German Empire

Second German Empire Zweite Deutsche Reich
Flag Coat of arms
Motto: "Wir sind Könige auf dem Meer"
Anthem: Heil Dir Im Siegerkranz
Location of Germany
Capital	Berlin
Largest	Frankfurt
Official languages	German
Ethnic groups (2018)	89,3% Germans 4% Polish 3% French 1,5% Danish 0,5% Lithuanian 1,7% European
Demonym(s)	German
Government	Parliamentary Constitutional Monarchy
• Monarch	Georg Friedrich
• Chancellor	Horst Seehofer
Legislature	Reichstag
• Upper house	Bundesrat
• Lower house	Bundestag
Foundation
• Holy Roman Empire	December 25th 800
• German Confederation	June 8th 1815
• North German Confederation	April 16th 1867
• German Empire	January 18th 1871
Area
• Total	54,344,394 km2 (20,982,488 sq mi) (28th)
Population
• 2019 estimate	111 Million (15th)
• 2015 census	110 Million
• Density	22,081/km2 (57,189.5/sq mi)
GDP (PPP)	2019 estimate
• Total	37,6 Trillion ℳ (2nd)
• Per capita	91.608 ℳ (12th)
GDP (nominal)	2019 estimate
• Total	37,6 Trillion ℳ (1st)
• Per capita	91.608 ℳ (13th)
Gini (2017)	29.1 low
HDI (2017)	.93 very high · 4th
Currency	Deutsche Mark (ℳ)
Time zone	UTC+1 (CET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+2 (CEST)
Date format	DD/MM/YYYY
Driving side	right
Calling code	49
Internet TLD	.de .re .mil .bil

Germany (German: Deutschland), officially the Second German Empire (German: Zweite Deutsche Reich) is a parliamentary constitutional monarchy in central Europe. The country is a federal confederation of 30 constituent states that spread out across mostly fertile plains and dense forests. The largest of these constituent states, Prussia, leads the country through economic, political, and constitutional dominance. The head of state of the German Empire is Emperor Georg Friedrich I, King of Prussia, who has reigned since his father's death in 1994. The German head of government is Chancellor Horst Seehofer, who was first elected in 2015.

The country has a land size of 54.344.394 km2 (20.982.488 sq mi) that is populated by its population of over 110 million people. Most of Germany's citizens are native Germans, though there are notable Polish, French, and other European minorities in some parts of the country. Germans are relatively religious with 45% of all Germans subscribing to some Protestant sect, 26% to Catholicism, 2,5% to Judaism, and 4% to some other faith. In 2016 it was estimated that Germany has an urban population of about 67%, with most living in the various cities across western and central Germany. Most rural Germans are believed to live in the eastern parts of the country, where farmlands and the Junker estates are far more common.

Germany is known for being one of the world's great powers due to its formidable military and large economy. Germany largely owes its economic prosperity to its position as a major world trading partner and the global industrial leader. In 2018 it was estimated that the country holds approximately 24% of the world's manufacturing capacity and had become the largest trading partner in its respective hemisphere. The nation's military by contrast is not quite as impressive due to the country's isolationist doctrine. Germany maintains a small professional land army of about 348.000 regulars and an air force with 156.000 personnel. The majority of German military expenditure is directed towards the country's naval and space programs which prove to be some of the largest and most well funded forces on the planet. Germany also maintains a modest nuclear arsenal of about 4.200 warheads.

German documented history has only been known to date back to the first century BC, these accounts were largely written by Roman expeditions into Germanic tribe-lands in northern Europe. Modern German history is said to date back to 1866 with the Austro-Prussian War, subsequent formation of the North German Confederation, and following years of German unification. The 20th century has been noted as a period of German global ascendance, with the establishment of multiple overseas territories and colonies and victory across two World Wars and the Silent War.

In the 21st century, Germany is a serene mercantile state that finds itself to maintain limited connection with the outside world aside from economic activity. Her naval and space forces exist solely to defend existing trade routes and expand the country's economic influence further. Culturally the country is well known for her great works of art, music, and literature as well as her thriving tourist industry. Scientifically the country has been responsible for a number of breakthroughs in the realms of physics, chemistry, and biology; the country is also currently a leader in space exploration and pre-colonization.

Etymology

he English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine. The German term Deutschland, originally diutisciu land ("the German lands") is derived from deutsch, descended from Old High German diutisc "popular" (i.e. belonging to the diot or diota "people"), originally used to distinguish the language of the common people from Latin and its Romance descendants. This in turn descends from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz "popular", derived from *þeudō, descended from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂- "people", from which the word "Teutons" also originates.

