UNIVERSITY OF THESSALY

FACULTY OF SCIENCE
DEPARTMENT OF BIOMEDICAL
INFORMATICS
1st SEMESTRE ENGLISH COURSE
SUBJECT:
Germany: A passage from barbarism to leading
Europe

INTRODUCTION
General information about Germany
Federal Republic of Germany or simply Germany as the country is most
commonly known, is a union of states as its official name explicitly indicates, and Berlin
is its capital as well as one of the country's largest cities. The country's official language
is German and euro is its monetary. FRG is the 1st most populated country in European
Union with 80,767,000 inhabitants and the 2nd most populated one in Europe, next to
Russia. Located in central Europe, Germany occupies an area of 357,021km2, which
makes it the 7th largest country in Europe and the 62nd largest in the world.
Stretching from the Northern sea to the Alps, modern Germany finds itself
sharing borders with 9 more European countries of the western and central Europe. The
area of central Europe and (especially the area we now know as Germany which is
located at the heart of central Europe), has repeatedly attracted numerous waves of
emigrants, since it's located at the crossroads of migration routes and it is rich in food and
fresh water resources.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF GERMANY

Prehistoric Germany
The first signs of human presence in central Europe can be traced back to the
Neanderthals who left their marks all over Europe. In many different archaeological sites,
there have been found Neanderthal fossils and artefacts, such as 3 wooden javelins
which were proved to be about 380,000 years old as well as one of the first Neanderthal
fossils, estimated to be about 40,000 years old. Gradually, Neanderthals lost the battle of
dominating their environment for various different reasons and gave place to their genetic
cousins, the Homo Sapiens or Cro-Magnons, who also left their mark on the area.
Migrating waves have never stopped ever since; different tribes and people came and
went, competed, fought or ruled each other.

Germania: Barbarian Germany

During the Bronze Age, Celtic tribes migrated to and inhabited part of central
Europe, where they flourished for centuries. The next migration wave took place some
time from roughly 300 to 500 C.E. when warlike nomadic tribes moved from Nordic
areas (modern Scandinavia) to central Europe. These tribes, which are known as
Germanic tribes managed in the following centuries to supplant Celts. These tribes,
although athropologically related and sharing ethnological characteristics, had no sense
of common interests or common identity.

While the Roman Empire's legions were able to conquer Gaul (modern France)
under the commandment of Julius Caesar, Germanic tribes proved capable and warlike
enough to resist and repel Roman invasion. Certain areas however ( Austria, southern
Bavaria and the western Rhineland), although inhabited by Germanic tribes, were
conquered and turned into Roman provinces.
The relations between Roman empire and Germanic tribes were always tensed
and in the years to come there frequent combats and invasions. In the 3rd century a
number of large West Germanic tribes emerged: Alemanii, Franks, Chatti, Saxons, Frisii,
Sicambri, and Thuringii. As the Roman empire and mainly its western part, had already
began to grow weaker and weaker and crumble, Germanic tribes intensified their
invasions to western Roman empire's provinces and they were the ones who gave the
empire its final blow.
The following centuries, various Germanic states and kingdoms were formed but
they were still lucking a sense of common identity which continued up to the early Dark
ages and led to intense political processes.

Medieval, Reformation and Confessional Germany

In the 800s C.E., Charlemagne established the foundations of the Holy Roman
Empire which included many different Germanic tribes and kingdoms. The creation of a
Germanic state in central Europe, was an important milestone in the development of
German identity, as language and political allegiance fused. During the medieval and
early modern eras, the imperial structure provided the fragmented German territories with
an administrative and legal framework. The unity of the Holy Roman Empire was
shattered, however, during the 16th century, with Martin Luther's protest against the
Catholic Church. This dramatic event, split Germany and eventually all of Europe into
rival confessional camps, Protestant and Catholic. The nadir of this religious strife was
reached in the 17th century, when the Thirty Years' war plunged central Europe into
decades of warfare and misery. The Thirty Years War greatly diminished the power and
the empire was left devastated, with large areas depopulated.
The empire no longer functioned as a confederation of principalities, but rather
became the arena for a struggle for dominance by a few powerful princes. In this
competition, the centralized, militarized state of Prussia emerged as the dominant power
in northern Germany, with Austria, the most powerful principality in the south. These
developments would have dire consequences for Germany in the modern era.

Napoleonic and Weimar Germany

The modern period was ushered into Germany by Napolons revolutionary
armies, who helped facilitate the collapse of the venerable Holy Roman Empire and the
foundation of an ambitious German nation state in its place. After the defeat of Napolon,
the German states were joined in the Austrian-led German Confederation, a loose alliance

established in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna in a futile attempt to restore the old
political order in central Europe.
The rise of Prussia, an aggressive military powerhouse, led to the declaration of a
German empire in 1871, a unified Germany ruled by a Prussian monarch. Under Prussian
leadership, Germany underwent rapid industrialization, and militant German nationalism
flourished in the late 19th century. The reckless ambition of the Prussian ruling house and
Germanys delayed unification prompted the new German nation to demand inclusion
among the major powers of Europe, pressures that contributed to the outbreak of World
War I. World War I proved a disaster for Germany, and the peace afterwards, a disaster
for the world.
According to the punitive Treaty of Versailles, Germany was forced to accept a
series of crushing and humiliating terms. The trauma of war ending in defeat fostered a
combination of political discontent and economic depression in the country that crippled
the fledgling postwar regime, the ill-fated Weimar Republic, Germanys first democratic
government. Germanys first experiment with democratic government proved abortive,
ending in tragedy in 1933.

