Portal:Germany
Welcome to the Germany Portal!
Willkommen im Deutschland-Portal!
Germany (German: Deutschland), officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central and Western Europe, lying between the Baltic and North Seas to the north and the Alps to the south. It borders Denmark to the north, Poland and the Czech Republic to the east, Austria and Switzerland to the south, France to the southwest, and Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands to the west.
Germany includes 16 constituent states, covers an area of 357,578 square kilometres (138,062 sq mi) and has a largely temperate seasonal climate. With 83 million inhabitants, it is the second most populous state of Europe after Russia, the most populous state lying entirely in Europe, as well as the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is a very decentralized country. Its capital and largest metropolis is Berlin, while Frankfurt serves as its financial capital and has the country's busiest airport.
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 Revolution of 1918–19, the empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic. The Nazi seizure of power in 1933 led to World War II, and the Holocaust. After the end of World War II in Europe and a period of Allied occupation, two new German states were founded: West Germany, formed from the American, British, and French occupation zones, and East Germany, formed from the western part of the Soviet occupation zone, reduced by the newly established Oder-Neisse line. Following the Revolutions of 1989 that ended communist rule in Central and Eastern Europe, the country was reunified on 3 October 1990.
Today, Germany is a federal parliamentary republic led by a chancellor. It is a great power with a strong economy. The Federal Republic of Germany was a founding member of the European Economic Community in 1957 and the European Union in 1993. Read more...
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Felix Mendelssohn (3 February 1809 – 4 November 1847) was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period.
A grandson of the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, Felix Mendelssohn was born into a prominent Jewish family. He was brought up without religion until the age of seven, when he was baptised as a Reformed Christian. Mendelssohn was recognised early as a musical prodigy, but his parents were cautious and did not seek to capitalise on his talent.
Mendelssohn enjoyed early success in Germany, where he also revived interest in the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, and in his travels throughout Europe. He was particularly well received in Britain as a composer, conductor and soloist, and his ten visits there – during which many of his major works were premiered – form an important part of his adult career. His essentially conservative musical tastes, however, set him apart from many of his more adventurous musical contemporaries such as Franz Liszt, Richard Wagner, Charles-Valentin Alkan and Hector Berlioz. The Leipzig Conservatoire (now the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig), which he founded, became a bastion of this anti-radical outlook. More...
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Anniversaries for May 21
- 996 – Otto III is crowned Holy Roman Emperor
- 1471 – Birth of artist Albrecht Dürer
- 1873 – Birth of neurologist Hans Berger, inventor of electroencephalography
- 1936 – Birth of biologist Günter Blobel, winner of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
- 1945 – Birth of astronaut Ernst Messerschmid
Did you know...
- ... that Oksana Lyniv founded the Youth Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine in 2016 and conducted them in thirty concerts across ten music festivals in 2022?
- ... that ancient humans cared for a 14,000-year-old puppy?
- ... that a reviewer described the approach of soprano Magdalena Hinterdobler to her role as Grete in Zemlinsky's Der Traumgörge as "bold" and "sassy"?
- ... that Thomas Mann insisted on omitting a passage on homoeroticism in the English translation of his work "On the German Republic"?
- ... that Heike Heubach became the first deaf member of the German Bundestag?
- ... that in opposition to his parents, opera star Joseph Schwarz began his career by running away from home to join a band of traveling minstrels?
- ... that Robert Winterberg's 1911 operetta Die Dame in Rot was adapted into English for Broadway?
- ... that in 1933 Nazi sympathisers attempted to kidnap two German-Jewish filmmakers in Liechtenstein?
Selected cuisines, dishes and foods
Due to its centuries-old history as a major port town the cuisine of Hamburg is very diversified and sapid as ingredients' supply was safe. Until the 20th century, the cuisine of Hamburg was predominantly characterized by the extensive choice of different kinds of fish from the river Elbe and the nearby Baltic Sea. The region of Vierlande supplied Hamburg with fresh vegetables. Fruit came from the area Altes Land and until industrialization the neighbourhood of Wilhelmsburg was considered the ‘milk isle’ of Hamburg. International trade in the Port of Hamburg made spices and exotic nutrition items from India and South America available since the 16th century, which were soon incorporated into civic kitchens.
On this basis, the cuisine of Hamburg developed which regrettably lost some of its characteristics nowadays due to the supraregional harmonization of the North German cuisine. But due to its high economic importance, Hamburg does feature many internationally recognized gourmet restaurants from which 11 were repeatedly awarded with a Michelin star in 2010. (Full article...)Topics
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- Requests: Columbiahalle , German Archaeological Institute at Rome , Deutsche Familienversicherung , Dietlof von Arnim-Boitzenburg , Hennes Bender , Georg Bernhard (1875–1944), Eduard Georg von Bethusy-Huc , Rolf Brandt (1886–1953), Jan Philipp Burgard , Georg Arbogast von und zu Franckenstein , Ferdinand Heribert von Galen , Herbert Helmrich , Monty Jacobs (1875–1945), Hans Katzer , Siegfried Kauder , Heide Keller, Matze Knop , Isidor Levy (1852–1929), Markus Löning , Anke Plättner , Hans Heinrich X. Fürst von Pless , Gerd Poppe , Victor-Emanuel Preusker , Hans Sauer (inventor) , Franz August Schenk von Stauffenberg , Paul Schlesinger (1878-1928),Oscar Schneider , Hajo Schumacher , Otto Theodor von Seydewitz , Dorothea Siems , Werner Sonne , Anton Stark , Udo zu Stolberg-Wernigerode , Christoph Strässer , Torsten Sträter , Joseph von Utzschneider , Jürgen Wieshoff , Hans Wilhelmi ,
- Unreferenced: Unreferenced BLPs, Bundesautobahn 93, Benjamin Trinks, Steeler (German band), Amelie Beese, Zoologisches Museum in Kiel, Emil Krebs, Prussian semaphore system, Partenstein, Peter Krieg, Porsche 597, Christa Bauch, Curt Cress, Stefan Beuse
- Cleanup: 53541 issues in total as of 2024-03-03
- Translate: Articles needing translation from German Wikipedia
- Stubs: Albersdorf, Thuringia, Ingo Friedrich, Berndt Seite, Federal Social Court; 107 articles in Category:German MEP stubs
- Update: Deutsches Wörterbuch
- Portal maintenance: Update News, Did you know, announcements and the todo list
- Orphans: Orphaned articles in Germany
- Photo: Take/Add requested photographs
- Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character ",".
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