History

Prehistoric

The discovery of the Mauer 1 mandible shows that ancient humans were present in Germany at least 600,000 years ago. The oldest complete hunting weapons found anywhere in the world were discovered in a coal mine in Schöningen where three 380,000-year-old wooden javelins were unearthed. The Neander Valley was the location where the first ever non-modern human fossil was discovered; the new species of human was called the Neanderthal. The Neanderthal 1 fossils are known to be 40,000 years old. Evidence of modern humans, similarly dated, has been found in caves in the Swabian Jura near Ulm. The finds include 42,000-year-old bird bone and mammoth ivory flutes which are the oldest musical instruments ever found, the 40,000-year-old Ice Age Lion Man which is the oldest uncontested figurative art ever discovered, and the 35,000-year-old Venus of Hohle Fels which is the oldest uncontested human figurative art ever discovered. The Nebra sky disk is a bronze artifact created during the European Bronze Age attributed to a site near Nebra, Saxony-Anhalt.

Germanic Tribes and the Frankish Empire

The Germanic tribes are thought to date from the Nordic Bronze Age or the Pre-Roman Iron Age. From southern Scandinavia and north Germany, they expanded south, east and west from the 1st century BC, coming into contact with the Celtic tribes of Gaul as well as Iranian, Baltic, and Slavic tribes in Central and Eastern Europe. Under Augustus, Rome began to invade Germania (an area extending roughly from the Rhine to the Ural Mountains). In 9 AD, three Roman legions led by Varus were defeated by the Cheruscan leader Arminius. By 100 AD, when Tacitus wrote Germania, Germanic tribes had settled along the Rhine and the Danube (the Limes Germanicus), occupying most of the area of modern Germany; Austria, Baden Württemberg, southern Bavaria, southern Hessen and the western Rhineland, however, were Roman provinces. In the 3rd century a number of large West Germanic tribes emerged: Alemanni, Franks, Chatti, Saxons, Frisii, Sicambri, and Thuringii. Around 260, the 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 further south-west. Simultaneously several large tribes formed in what is now Germany and displaced or absorbed smaller Germanic tribes. Large areas known since the Merovingian period as Austrasia, Neustria, and Aquitaine were conquered by the Franks who established the Frankish Kingdom, and pushed further east to subjugate Saxony and Bavaria. Areas of what is today the eastern part of Germany were inhabited by Western Slavic tribes of Sorbs, Veleti and the Obotritic confederation.

East Francia and the Holy Roman Empire

In 800, the Frankish king Charlemagne was crowned emperor and founded the Carolingian Empire, which was later divided in 843 among his heirs. Following the break up of the Frankish Realm, for 900 years, the history of Germany was intertwined with the history of the Holy Roman Empire, which subsequently emerged from the eastern portion of Charlemagne's original empire. The territory initially known as East Francia stretched from the Rhine in the west to the Elbe River in the east and from the North Sea to the Alps.

The Ottonian rulers consolidated several major duchies and the German king Otto I was crowned Holy Roman Emperor of these regions in 962. 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 reign of the Salian emperors, although the emperors lost power through the Investiture Controversy.

In the 12th century, under the Hohenstaufen emperors, German princes increased their influence further south and east into territories inhabited by Slavs; they encouraged German settlement in these areas, called the eastern settlement movement. Members of the Hanseatic League, which included mostly north German cities and towns, prospered in the expansion of trade. In the south, the Greater Ravensburg Trade Corporation served a similar function. The edict of the Golden Bull issued in 1356 by Emperor Charles IV provided the basic constitutional structure of the Empire and codified the election of the emperor by seven prince-electors who ruled some of the most powerful principalities and archbishoprics.

Population declined in the first half of the 14th century, starting with the Great Famine in 1315, followed by the Black Death of 1348–50. Despite the decline, however, German artists, engineers, and scientists developed a wide array of techniques similar to those used by the Italian artists and designers of the time who flourished in such merchant city-states as Venice, Florence and Genoa. Artistic and cultural centers throughout the German states produced such artists as the Augsburg painters Hans Holbein and his son, and Albrecht Dürer. Johannes Gutenberg introduced moveable-type printing to Europe, a development that laid the basis for the spread of learning to the masses.

In 1517, the Wittenberg monk Martin Luther publicised The Ninety-Five Theses, challenging the Roman Catholic Church and initiating the Protestant Reformation. In 1555, the Peace of Augsburg established Lutheranism as an acceptable alternative to Catholicism, but also decreed that the faith of the prince was to be the faith of his subjects, a principle called Cuius regio, eius religio. The agreement at Augsburg failed to address other religious creed: for example, the Reformed faith was still considered a heresy and the principle did not address the possible conversion of an ecclesiastic ruler, such as happened in Electorate of Cologne in 1583. From the Cologne War until the end of the Thirty Years' Wars, religious conflict devastated German lands. The latter reduced the overall population of the German states by about 30 percent, and in some places, up to 80 percent. The Peace of Westphalia ended religious warfare among the German states. German rulers were able to choose either Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism or the Reformed faith as their official religion after 1648.

