Prehistory Ancient humans were present in Germany at least 600,000 years ago. The first non-modern human fossil (the
Neanderthal) was discovered in the
Neander Valley. Similarly dated evidence of modern humans has been found in the
Swabian Jura, including 42,000-year-old
flutes which are the oldest musical instruments ever found, the 40,000-year-old
Lion Man, and the 41,000-year-old
Venus of Hohle Fels.
Germanic tribes, Roman frontier and the Frankish Empire in
Trier (
Augusta Treverorum), built in the 4th century From southern
Scandinavia and
northern Germany, the
Germanic peoples expanded south, east, and west, coming into contact with the
Celtic,
Iranian,
Baltic, and
Slavic tribes. Southern Germany was inhabited by Celtic-speaking peoples, who belonged to the wider
La Tène culture. They were later assimilated by the Germanic conquerors. Under
Augustus, the
Roman Empire began to invade lands inhabited by the Germanic tribes, creating a short-lived Roman province of
Germania between the Rhine and
Elbe rivers. In 9 AD, three
Roman legions were defeated by
Arminius in the
Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. The outcome of this battle dissuaded the Romans from their ambition of conquering
Germania and is thus considered one of the most important events in
European history. By 100 AD, when
Tacitus wrote
Germania, Germanic tribes had settled along the Rhine and the Danube (the
Limes Germanicus), occupying most of modern Germany. However,
Baden-Württemberg, southern
Bavaria, southern
Hesse and the western
Rhineland had
been incorporated into
Roman provinces. Around 260, Germanic peoples broke into Roman-controlled lands. After the invasion of the
Huns in 375, and with the decline of Rome from 395, Germanic tribes moved farther southwest: the Franks established the
Frankish Kingdom and pushed east to subjugate
Saxony and
Bavaria. Areas of modern eastern Germany were inhabited by
Western Slavic tribes.
East Francia and the Holy Roman Empire in 843 , born in
Eisleben in 1483, challenged the indulgences of the
Catholic Church, giving rise to the
Reformation and
Protestantism.
Charlemagne founded the
Carolingian Empire in 800; it was
divided in 843. The eastern successor kingdom of
East Francia stretched from the Rhine in the west to the Elbe river in the east and from the North Sea to the Alps. Subsequently, the Holy Roman Empire emerged from it. The
Ottonian rulers (919–1024) consolidated several major
duchies. In 996,
Gregory V became the first German Pope, appointed by his cousin
Otto III, whom he shortly after crowned Holy Roman Emperor. The Holy Roman Empire absorbed northern Italy and
Burgundy under the
Salian emperors (1024–1125), although the emperors lost power through the
Investiture Controversy. Under the
Hohenstaufen emperors (1138–1254), German princes encouraged German settlement to the south and east (). Members of the
Hanseatic League, mostly north German towns, prospered in the expansion of trade. The population declined starting with the
Great Famine in 1315, followed by the
Black Death of 1348–1350. The
Golden Bull issued in 1356 provided the constitutional structure of the Empire and codified the election of the emperor by seven
prince-electors.
Johannes Gutenberg introduced moveable-type printing to Europe, laying the basis for the
democratisation of knowledge. In 1517,
Martin Luther incited the Protestant Reformation and
his translation of the Bible began the standardisation of the language; the 1555
Peace of Augsburg tolerated the "Evangelical" faith (
Lutheranism), but also decreed that the faith of the prince was to be the faith of his subjects (). From the
Cologne War through the
Thirty Years' Wars (1618–1648), religious conflict devastated German lands and significantly reduced the population. The
Peace of Westphalia ended religious warfare among the
Imperial Estates. The
House of Habsburg held the imperial crown from 1438 until the death of
Charles VI in 1740. Following the
War of the Austrian Succession and the
Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, Charles VI's daughter
Maria Theresa ruled as
empress consort when her husband,
Francis I, became emperor. From 1740,
dualism between the Austrian
Habsburg monarchy and the
Kingdom of Prussia dominated German history. In 1772, 1793, and 1795, Prussia and Austria, along with the
Russian Empire, agreed to the
Partitions of Poland. During the period of the
French Revolutionary Wars, the
Napoleonic era and the subsequent
final meeting of the Imperial Diet, most of the
Free Imperial Cities were annexed by dynastic territories; the ecclesiastical territories were secularised and annexed. In 1806 the was dissolved; France, Russia, Prussia, and the Habsburgs (Austria) competed for hegemony in the German states during the
Napoleonic Wars.
