Chancellor of Germany in October 1918 in order to negotiate an armistice with the allies in the last days of the war. The government's efforts to secure an armistice were interrupted by the outbreak of revolution in Germany in the first days of November. Maximilian, realizing that the Kaiser would not be able to retain his throne, urged him to abdicate in time to save the monarchy itself, but the Kaiser refused to agree. Then Maximilian announced the abdication without the Kaiser's consent, and resigned on 9 November 1918. This was immediately followed by the proclamation of the German Republic. Meanwhile, the German Revolution, triggered by the First World War and beginning before the end of the war in 1918, culminating in the overthrow of the Kaiser and the establishment of the Weimar Republic. The Armistice with Austria was signed on November 3 and with Germany on November 11. A formal state of war finally ended by the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on June 28, 1919 with Germany, and treaties with Austria, Hungary and Bulgaria. The war caused the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the German Empire, and the Russian Empire. Weimar Republic ~ 1919-1933 The Weimar Republic is the common name for the republic that governed Germany from 1919 to 1933. This period of German history is often known as the Weimar period. The republic was named after the city of Weimar, where a national assembly convened to produce a new constitution after the German Empire was abolished following the nation's defeat in World War I. Despite its political form, the new Republic still called itself "Deutsches Reich" (German Empire), the same name used by the German monarchy before 1919. This first attempt to establish a liberal democracy in Germany happened during a time of civil conflict, and failed with the ascent of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in 1933. Although technically the 1919 constitution was not invalidated until after World War II, the legal measures taken by the Nazi government in 1933,commonly known as Gleichschaltung, destroyed the mechanisms of a typical democratic system, so 1933 is cited as the end of the Weimar Republic. Nazi Germany ~ 1933-1934 Nazi Germany, or the Third Reich was under the control of the National Socialist German Workers Party, or Nazi Party, with the Führer Adolf Hitler as chancellor and head of state. In 1943 the government decreed a change of official state name to Großdeutsches Reich (Greater German Empire), which remained in official use until the collapse of Nazi Germany in May, 1945. In addition to Germany proper, the Reich included areas with ethnic German populations such as Austria, the Sudetenland and the territory of Memel. It also included several regions acquired in the midst of World War II. Some had been a part of Imperial Germany prior to the Treaty of Versailles, while other areas, particularly in the case of a few regions in occupied Poland, had not. In addition, the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was also part of the Reich and subject to its immediate jurisdiction. In the wake of the frustrations imposed through the Versailles Treaty, the worldwide economic depression of the 1930's, the counter-traditionalism of the Weimar period and the threat of Soviet-sponsored communism in Germany, many voters began turning their support towards Adolf Hitler's radical Nazi Party. On 30 January 1933, Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany by President Paul von Hindenburg. The new government installed a dictatorship in a series of measures in quick succession. On 27 February 1933 the Reichstag was set on fire, and this was followed immediately by the Reichstag Fire Decree, which rescinded habeas corpus and civil liberties. A further step that turned Germany into a dictatorship virtually overnight was the Enabling Act passed in March 1933 with 444 votes, to the 94 of the remaining Social Democrats. The act gave the government, thus effectively Adolf Hitler, legislative powers and also authorized it to deviate from the provisions of the constitution. With these powers, Hitler removed the remaining opposition and turned the Weimar Republic into the "Third Reich". Further consolidation of power was achieved on 30 January 1934, with the Act to rebuild the Reich. The act changed the highly decentralized federal Germany of the Weimar era into a centralized state. It disbanded state parliaments, transferring sovereign rights of the states to the Reich central government and put the state administrations under the control of the Reich administration. Only the army remained independent from Nazi control. The German army had traditionally been somewhat separate from the government. The Nazi quasi-military "SA" expected top positions in the new power structure. Wanting to preserve good relations with the army, on the night of 30 June 1934, Hitler initiated the Night of the Long Knives, a purge of the leadership ranks of "SA" as well as other political enemies, carried out by another Nazi organization, the SS. At the death of president Hindenburg on 2 August 1934, the Nazi-controlled Reichstag installed Hitler with the new title Führer und Reichskanzler. Until the death of Hindenburg, the army did not follow Hitler. With the death of Hindenburg, the entire army swore their obedience to Hitler. This also brought about the inception of the Gestapo, police acting outside of any civil authority, which highlighted the Nazis' intention to use powerful, coercive means to directly control German society. Soon, an army estimated to be of about 100,000 spies and infiltrators operated throughout Germany. World War II Germany ~ 1939-1945 On September 1, 1939 Nazi Germany invaded Poland. The invasion led the United Kingdom and France to declare war on Germany, accordingly to the agreement that they had with Poland. Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa also declared war on Germany. After the end of the campaign in Poland the war entered a period of relative inactivity known as the Phony War. This ended when Germany invaded Denmark and Norway in April of 1940 and the Netherlands, Belgium and France in May. All of the invaded countries swiftly capitulated and the forces of the United Kingdom and its allies suffered a humiliating defeat in Norway and a near-disastrous retreat from France. The United Kingdom was threatened with an amphibious invasion but during the Battle of Britain the Luftwaffe failed to achieve air superiority and the invasion was postponed indefinitely. Italy declared War on the United Kingdom and France in June of 1940 and became an ally of Germany. Nazi Germany attacked Yugoslavia and Greece in May of 1941 to assist their allies and prevent any possibility of disruption to the production of oil from their oilfields by hostile forces. The Soviet Union had in 1939 invaded Poland together with Nazi Germany in accordance with the secret part of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Stalin counted on Hitler to avoid a two-front war. As long as the war with the British Empire wasn't concluded, Stalin was in no hurry to make defensive preparations, and was rather preparing his army for offensive to take over the wrecked Europe. For the Germans, however, the war in the West was seen as only the overture to the great operations against Communist Russia. The successful campaigns against Poland, Scandinavia and France made Hitler believe the power relations between Nazi Germany and Russia would not again become as favorable. The war against Russia, codenamed Operation Barbarossa, was to be launched soon to unite Western Europe with Nazi Germany. The German campaigns in Greece and North Africa delayed the planned invasion by several weeks, and the invasion was not launched until June 22, 1941. The massive attack still turned out to be a success, conquering whole areas of the Soviet Union's western region. Their only significant strategic failure was the advance on Moscow, which was halted by stiff resistance and a very harsh winter. The following years, however, were less successful on the Eastern Front. The German and Italian defeat in North Africa allowed the Allied forces to contemplate opening up a new theatre of war in the south. Sicily was invaded in July of 1943 leading to the overthrow and imprisonment of Mussolini. In September the Italian mainland was invaded. Shortly afterwards an armistice was signed and Italian troops found themselves arrested and imprisoned by the Nazi Germans. The Germans fought on in Italy and in October the new Italian government declared war on Germany. The campaign in Italy eventually bogged down as the focus of attention for the Western allied was drawn to opening up a new front. In the east the Germans had been steadily withdrawing in the face of increasingly capable Red Army offensives. After the Battle of Kursk in July 1943, an overwhelming victory for the Soviets, the Germans arsenal was depleted of much needed armoured vehicles and Germany was unable to launch another serious offensive in the east. By the time of D-Day invasion on 6 June 1944, German forces were stretched thinly on three fronts. By August, Soviet forces had crossed into eastern Germany. Allied forces crossed the Rhine a month later. In December of 1944 a last ditch effort to strike a blow to the western allies known as the Ardennes Offensive, or Battle of the Buldge, ground to a halt due to lack of supplies and bitter allied opposition. By the beginning of 1945 the regime was beginning to disintegrate. In April, Hitler committed suicide and Germany unconditionally surrendered on May 8, 1945. Cold War Germany ~ 1945-1990 Following Germany's defeat in World War II and the beginning of the Cold War, Germany was split for about 40 years, representing the focus of the two global blocs in the east and west. Only in 1990 would Germany be reunited. At the Potsdam Conference in August 1945 the Allies divided Germany into four military occupation zones, French in the southwest, British in the northwest, United States in the south, and Soviet Union in the east. The historical German provinces east of the Oder-Neisse line, which is East Prussia, Eastern Pomerania and Silesia, were separated from Germany, and put under Polish administration, effectively shifting Poland westward. The intended governing body of what remained of Germany was called the Allied Control Council. The commanders-in-chief exercised supreme authority in their respective zones and acted in concert on questions affecting the whole country. Berlin, which lay in the Soviet sector, was also divided into four sectors with the Western sectors later becoming West Berlin and the Soviet sector becoming East Berlin, capital of East Germany. On 23 May 1949, the Federal Republic of Germany was established on the territory of the Western occupied zones, with Bonn as its "provisional" capital. On 7 October 1949 the Soviet Zone was established as the German Democratic Republic, with East Berlin as its capital. In English the two states were known informally as "West Germany" and "East Germany" respectively. The former German capital, Berlin, was a special case, being divided into East Berlin and West Berlin, with West Berlin completely surrounded by East German territory. Though the German inhabitants of West Berlin were citizens of the Federal Republic of Germany, West Berlin was not legally incorporated into West Germany; it remained under the formal occupation of the western allies until 1990. The constant stream of East Germans fleeing to West Germany placed great strains on East German-West German relations in the 1950s. East Germany sealed the borders to West Germany in 1952, but people continued to flee from East Berlin to West Berlin. On August 13, 1961, East Germany began building the Berlin Wall around West Berlin to slow the flood of refugees to a trickle, effectively cutting the city in half and making West Berlin an enclave of the Western world in communist territory. The Wall became the symbol of the Cold War and the division of Europe. Shortly afterwards, the main border between the two Germanies was fortified. The Cold War lasted from 1947 to the period leading to the collapse of the Soviet Union on December 25, 1991. Between 1985 and 1991 Cold War rivalries first eased and then ended.
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