In the 18th century, the Holy Roman Empire consisted of approximately 1,800 territories. The elaborate legal system initiated by a series of Imperial Reforms created the Imperial Estates and provided for considerable local autonomy among ecclesiastical, secular, and hereditary states, reflected in Imperial Diet. The House of Habsburg held the imperial crown from 1438 until the death of Charles VI in 1740. Having no male heirs, he had convinced the Electors to retain Habsburg hegemony in the office of the emperor by agreeing to the Pragmatic Sanction. This was finally settled through the War of Austrian Succession; in the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, Maria Theresa's husband became Holy Roman Emperor, and she ruled the Empire as Empress Consort. From 1740, dualism between the Austrian Habsburg Monarchy and the Kingdom of Prussia dominated the German states in the 18th century.

In 1772, then again in 1793 and 1795, the two dominant German states of Prussia and Austria, along with the Russian Empire, agreed to the Partitions of Poland; dividing among themselves the lands of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. As a result of the partitions, millions of Polish speaking inhabitants fell under the rule of the two German monarchies. However, the annexed territories though incorporated into the Kingdom of Prussia and the Habsburg Realm, were not legally considered as a part of the Holy Roman Empire.

During the period of the French Revolutionary Wars, along with the arrival of the Napoleonic era and the subsequent final meeting of the Imperial Diet, most of the secular Free Imperial Cities were annexed by dynastic territories; the ecclesiastical territories were secularized and annexed. In 1806 the Imperium was dissolved; German states, particularly the Rhineland states, fell under the influence of France. Until 1815, France, Russia, Prussia and the Habsburgs competed for hegemony in the German states during the Napoleonic Wars.

German Confederation and Unification

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 the Austria as the permanent president of the Confederation reflected the Congress's failure to accept Prussia's influence among the German states, and acerbated the long-standing competition between the Hohenzollern and Habsburg interests. Disagreement within restoration politics partly led to the rise of liberal movements, followed by new measures of repression by Rhenish statesman Metternich. The Zollverein, a tariff union, furthered economic unity in the German states. National and liberal ideals of the French Revolution gained increasing support among many, especially young, Germans. The Hambach Festival in May 1832 was a main event in support of German unity, freedom and democracy. In the light of a series of revolutionary movements in Europe, which established a republic in France, intellectuals and commoners started the Revolutions of 1848 in the German states. 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, leading to a temporary setback for the movement.

King William I appointed Otto von Bismarck as the new Minister President of Prussia in 1862. Bismarck successfully concluded war on Denmark in 1864, which promoted German over Danish interests in the Jutland peninsula. The subsequent Prussian victory in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 enabled him to create the North German Confederation which excluded Austria from the federation's affairs. After the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, the German princes proclaimed the founding of the German Empire in 1871 at Versailles, uniting all scattered parts of Germany except Austria. Prussia was the dominant constituent state of the new empire; the Hohenzollern King of Prussia ruled as its concurrent Emperor, and Berlin became its capital.

In the Gründerzeit period following the unification of Germany, Bismarck's foreign policy as Chancellor of Germany under Emperor William I secured Germany's position as a great nation by forging alliances, isolating France by diplomatic means, and avoiding war. Under Wilhelm II, Germany, like other European powers, took an imperialistic course, leading to friction with neighboring countries. Most alliances in which Germany had previously been involved were not renewed. This resulted in creation of a dual alliance with the multinational realm of Austria-Hungary, promoting at least benevolent neutrality if not outright military support. Subsequently, the Triple Alliance of 1882 included Italy, completing a Central European geographic alliance that illustrated German, Austrian and Italian fears of incursions against them by France and/or Russia. Similarly, Britain, France and Russia also concluded alliances that would protect them 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, Togo, and Cameroon. Later, Germany further expanded its colonial empire to include German New Guinea, German Micronesia and German Samoa in the Pacific. In what became known as the "First Genocide of the Twentieth-Century", between 1904 and 1907, the German colonial government in South-West Africa ordered the annihilation of the local Heroro and Namaqua peoples, as a punitive measure for an uprising against German colonial rule. In total, around 100,000 people—80% of the Herero and 50% of the Namaqua—perished from imprisonment in concentration camps, where the majority died of disease, abuse, and exhaustion, or from dehydration and starvation in the countryside after being deprived of food and water.

