Germany Destination News

DEPENDENCIES 

Germany has no territories or colonies. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Annesley, Claire (ed.). A Political and Economic Dictionary of Western 

Europe. Philadelphia: Routledge/Taylor and Francis, 2005. 

Berg-Schlosser, Dirk and Ralf Rytlewski (eds.). Political Culture in 

Germany. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993. 

Briel, Holger (ed.). German Culture and Society: Th e Essential 

Glossary. London: Arnold, 2002. 

Bullock, Alan Louis Charles. Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives. London: 

Harper-Collins, 1991. 

Eckhart, Karl, et al. (eds.). Social, Economic and Cultural Aspects 

in the Dynamic Changing Process of Old Industrial Regions: 

Ruhr District (Germany), Upper Silesia (Poland), Ostrava Region 

(Czech Republic). Piscataway, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 2003. 

Gortemaker, Manfred. Unifying Germany, 1989–1990. New York: 

St. Martin’s Press, 1994. 

Hiden, John. Republican and Fascist Germany: Th emes and Variations 

in the History of Weimar and the Th ird Reich, 1918–45. New 

York: Longman, 1996. 

International Smoking Statistics: A Collection of Historical Data 

from 30 Economically Developed Countries. New York: Oxford 

University Press, 2002. 

Mitcham, Samuel W. Retreat to the Reich: Th e German Defeat in 

France, 1944. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2000. 

Sarkar, Saral K. Green-alternative Politics in West Germany. New 

York: United Nations University Press, 1993. 

Shirer, William L. Th e Rise and Fall of the Th ird Reich. New York: 

Simon and Schuster, 1960. 

Summers, Randal W., and Allan M. Hoff man (ed.). Domestic Violence: 

A Global View. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2002. 

Tipton, Frank B. A History of Modern Germany Since 1815. Berkeley: 

University of California Press, 2003. 

Verhey, Jeff rey. Th e Spirit of 1914: Militarism, Myth and Mobilization 

in Germany. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. 

Vogt, Henri. Between Utopia and Disillusionment: A Narrative 

of the Political Transformation in Eastern Europe. New York: 

Berghahn Books, 2004. 

Wessels, Wolfgang, Andreas Maurer, and Jürgan Mittag (eds.). Fifteen 

into One?: the European Union and Its Member States. New 

York: Palgrave, 2003.

German infl uence on Western thought can be traced back at least 

as far as the 13th century, to the great scholastic philosopher, naturalist, 

and theologian Albertus Magnus (Albert von Bollstädt, 

d.1280) and the mystic philosopher Meister Eckhart (1260?– 

1327?). Philipp Melanchthon (Schwartzerd, 1497–1560) was a 

scholar and religious reformer. Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz 

(1646–1716) was an outstanding philosopher, theologian, mathematician, 

and natural scientist. Th e next two centuries were 

dominated by the ideas of Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), Moses 

Mendelssohn (1729–86), Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814), 

Friedrich Ernst Daniel Schleiermacher (1768–1834), Georg Wilhelm 

Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831), Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph 

von Schelling (1775–1854), Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860), 

Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach (1804–72), Karl Marx (1818–83), 

Friedrich Engels (1820–95), and Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche 

(1844–1900). In the 20th century, Edmund Husserl (1859–1938), 

Oswald Spengler (1880–1936), Karl Jaspers (1883–1969), Martin 

Heidegger (1889–1976), and Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900–2002) 

are highly regarded. Figures of the Frankfurt School of social and 

political philosophy include Th eodor Adorno (1903–1969), Max 

Horkheimer (1895–1973), Walter Benjamin (1892–1940), Herbert 

Marcuse (1898–1979), and Jürgen Habermas (b.1929). Political 

theorist Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) is also highly regarded, 

as is Carl Schmitt (1888–1985). One of the founders of modern 

Biblical scholarship was Julius Wellhausen (1844–1918). Franz 

Rosenzweig (1886–1929) was one of the most infl uential modern 

Jewish religious thinkers, as was Gershom Scholem (1897–1982). 

Among the most famous German scientists are Johann Rudolf 

Glauber (1694–1768), Justus von Liebig (1803–73), Robert Wilhelm 

Bunsen (1811–99), and Nobel Prize winners Hermann Emil 

Fischer (1852–1919), Adolf von Baeyer (1835–1917), Eduard Buchner 

(1860–1917), Wilhelm Ostwald (1853–1932), Otto Wallach 

(1847–1931), Richard Martin Willstätter (1872–1942), Fritz Haber 

(1868–1934), Walther Nernst (b.Poland, 1864–1941), Heinrich 

Otto Wieland (1877–1957), Adolf Otto Reinhold Windaus (1876– 

1959), Carl Bosch (1874–1940), Friedrich Bergius (1884–1949), 

Otto Hahn (1879–1968), Hans Fischer (1881–1945), Friedrich 

Bergius (1884–1949), Georg Wittig (1897–1987), Adolf Butenandt 

(1903–1995), Otto Diels (1876–1954), Kurt Alder (1902–58), Hermann 

Staudinger (1881–1965), Karl Ziegler (1898–1973), Manfred 

Eigen (b.1927), Ernst Otto Fischer (b.1918), Johann Deisenhofer 

(b.1943), Robert Huber (b.1937), and Hartmut Michel (b.1948) 

in chemistry; Karl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855), Georg Simon 

