Portal:Germany
Welcome to the Germany Portal!
Willkommen im Deutschland-Portal!
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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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![Emanuel Lasker](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6e/Bundesarchiv_Bild_102-00457%2C_Emanuel_Lasker.jpg/150px-Bundesarchiv_Bild_102-00457%2C_Emanuel_Lasker.jpg)
Emanuel Lasker (German pronunciation: [eˈmaːnuɛl ˈlaskɐ] ; December 24, 1868 – January 11, 1941) was a German chess player, mathematician, and philosopher. He was the second World Chess Champion, holding the title for 27 years, from 1894 to 1921, the longest reign of any officially recognised World Chess Champion in history. In his prime, Lasker was one of the most dominant champions, and he is still generally regarded as one of the strongest players in history.
His contemporaries used to say that Lasker used a "psychological" approach to the game, and even that he sometimes deliberately played inferior moves to confuse opponents. Recent analysis, however, indicates that he was ahead of his time and used a more flexible approach than his contemporaries, which mystified many of them. Lasker knew contemporary analyses of openings well but disagreed with many of them. He published chess magazines and five chess books, but later players and commentators found it difficult to draw lessons from his methods.
Lasker made contributions to the development of other games. He was a first-class contract bridge player and wrote about bridge, Go, and his own invention, Lasca. His books about games presented a problem that is still considered notable in the mathematical analysis of card games. Lasker was a research mathematician who was known for his contributions to commutative algebra, which included proving the primary decomposition of the ideals of polynomial rings. His philosophical works and a drama that he co-wrote, however, received little attention. (Full article...)
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Anniversaries for July 4
![Christian Fürchtegott Gellert](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3e/Christian_F%C3%BCrchtegott_Gellert.jpg/100px-Christian_F%C3%BCrchtegott_Gellert.jpg)
- 1715 – Birth of poet Christian Fürchtegott Gellert
- 1901 – Death of linguist Johannes Schmidt
- 1954 – Miracle of Bern: In the 1954 FIFA World Cup Final, Germany wins 3–2 against Hungary
- 1987 – Klaus Barbie, the Butcher of Lyon is sentenced to life imprisonment
Did you know...
- ... that the first public performance of the two songs of Arnold Schoenberg's Zwei Gesänge, Op. 1, was met with hostile audience reactions?
- ... that Margaret Carroux's German translation of The Lord of the Rings contains errors introduced by her editor?
- ... that Samuel Kummer chose for his first recital as the organist of the restored Frauenkirche in Dresden music by Bach, Brahms, Max Reger, Louis Vierne, and himself?
- ... that the Nazis killed more than fifty Dutch nationals in retaliation for the assassinations of Hendrik Seyffardt and Hermannus Reydon by the Dutch resistance?
- ... that over the course of several decades, the missionaries of New Zealand's German Mission House failed to convert a single person?
- ... that German factory worker Julius Welschof now plays in the National Football League?
- ... that Peter Demetz, who taught German literature at Yale University from 1956 to 1991, was born in Prague where he was persecuted under the Nazis and escaped the Communist regime in 1949?
- ... that Romani Holocaust survivor Philomena Franz wrote about her deportation to Auschwitz, internment in Ravensbrück, escape from a camp near Wittenberge, and concealment by a farmer?
Selected cuisines, dishes and foods
![Pomeranian cuisine is famous for its great variety of fish dishes, such as herring in cream ("Sahnehering", pictured) and Bismarck herring.](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/74/Herring_with_sour_cream_and_onion_and_fried_potato.jpg/220px-Herring_with_sour_cream_and_onion_and_fried_potato.jpg)
Pomeranian cuisine generally refers to dishes typical of the area that once formed the historic Province of Pomerania in northeast Germany and which included Stettin (now Szczecin) and Further Pomerania. It is characterised by ingredients produced by Pomeranian farms, such as swede (Wruken) and sugar beet, by poultry rearing, which has produced the famous Pomeranian goose, by the wealth of fish in the Baltic Sea, rivers and inland lakes of the Pomeranian Lake District, and the abundance of quarry in Pomeranian forests. Pomeranian cuisine is hearty. Several foodstuffs have a particularly important role to play here in the region: potatoes, known as Tüften, prepared in various ways and whose significance is evinced by the existence of a West Pomeranian Potato Museum (Vorpommersches Kartoffelmuseum), Grünkohl and sweet and sour dishes produced, for example, by baking fruit.
Pomeranian farmers were self-sufficient: crops were stored until the following harvest, meat products were preserved in the smoke store of the home, or in the smokeries of larger villages such as Schlawin. Fruit, vegetables, lard and Gänseflomen were preserved by bottling in jars. Syrup was made from the sugar beet itself. (Full article...)Topics
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