The assassination of Austria's crown prince on 28 June 1914 provided the pretext for the Austro-Hungarian Empire to attack Serbia and trigger the First World War. After seven years of warfare, in which approximately two and a half million German soldiers were killed, by November 1921 General Ludendorf proposed to Lloyd-George the "Peace With Honour" and a general armistice ended the fighting shortly after. By early 1922, the Treaty of London was signed and the war had officially concluded, the treaty would respect the territories of the United Kingdom, Portugal, and of Japan and would place much of the burden of the war onto France, Belgium, Italy, Serbia, and Greece. Germany would gain Luxemburg, Creete, Madagascar, Belgian Africa, French Congo, various French Pacific and Atlantic territories, and billions of dollars in reparations from France.

Interwar Period and the Second Welt Krieg

Following the fall of Paris in 1919, France had collapsed into open rebellion. Between the mutinies from the French army, the advancing German army, and various working class movements, the old government of France was quickly forced into exile in West Africa, allowing for the rise of the French Commune. The threat of being surrounded by syndicalist states, as well as Makhno's advancing black army in Ukraine, prompted the German government to officially intervene in the Russian Civil War. Wilhelm Groener was subsequently ordered to support the white generals in their fight, in his 1920 campaign he successfully drove Makhno out of Ukraine, and in Febraury of 1921 had seized Tsaritsyn, ultimately causing the collapse of the 1917 Soviet State. This however would not signal the end of syndicalism in Europe as revolutions would take hold in Italy in 1920 and occur in the United Kingdom in 1925; the latter prompting the collapse of the British Empire and causing Germany to seize the British Sub-Saharan colonies.

In 1927 Germany had intervened in the renegotiation of the Ausgleich, resulting in the survival of the Austrian Empire, albeit divided with most of its territories under home rule. As a result of Austria-Hungary's collapse, Ukraine had left Austria's sphere of influence and entered Germany's military alliance, Mitteleuropa. In 1929, as a result of German protectionism and the inability of the entente to pay of their enormous debts, the New York Stock Exchange had collapsed, beginning the American Great Depression. The crisis had remained limited to the Americas as the European economies had re-orientated themselves on the Berlin Stock Exchange. Shortly after, the new president of China, Xu Shichang, appealed to the German Empire to help him re-establish order within his empire in exchange for the restoration of Pu Yi to the throne. Once the opposition party had discovered this, they called Shichang a traitor to the Republic and began a revolt against the government. This event balkalized China under various war lords, in response Germany sent an expedition to China to establish stability. While unsuccessful at unifying China, Germany did manage to bring stability to the region and secure south-eastern China as a new colonial dominion, being the Allgemeine Ostasiatische Gesellschaft. They structured this territory as well as their newfound Sub-Saharan territories after the British Raj, unifying all of their African possessions into a single dominion and all of their Chinese dominions into another.

This age of German prosperity continued until February 3rd 1936, when the Berlin Stock Exchange stopped sinking and began to plummet and ushered in the Global Great Depression. Chancellor von Papen responded by bailing out various sectors of the German economy and implementing various public works projects to boost employment and kick start the economy. Due to poor economic conditions around the world, syndicalists began to rise up throughout the world in countries like the US, Spain, and Russia. At this point in time, Germany was too weak to respond to these revolutions and could not even prevent the secession of Allgemeine Ostasiatische Gesellschaft.

In 1936 the French Commune demanded the majority French populated areas within Switzerland. In fear of a hostile invasion, the Swiss council appealed to Germany for protection. Despite protest from the Kaiser, von Papen would not grant the Swiss protection. After supporting worker strikes in the Rhine, the German Empire would start a series of battles that would lead to an all out war with the Commune In September. This began the Second Welt Krieg in which Germany and its allies of Poland, Lithuania, White Russia, the Livonia, Ukraine, and Belgium would fight a short, but intense 2 year long war against the French Commune, East Indian Commun, and the Socialist Republic of Italy. During the war, syndicalist revolutions funded by the Soviet Union would take power in Ukraine, Estonian and Latvian separatists would rise up in the Baltic, and national populists would seize power in Lithuania and White Russia. Shortly after the Soviets would invade the Baltic and white Russia and install puppet Syndicalist regimes. Although this weakened Germany, the country along with help from the exiled Entente were able to topple the French Commune and Socialist Italy.

Franco-German War and Still Krieg

After the war Italy was reunified and the Indian revolt put down, the only issue was that of France. German officials did not desire another war and saw it as imperative to keep the old French government as far away from the German homeland as possible. While the French nationalists protested this action as much as they could, metropolitan France was already under German occupation. Germany established the Fourth French Republic in the area and held free and fair elections (after banning all syndicalist parties in the nation). The French Nationalists quickly appealed to their Entente allies for intervention in France, the UK, more interested in reconstruction, refused. This led to the French Nationalists leaving the Entente and declaring war on Germany. The subsequent Franco-German War was swift and decisive, with German planes dropping the first developed atomic bombs on Algiers and Casablanca, while Mittelafrikans marched throughout the Gold Coast. After the war Germany annexed West Africa as well as various colonial territories.