Ohm (1787–1854), Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz 

(1821–94), Heinrich Rudolf Hertz (1857–1894), and Nobel Prize 

winners Wilhelm Konrad Röntgen (1845–1923), Max Karl Ernst 

Ludwig Planck (1858–1947), Albert Einstein (1879–1955), Gustav 

Ludwig Hertz (1887–1975), Werner Heisenberg (1901–76), Walter 

Bothe (1891–1957), Carl-Friedrich von Weizsäcker (b.1912), 

Rudolf Mössbauer (b.1929), Hans Bethe (1906–2005), Klaus 

von Klitzing (b.1943), Ernst Ruska (1906–1988), Gerd Binnig 

(b.1947), Johannes Georg Bednorz (b.1950), Hans Georg Dehmelt 

(b.Germany, 1922), Wolfgang Paul (1913–1993), Wolfgang Ketterle 

(b.1957), and Th eodor Wolfgang Hänsch (b.1941) in physics; 

Rudolf Virchow (1821–1902), August von Wassermann (1866– 

1925), and Nobel Prize winners Robert Koch (1843–1910), Paul 

Ehrlich (1854–1915), Emil von Behring (1854–1917), Otto H. 

Warburg (1883–1970), Konrad Lorenz (Austria, 1903–89), Konrad 

Emil Bloch (1912–2000), Feodor Felix Konrad Lynen (1911– 

1979), Max Delbrück (b.Germany 1906–1981), Sir Bernard Katz 

(b.Germany 1911–2003), Georges Jean Franz Köhler (1946– 

1995), Erwin Neher (b.1944), Bert Sakmann (b.1942), Christiane 

Nüsslein-Volhard (b.1942), and Günter Blobel (b.1936), in physiology 

or medicine; earth scientists Alexander von Humboldt 

(1769–1859) and Karl Ernst Richter (1795–1863); and mathematician 

Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann (1826–66). Notable 

among German inventors and engineers are Gabriel Daniel 

Fahrenheit (1686–1736), developer of the thermometer; Gottlieb 

Daimler (1834–1900), Rudolf Diesel (b.Paris, 1858–1913), and Felix 

Wankel (1902–88), developers of the internal combustion engine; 

airship builder Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin (1838–1917); 

and rocketry pioneer Wernher von Braun (1912–77). Leading social 

scientists, in addition to Marx and Engels, were the historians 

Leopold von Ranke (1795–1886) and Th eodor Mommsen (1817– 

1903), Nobel Prize winner in literature; the political economist 

Georg Friedrich List (1789–1846); the sociologists Georg Simmel 

(1858–1918) and Max Weber (1864–1920); and the German-born 

anthropologist Franz Boas (1858–1942). Johann Joachim Winckelmann 

(1717–68) founded the scientifi c study of classical art and 

archaeology. Heinrich Schliemann (1822–90) uncovered the remains 

of ancient Troy, Mycenae, and Tiryns; Wilhelm Dörpfeld 

(1853–1940) continued his work. 

Outstanding fi gures in German political history are the Holy 

Roman emperors Otto I (the Great, 912–973), Frederick I (Barbarossa, 

1123–90), Frederick II (1194–1250), and Spanish-born 

Charles V (1500–58); Frederick William (1620–88), the “great 

elector” of Brandenburg; his great-grandson Frederick II (the 

Great, 1712–86), regarded as the most brilliant soldier and statesman 

of his age; Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck (1815–98), the 

Prussian statesman who made German unity possible; Austrianborn 

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945), founder of Nazism and dictator 

of Germany (1933–45); and Konrad Adenauer (1876–1967), FRG 

chancellor (1948–63). Walter Ernst Karl Ulbricht (1893–1973), 

chairman of the Council of State (1960–73), and leader of the SED 

from 1950 to 1971, was the dominant political fi gure in the GDR 

until his death in 1973. Erich Honecker (1912–94) became fi rst 

secretary of the SED in 1971 and was chairman of the Council of 

State and SED general secretary from 1976 until the FRG and GDR 

merged in 1990. Willi Stoph (1914–1999), a member of the Polit 

buro since 1953, served as chairman of the Council of Ministers in 

1964–73 and again from 1976 on. Willy Brandt (1913–1992), FRG 

chancellor (1969–74) won the Nobel Peace Prize for his policy of 

Ostpolitik. Other Nobel Peace Prize winners were Ludwig Quidde 

(1858–1941), Gustav Stresemann (1878–1929), Carl von Ossietzky 

(1889–1938), and Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965). 

Baron Friedrich Wilhelm Ludolf Gerhard Augustin von Steuben 

(1730–94) was a general in the American Revolution. Karl 

von Clausewitz (1780–1831) is one of the great names connected 

with the science of war. Important military leaders were Hellmuth 

von Moltke (1800–1891); Gen. Paul von Hindenburg (1847–1934), 

who also served as president of the German Reich (1925–34); and 

Gen. Erwin Rommel (1891–1944). 

Pope Benedict XVI (b.Joseph Alois Ratzinger, 1927) became the 

265th pope in 2005. He is the ninth German pope, the last being 

the Dutch-German Adrian VI (1522–1523).