German Confederation and Empire Following the fall of
Napoleon, the
Congress of Vienna founded the German Confederation, a loose league of
39 sovereign states. The appointment of the
emperor of Austria as the permanent president reflected the Congress' rejection of
Prussia's rising influence. Disagreement within
restoration politics partly led to the rise of
liberal movements, followed by new measures of repression by Austrian statesman
Klemens von Metternich. The , a tariff union, furthered economic unity. In light of
revolutionary movements in Europe, intellectuals and commoners started the
revolutions of 1848 in the German states, raising the German question. King
Frederick William IV of Prussia was offered the title of emperor, but with a loss of power; he rejected the crown and the proposed constitution, a temporary setback for the movement. , the main residence of the Kings of Prussia and German Emperors King
William I appointed
Otto von Bismarck as the
Minister President of Prussia in 1862. Bismarck successfully concluded the
war with Denmark in 1864; the subsequent decisive Prussian victory in the
Austro-Prussian War of 1866 enabled him to create the
North German Confederation which excluded
Austria. After the defeat of France in the
Franco-Prussian War, the German princes proclaimed the founding of the German Empire in 1871. Prussia was the dominant constituent state of the new empire; the King of Prussia ruled as its
Emperor (), and Berlin became its capital. In the period following the unification of Germany, Bismarck's foreign policy as
chancellor of Germany secured Germany's position as a great nation by forging alliances and avoiding war.
A dual alliance was created with the
multinational realm of
Austria-Hungary; the
Triple Alliance of 1882 included Italy. Britain, France and Russia also concluded alliances to protect against Habsburg interference with Russian interests in the Balkans or German interference against France. At the
Berlin Conference in 1884, Germany claimed several
colonies including
German East Africa,
German South West Africa,
Togoland, and
Kamerun. Later, Germany further expanded its colonial empire to include holdings in the Pacific and
China. The colonial government in South West Africa (present-day
Namibia), from 1904 to 1908, carried out the
annihilation of the local Herero and Nama peoples as punishment for an uprising; this was the 20th century's first
genocide.
a general armistice ended the fighting. In the
German Revolution (November 1918), Wilhelm II and the ruling princes
abdicated their positions.
Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany , dictatorial
Führer of Nazi Germany from 1933 until
his suicide in 1945|upright On 9 November 1918,
Philipp Scheidemann, a Social Democrat,
proclaimed the German Republic, marking Germany's transition to a
federal democratic state. Germany's new leadership signed the
Treaty of Versailles in 1919, accepting defeat by the
Allies. Germans perceived the treaty as humiliating, which was seen by historians as influential in the rise of
Adolf Hitler. Germany lost around 13% of its European territory and ceded all of its colonial possessions. On 11 August 1919, President
Friedrich Ebert signed the democratic
Weimar Constitution.
Communists briefly seized power in Bavaria and a few larger cities, while conservative elements failed to overthrow the central government in the 1920
Kapp Putsch. The
occupation of the Ruhr by Belgian and French troops and a period of
hyperinflation followed. A
plan to restructure Germany's war reparations and the creation of
a new currency in 1924 helped stabilise the government and ushered in the
Golden Twenties, an era of artistic innovation and liberal cultural life. The worldwide
Great Depression hit Germany in 1929, and by 1932 the unemployment rate had risen to 24%. The
Nazi Party led by Adolf Hitler became the largest party in the Reichstag after the
election of July 1932, and
President Hindenburg appointed Hitler chancellor on 30 January 1933. After the
Reichstag fire,
a decree abrogated basic
civil rights, and the first
Nazi concentration camp opened. On 23 March 1933, the
Enabling Act gave Hitler unrestricted legislative power, overriding the constitution, and marked the beginning of Nazi Germany. His government established a centralised
totalitarian state,
withdrew from the League of Nations, and dramatically increased
Germany's rearmament. A government-sponsored programme for economic renewal focused on public works, the most famous of which was the . In 1935, the regime withdrew from the Treaty of Versailles and introduced the
Nuremberg Laws which targeted
Jews and other
minorities. Germany also reacquired control of the
Saarland in 1935,
remilitarised the Rhineland in 1936,
annexed Austria in 1938,
annexed the Sudetenland in 1938 with the
Munich Agreement, and, in violation of the agreement,
occupied Czechoslovakia in March 1939. (Night of Broken Glass) saw the burning of synagogues, the destruction of Jewish businesses, and mass arrests of Jewish people. In August 1939,
Hitler's government negotiated the
Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact that divided Eastern Europe into German and
Soviet spheres of influence. On 1 September 1939, Germany
invaded Poland, beginning
World War II in Europe; Britain and France declared war on Germany on 3 September. In spring 1940, Germany
conquered Denmark and Norway,
the Netherlands,
Belgium,
Luxembourg, and
France. The British repelled German air attacks in the
Battle of Britain in the same year. In 1941, German troops
invaded Yugoslavia,
Greece and the
Soviet Union, and Germany declared war on the United States. By 1942, Germany and its allies controlled most of
continental Europe and
North Africa, but following the Soviet victory at the
Battle of Stalingrad, the Allied
reconquest of North Africa and
invasion of Italy in 1943, German forces suffered repeated military defeats. In 1944, the Soviets
pushed into Eastern Europe; the Western allies
landed in France and entered Germany despite a
final German counteroffensive. Following
Hitler's suicide during the
Battle of Berlin,
Germany signed the surrender document on 8 May 1945,
ending World War II in Europe and Nazi Germany. After the war, surviving Nazi officials were tried for
war crimes at the
Nuremberg trials. Discrimination was institutionalised through legislation and perpetrated at an industrial scale with concentration and
death camps across Europe. The
crimes against humanity culminated but were not limited to what later became known as
the Holocaust, the systematic murdering of around 6 million Jews.