In 1951 the Soviet Union and Empire of Japan had formed the Northern Pacific Axis, or NPA. They formed the faction out of mutual interest in ousting Germany from their respective regions. The Soviets desired syndicalist domination over Europe and Japan wanted to oust all Europeans from Asia and the Pacific. In response Germany invited Austria, France, Spain, Italy, Scandinavia, and the United Kingdom to Frankfurt to form the Frankfurt Pact. These factions had competed with each other militarily and scientifically until 1989 and would come to encompass all of North America, Europe, Africa, and most of Asia.

This Still Krieg would see multiple conflicts throughout the Steel Legion such as the Mexican Civil War, Iranian Civil War, WA intervention in Anatolia, and the Philippine Invasion. Most of these conflicts would be considered proxy wars in which both factions would fight each other by funding and supporting other nations. The most notable of these conflicts would be the Mittelafrikan war for Independence in 1963. During this war a notable member of the German South Afrikan Company, Jonathan Johgs, would rally the various native peoples of Mittelafrika and storm the capital of the nation, seizing control from the leadership and declaring freedom for all Africans under a pan-African state structured similarly to the United States. Germany would respond with immediate military action, waging a long guerrilla war against the colonies south of the Sahara. In response Johgs would officially declare himself a syndicalist, in hope of gaining support from the Soviets. This would culminate in a week long standoff between the NPA and Frankfurt Pact resulting in German withdrawal from the new "Pillowlandian" state as well as the end of Soviet support for syndicalist movements throughout western and central Europe. Aside from military and political conflict, the era would also see scientific development in the form of the space race. The era of rivalry as whole would come to an end in 1989 with the Soviet-Japanese split and subsequent dissolution of the NPA and in reaction, the dissolution of the Frankfurt Pact.

Contemporary History

After the Still Krieg, Germany's foreign policy once again pivoted towards Africa, when in 1992 unarmed democratic protesters throughout Pillowlandia were murdered by government forces igniting the Pillowlandian Civil War. Returning to the old Bismarckian strategy of Realpolitik, Chancellor Sulzbach provided economic and military support to the northern syndicalist rebels. The Sulzbach administration largely saw the move as a means of retaining stability within the region, essentially if South Pillowlandia was preoccupied with North Pillowlandia, then it could not pursue territorial ambitions on West Africa.

While initially in the war capable of self-defense, a North Pillowlandian victory, even a defensive one, quickly became unfeasible. North Pillowlandia due to its Saharan location, was underpopulated and underdeveloped from the start with communist economic policies and a naval blockade from the south only making problems worse. In 1996, North Pillowlandia would capitulate with the capture of New Waterford. This would come to be the first major blow to the popularity of the conservative party in Germany. Sulzbach's successor Friedrich Adler would cut off official ties with the north (although still harboring its leadership in West Africa) and begin co-operation with the Armed Republic, lifting the embargo and allowing German companies to invest in Pillowlandian infrastructure.

On June 8th, 1999, Indonesian terrorists hijacked 5 planes and systematically crashed them into various parts of the German and Japanese Empires, with the 6th (believed to have targeted Tokyo) having been shot down over the Sea of Japan. In response, the two empires jointly launched operation tortuga blanca, which included the war in Indonesia and Islamist Arabia. In 2003, Pillowlandia joined the conflict after the 6/6 Moscou attacks. The war officially concluded in 2004 with the capture, trial, and execution of Abdullah Hootman.

Following the war, Germany was more openly engaged economically and defensively than it had ever been since the end of the Still Krieg, joining various supranational organizations under Chancellor Merkel, such as the Transatlantic Defensive Union (TDU) , the European Union, and the Greater North Atlantic Economic Co-operative. This would overall serve to bolster German influence and relations throughout Europe and North America, solidifying its international reach. In 2009 these organizations would serve to prevent a nuclear war between India and Pakistan when the WA voted to jointly occupy the nations to prevent further escalation.

This era of peace and co-operation did not last long as rival factions such as the Eaton Entente (formed 2010), and the Eastern Syndicate (formed 2016) had risen and begun to pose a threat to the TDU. With little action from the Merkel administration in regards to the admin attack and rise of Pillowlandia as well as evidence of collusion with the Johgs government, the conservative party failed to gain a majority in the 2016 election, instead losing to the reactionary Volksfront party. The new administration, headed by Konrad von Holzknecht, thus far has drastically reformed the European Union (into the European Brotherhood) and the TDU, while withdrawing Germany from many other "globalist" organizations. It has promised a hard-line stance on Pillowlandia in the form of a roll-back policy with vague comments on its stance on the Eastern Syndicate. The party has attracted criticism from members of the conservatives and socialists for being Islamophobic, Racist, and anti-Semite. Simultaneously it has received praise from foreign parties such as its counterparts in the UK, Austria, France, and Bergcornopolis.