Nazism and World War II

Amid political and economic chaos, the National Socialist German Workers
Party, a radical fascist group, took control in Germany after their fanatical leader, Adolf
Hitler, was appointed chancellor. Under autocratic Nazi leadership, Germany descended
into a nightmare of totalitarian dictatorship . In the end, Hitler's Thousand Year Reich
lasted only a decade but brought the Germans catastrophic defeat in World War II.

The Cold War: Division and Reunification

After the war, the victorious Allies partitioned the wreckage of Germany, a
division that was ossified during the cold war. The U.S., British, and French zones of
occupation were combined to establish the Federal Republic of Germany, or West
Germany, in 1949,with the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) forming in the
Soviet zone.
While West Germany returned to democratic government and joined the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union, East Germany was part
of the Soviet-controlled Warsaw Pact, its isolation from the West symbolized by the
Berlin Wall.
In 1989, in the course of the peaceful Wende revolution, the East German
government collapsed and the wall came down. In 1990, East Germany was reunited with
West Germany, forming today's unified, federal democracy.

Contemporary Germany
Having emerged from the trauma of its past, todays Germany is a federal
parliamentary republic, with its capital and largest city in Berlin. Having taken its place
among the leading nations of the world, a confident, reunified Germany is a prominent
member of the United Nations, NATO, the EU and the G8 an economic powerhouse
boasting the worlds third largest economy. Germanys growing economic might is
increasingly matched by its diplomatic importance, and this modern democracy maintains
a key position in European affairs and supports a multitude of close partnerships on a
global level.

Economy
Germany's economic potency is a key ingredient of the country's potency.
Germany has the largest and most powerful national economy in Europe, the fourth
largest by nominal GDP in the world. This economic phenomenon has its base in the 19th
century, when Germany was one of the leading nations of the industrial boom in Europe.
German economy has been marked by gradually intensified industrialization ever since
and up to now. After the reunification German economy flourished, mainly based on the
industrial and service sector.
The service sector contributes approximately 71% of the total GDP , industry
28%, and agriculture 1%.The official average national unemployment rate in April 2014
was 6.8%. Germany has one of the highest labour productivity levels in the world,
another key ingredient of Germany's economic success.
Agriculture, although contributing only 1% of Germany's total GDP, has
developed significantly during the last decades. At the time of reunification, western
Germany produced some four-fifths of its food requirements, and increased productivity
and guaranteed prices resulted in vast surpluses (especially of butter, meat, wheat, and
wine). At the beginning of the 21st century, Germanys production of major agricultural
products (e.g., grains, sugar, oils, milk and meat) exceeded domestic consumption,
resulting in both exports and continued surpluses.
As every highly industrialized country , Germany has to deal with issues of
energy resources and environment pollution. In 2008 Germany was the world's sixthlargest consumer of energy, and 60% of its primary energy was imported since Germany
has relatively few domestic natural energy resources. Germany is a major producer of
bituminous coal and brown coal (lignite). Germany's principal source of energy however
is oil, its natural reserves of oil though are small, so that Germany has to import most of
the crude oil needed, as well as many petroleum products.
German supplies of natural gas are significant, but most gas is imported. Principal
sources are the Friesian and North Sea fields of the Netherlands and the Norwegian Sea.

Gas is also imported from Russia via a pipeline from the Czech Republic, with a branch
serving eastern Germany and Berlin.
Bituminous coal, is Germany's most important source of energy, though
extraction is costly and often subsidized. Coal has two major uses: the generation of
electricity and the production of metallurgical coke. A striking feature of the German
economy is the significance of brown coal (lignite). About seven eighths of all the coal is
fed straight to electric power generating stations. A relatively small quantity is pressed
into briquettes for domestic heating.
Most of the energy produced or imported by Germany is used to cover the needs
of industrial production. Germanys principal industries include machine building,
automobiles, electrical engineering and electronics, chemicals, and food processing.
Among the leading automobile manufacturers in Germany are Audi, BMW, Daimler
Chrysler (formerly Daimler-Benz), Ford, Opel, and Volkswagen.
Industrial production is however only one aspect of German economy. Trading is
another significant aspect since Germany is one of the worlds leading exporters. Major
exports include transport equipment (including automobiles), electrical machinery, and
chemicals, as well as some food products and wine. Imports fall into remarkably similar
categories, but in addition they include raw materials and semi-finished products for
industry. More than half of its trade is with members of the EU. Germanys principal
export markets are France, the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, and The
Netherlands. Consequently, like many other countries with an advanced economy,
Germanys service sector (i.e., trade, transport, banking, finance, and administration) is a
leading employer.

Migrant background in Germany

The spectacular growth of German economy since the 1950's, has attracted large
numbers of immigrants and refugees due to various reasons such as civil wars, political
persecutions or simply financial crisis. Most immigrants originate from eastern Europe
and the countries around the Mediterranean sea. Having experienced mass immigration
from the areas mentioned above, was initially a shock to the German society a society
still fighting its own demons until the late 20th century. Although Germany was reluctant
to welcome the so needed foreign labourers, the immigrants finaly managed to became
part of this society and play a role of great importance in Germany's rebuilt and financial
growth. In 1999, the German Parliament passed a new citizenship law that made it easier
for long-term, foreign-born residents to acquire German citizenship, which could be
considered a recognition of the immigrants contributions to the country.
As of 2011, about six million foreign citizens (7.7% of the population) were
registered in Germany. Regarding ethnic background, 20% of the country's residents, or
more than 16 million people, were of foreign or partially foreign descent in 2009 , 96% of
whom lived in the former West Germany or Berlin.

Conclusion
Germany of the 21st century has come a very long way and has rightfully earned
its leading role within EU and NATO. German society has undergone an even greater
series of transformations that led to a multicultural society.

RESOURCES
Germany by William R. Horne
A BRIEF HISTORY OF GERMANY by Jason P. Coy
http://en.wikipedia.org/
http://www.britannica.com/