Several other minority groups were targeted: at least 130,000
Romani, 275,000
disabled, thousands of
Jehovah's Witnesses, thousands of
homosexuals, and hundreds of thousands of
political and religious opponents.
Nazi policies in German-occupied countries resulted in the deaths of an estimated 2.7 million Poles, 1.3 million Ukrainians, 1 million Belarusians and 3.5 million
Soviet prisoners of war. and around 900,000 German civilians died. During the later stages of and after World War II, around 12 million
ethnic Germans were expelled from across Eastern Europe, and Germany lost roughly
one-quarter of its pre-war territory.
East and West Germany in 1989 was one of the first developments in the end of the
Cold War, leading ultimately to the dissolution of the
Soviet Union. After the surrender of Nazi Germany, the
Allies de jure abolished the German state and partitioned Berlin and Germany's remaining territory into
four occupation zones. The western sectors, controlled by France, the
United Kingdom, and the
United States, were merged on 23 May 1949 to form the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) (; BRD); on 7 October 1949, the Soviet Zone became the
German Democratic Republic (GDR) (; DDR). They were informally known as West Germany and East Germany. East Germany selected
East Berlin as its capital, while West Germany chose
Bonn as a provisional capital to emphasize its stance that the two-state solution was temporary. West Germany was established as a federal parliamentary republic with a
social market economy. In 1948, West Germany became a major recipient of reconstruction aid under the American
Marshall Plan.
Konrad Adenauer was elected the first
federal chancellor of Germany in 1949. The country enjoyed prolonged economic growth () beginning in the early 1950s. West Germany joined
NATO in 1955 and was a founding member of the
European Economic Community. On 1 January 1957,
the Saarland joined West Germany. East Germany remained under political and military control by the
Soviet Union via occupation forces and became an
Eastern Bloc state, joining the Soviet-led
Warsaw Pact and
Comecon. Although East Germany claimed to be a democracy, political power was exercised solely by leading members () of the
Socialist Unity Party of Germany that was closely aligned with the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union. An extensive domestic intelligence programme, led by the intelligence agency
Stasi was launched, that utilized a vast network of informants to crush dissent. While
East German propaganda was based on the benefits of the GDR's social programmes and the alleged threat of a West German invasion, many of its citizens looked to the West for freedom and prosperity. The
Berlin Wall, built in 1961, prevented East German citizens from
escaping to West Germany, becoming a symbol of the
Cold War. Tensions between East and West Germany were reduced in the late 1960s by Chancellor
Willy Brandt's . In 1989, Hungary dismantled the
Iron Curtain and
opened its Austrian border, triggering a mass emigration of East Germans to West Germany. This had devastating effects on the GDR, where
regular mass demonstrations received increasing support. In an effort to help retain East Germany as a state, the East German authorities eased border restrictions, but this actually led to an acceleration of the reform process, culminating in the
Two Plus Four Treaty under which Germany explicitly renounced claims to the former eastern territories and regained full sovereignty from the Allies. This permitted
German reunification on 3 October 1990, with the accession of the
five re-established states of the former GDR. The
fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 became a symbol of the
fall of Communism, the
dissolution of the Soviet Union, German reunification and ("the turning point").
Reunified Germany and the European Union made
Berlin the
capital of Germany again, with the
Reichstag becoming the seat of the
German parliament in 1999. United Germany was considered the enlarged continuation of
West Germany, so it retained its memberships in international organisations. Based on the
Berlin/Bonn Act of 1994,
Berlin again became the
capital of Germany, while
Bonn obtained the unique status of a (federal city), retaining some federal ministries. The relocation of the government was completed in 1999, and modernisation of the East German economy was scheduled to last until 2019. Since reunification, Germany has taken a more active role in the
European Union, signing the
Maastricht Treaty in 1992 and the
Lisbon Treaty in 2007, and co-founding the
eurozone. Germany sent a peacekeeping force to secure stability in the
Balkans and sent
German troops to
Afghanistan as part of a NATO effort to provide
security in that country after the ousting of the
Taliban. In the
2005 elections,
Angela Merkel became the first female chancellor. In 2009, the German government approved a €50 billion stimulus plan. Among the major German political projects of the early 21st century are the advancement of
European integration, the
country's energy transition () for a
sustainable energy supply, the
debt brake for balanced budgets, measures to increase the
fertility rate (
pronatalism), and
high-tech strategies for the transition of the German economy, summarised as
Industry 4.0. During the
2015 European migrant crisis, the country took in over a million refugees and migrants. == Geography ==