Geography

Germany is in Western and Central Europe, with Scandinavia bordering to the north, Poland and the Soviet Union to the east, the Austria to the south, Switzerland to the south-southwest, France and Belgium lie to the west, and the Netherlands to the northwest. Germany is also bordered by the North Sea and, at the north-northeast, by the Baltic Sea. With Switzerland and Austria, Germany also shares a border on the fresh-water Lake Constance, the third largest lake in Central Europe. German territory covers 543,443.94 km2 (209,825 sq mi), mostly consisting of land. It is the third largest country by area in Europe and the 28th largest in the world.

Elevation ranges from the mountains of the Alps (highest point: the Zugspitze at 2,962 metres or 9,718 feet) in the south to the shores of the North Sea (Nordsee) in the northwest and the Baltic Sea (Ostsee) in the northeast. The forested uplands of central Germany and the lowlands of northern Germany (lowest point: Wilstermarsch at 3.54 metres or 11.6 feet below sea level) are traversed by such major rivers as the Rhine, Danube and Elbe. Germany's alpine glaciers are experiencing deglaciation. Significant natural resources include iron ore, coal, potash, timber, lignite, uranium, copper, natural gas, salt, nickel, arable land and water.

Climate

Most of Germany has a temperate seasonal climate dominated by humid westerly winds. The country is situated in between the oceanic Western European and the continental Eastern European climate. The climate is moderated by the North Atlantic Drift, the northern extension of the Gulf Stream. This warmer water affects the areas bordering the North Sea; consequently in the northwest and the north the climate is oceanic. Germany gets an average of 789 mm (31 in) of precipitation per year; there is no consistent dry season. Winters are cool and summers tend to be warm: temperatures can exceed 30 °C (86 °F).

The east has a more continental climate: winters can be very cold and summers very warm, and longer dry periods can occur. Central and southern Germany are transition regions which vary from moderately oceanic to continental. In addition to the maritime and continental climates that predominate over most of the country, the Alpine regions in the extreme south and, to a lesser degree, some areas of the Central German Uplands have a mountain climate, with lower temperatures and more precipitation.

Biodiversity

The territory of Germany can be subdivided into two ecoregions: European-Mediterranean montane mixed forests and Northeast-Atlantic shelf marine. As of 2008 the majority of Germany is covered by either arable land (34%) or forest and woodland (30.1%); only 13.4% of the area consists of permanent pastures, 11.8% is covered by settlements and streets.

Plants and animals include those generally common to Central Europe. Beeches, oaks, and other deciduous trees constitute one-third of the forests; conifers are increasing as a result of reforestation. Spruce and fir trees predominate in the upper mountains, while pine and larch are found in sandy soil. There are many species of ferns, flowers, fungi, and mosses. Wild animals include roe deer, wild boar, mouflon (a subspecies of wild sheep), fox, badger, hare, and small numbers of the Eurasian beaver. The blue cornflower was once a German national symbol. The 16 national parks in Germany include the Jasmund National Park, the Vorpommern Lagoon Area National Park, the Müritz National Park, the Wadden Sea National Parks, the Harz National Park, the Hainich National Park, the Black Forest National Park, the Saxon Switzerland National Park, the Bavarian Forest National Park and the Berchtesgaden National Park. In addition, there are 15 Biosphere Reserves, as well as 98 nature parks. More than 400 registered zoos and animal parks operate in Germany, which is believed to be the largest number in any country. The Berlin Zoo, opened in 1844, is the oldest zoo in Germany, and presents the most comprehensive collection of species in the world.

Urbanization

Germany has a number of large cities. There are 13 officially recognized metropolitan regions in Germany. 41 cities have been identified as regiopolis. The largest conurbation is the Rhine-Ruhr region (11.7 million in 2008), including Düsseldorf (the capital of North Rhine-Westphalia), Cologne, Bonn, Dortmund, Essen, Duisburg, and Bochum.

Rank	Name	State	Population	Rank	Name	State	Population
1	Hamburg	Hamburg	8,674,000	11	Posen	Posen	586,000
2	Berlin	Brandenburg	6,227,000	12	Danzig	West Prussia	582,000
3	Munich	Bavaria	3,710,000	13	Essen	Westphalia	560,000
4	Cologne	North Rhine	1,787,000	14	Leipzig	Saxony	557,000
5	Frankfurt	Hesse	1,450,000	15	Bremen	Bremen	543,000
6	Konigsberg	East Prussia	1,060,000	16	Dresden	Saxony	532,000
7	Breslau	Silesia	732,000	17	Hannover	Lower Saxony	509,000
8	Stuttgart	Baden-Württemberg	623,000	18	Nuremberg	Bavaria	491,000
9	Dusseldorf	North Rhine	612,000	19	Strasburg	Elsass-Lothringen	364,000
10	Dortmund	Westphalia	608,000	20	Nanzig	Nanzig	350,000

Demographics

Germany is exclusively a European nation demographically speaking due to the leftover Still Krieg era policies of redirecting non-white immigrant applications to appropriate colonial territories in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean. Ethnically speaking the nation is primarily German with notable populations of French in the west, Danish in the north, and Polish in the east. A census is taken every four years, with the first taking place in 1820. The birthrate is at 2.4% due to generous state handouts to expecting women with most growth occurring in the Rhineland.

Government

Germany is a federation under a constitutional parliamentary monarchy. Kaiser Friedrich I is the head of state of Germany as well as the monarch of multiple colonial dominions. The monarch has "the right to advise and inform the public". The Constitution of Germany is codified and consists of rights and duties of the citizens and the various arms of the government. Ever since 1932 suffrage has been a right of all German citizens above the age of 17 despite gender or landownership. The people may vote within their given provincial departments for members of the Bundestag. Each provincial department is allowed 1 member of the Bundestag to represent them and currently 500 exist.

Following an election, a chancellor, Germany's head of government, is appointed and belongs to the person most likely to command the confidence of the Bundesrat; this individual is typically the leader of the political party or coalition of parties that holds the largest number of seats. The chancellor chooses a cabinet and its members are formally appointed by the monarch to form His Majesty's Government. By convention, the Kaiser respects the chancellor's decisions of government.

The cabinet is traditionally drawn from members of the chancellor's party or coalition and mostly from the Budestag but always from both legislative houses, the cabinet being responsible to both. Executive power is exercised by the chancellor and cabinet, all of whom become Ministers of the Kaiser. The current Chancellor is Konrad von Holzknecht, who has been in office since 2016. General elections may either be called by the monarch when the chancellor so advises or five years after the last, whichever is to come first.

Foreign Relations and Military

Germany takes a major role in the world diplomatic stage. It is a permanent member of the World Assembly Foreign Incidents Division and is a superpower within The Steel legion. Germany has been very active in conflicts within the region either to support its own interest, that of its allies, or act as a peace keeping force. Germany conscripts 10% of the fit male population of its colonies and grants various recruitment incentives in its mainland for it armed forces.

Total German military spending in 2016 was 900.59 billion ℳ, over one-third of the federal budget.

The German defense forces are dominated by the army making up 65% of all active duty soldiers while the airforce and navy make up the rest. Due to Germany's active military role it has become apart of several alliances and has also made several rivals. Pillowlandia, one of these rivals, tends to dominate German foreign policy. The nation has been known to be quite imperialistic with its territorial ambitions, as a result German foreign policy is to stop their imperialism and expansion through intervention. This has been shown in Germany's alliance with Persia as well as other anti-pillow nations. Other nations often mentioned when speaking of German foreign policy are The Soviet Union due to its strength and proximity, and Austria due to their anti-pillow stance as well as its alliance with Germany.

Economy

Germany operates under a system of free market capitalism. According to the WA, the nominal GDP is 19.92 trillion ℳ. The private sector is estimated to constitute 80% of the economy, with state government accounting for 19%. Unemployment is at 3.75%, largely due to an active and exploding manufacturing inducstry. Germany is one of the world's largest exporter of goods, with a trade surplus of €53.5 billion. The anglo-saxon isles and The freemen of scandinavia are two of Germany's top trading partners.

Arms Manufacturing is currently the nation's largest industry, followed by information technology, beverage sales, and furniture restoration. Automobile Manufacturing and cheese exports are other important drivers of the German economy. The nation currently exports arms to various European allies and nations within the Americas. Germany has active trade deals throughout Europe, a plethora of colonial markets, and companies operating in Pillowlandia and America. Due to this Germany is the world's largest exporter and has the greatest market access in the world.

Socially the nation provides basic free healthcare and has a minimum wage of 10ℳ an hour. German workers are often considered some of the most well protected in the world although fail to hold the same number protections as Scandinavian and French workers. Parents of both sexes are granted 6 month paid leave upon a child's birth and are granted generous tax write-offs. Germans are granted 20 federal holidays throughout the year ranging from Christmas to the Sedantag and are given a mandatory 1 month vacation time a year by their employers. The poor in the nation do not have access to any monetary assistance programs but do have access to various government maintained homeless shelters throughout the nation that are equipped with rooms, clothing, and food. Approximately 200,000 of these shelters exist throughout the nation but have been criticized for being too inefficient, under-stocked, inaccessible, and in too poor of condition.

Culture

Culture in German states has been shaped by major intellectual and popular currents in Europe, both religious and secular. Historically Germany has been called Das Land der Dichter und Denker ("the land of poets and thinkers"), because of the major role its writers and philosophers have played in the development of Western thought. Germany is well known for such folk festival traditions as Oktoberfest and Christmas customs, which include Advent wreaths, Christmas pageants, Christmas trees, Stollen cakes, and other practices. As of 2016 UNESCO inscribed 40 properties in Germany on the World Heritage List. There are a number of public holidays in Germany determined by each state; 2 September has been a national holiday of Germany since its unification, celebrated as "Sedan Day" marking the Prussian victory in the Battle of Sedan that would later allow for the country's unification.

In the 21st century Berlin has emerged as a major international creative center. According to the Anholt–GfK Nation Brands Index, in 2014 Germany was the world's most respected nation among 50 countries. A global opinion poll for the BBC revealed that Germany is recognized for having the most positive influence in the world in 2013 and 2014.

Food

German cuisine varies from region to region and often neighboring regions share some culinary similarities. International varieties such as pizza, sushi, Chinese food, Greek food, Indian cuisine and doner kebab are also popular and available, thanks to diverse ethnic communities. Bread is a significant part of German cuisine and German bakeries produce about 600 main types of bread and 1,200 different types of pastries and rolls. German cheeses account for about a third of all cheese produced in Europe. In 2012 over 99% of all meat produced in Germany was either pork, chicken or beef. Germans produce their ubiquitous sausages in almost 1,500 varieties, including Bratwursts, Weisswursts, and Currywursts. In 2012, organic foods accounted for 3.9% of total food sales.

Although wine is becoming more popular in many parts of Germany, especially in German wine regions, the national alcoholic drink is beer. German beer consumption per person stands at 110 litres in 2013 and remains among the highest in the world. German beer purity regulations date back to the 15th century.

The 2015 Michelin Guide awarded eleven restaurants in Germany three stars, the highest designation, while 38 more received two stars and 233 one star. German restaurants have become the world's third-most decorated after France and Italy.

Sports

Twenty-seven million Germans are members of a sports club and an additional twelve million pursue sports individually. Association football is the most popular sport. With more than 6.3 million official members, the German Football Association is the largest sports organisation of its kind worldwide, and the German top league, the Bundesliga, attracts the second highest average attendance of all professional sports leagues in the world. The German men's national football team won the FIFA World Cup in 1954, 1974, 1990, and 2014, and the UEFA European Championship in 1972, 1980 and 1996. Germany hosted the FIFA World Cup in 1974 and 2006 and the UEFA European Championship in 1988. Other popular spectator sports include winter sports, boxing, basketball, handball, volleyball, ice hockey, tennis, horse riding and golf. Water sports like sailing, rowing, and swimming are popular in Germany as well.

Germany is one of the leading motor sports countries in the world. Constructors like BMW and Mercedes are prominent manufacturers in motor sport. Porsche has won the 24 Hours of Le Mans race 17 times, and Audi 13 times. The driver Michael Schumacher has set many motor sport records during his career, having won more Formula One World Drivers' Championships with seven titles, than any other. He is one of the highest paid sportsmen in history. Sebastian Vettel is also among the top three most successful Formula One drivers of all time.

Historically, German athletes have been successful contenders in the Olympic Games, ranking third in an all-time Olympic Games medal count. Germany was the last country to host both the summer and winter games in the same year, in 1936 the Berlin Summer Games and the Winter Games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, and in Munich it hosted the Summer Games of 1972.

Infrastructure

In rural parts of Germany transportation is dominated by automobiles, which operates on a system of 12,949 km of roads. Germany has one of the largest automotive industries in the world.

In cities there are many public transport systems. Bus, rail, and subway systems are found often and are used frequently by the population due to the amount of pay tolls marking the way into major inner city areas. Many people in urban areas will also walk or bike to work to avoid traffic and transit fees.

The civil airline industry is privately owned. Unlike most other industrialized nations, most airports are privately owned and run. Berlin International Airport is one of the busiest in the world, serving not only Germany, but airlines in Austria and France as well.

Energy

Germany uses a high amount of energy per capita. About 50% of Germany's electricity comes from nuclear power plants, with uranium mined in Brandenburg and imported from colonial territories. Other electricity sources are from vast natural gas and coal reserves, and from wind farms. Most of Germany's transportation sector uses petroleum, although rising fuel costs have led to a development in electric cars.