Portal:Germany
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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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The Unionskirche (Union Church) is the active Protestant parish church of Idstein, a town in the Rheingau-Taunus district in the German state of Hesse. Idstein was a residence of the counts of Nassau. The church building in the center of the historic Altstadt (old town) dates back to the 14th century when it was built as a collegiate church. It became Lutheran during the Reformation. Its interior was adapted in the 17th century to become a Lutheran Predigt- und Hofkirche (sermon and court church). The most prominent decoration in the church is the series of 38 paintings by the Flemish painter Michael Angelo Immenraedt, an exponent of Flemish Baroque painting, and others. They follow a program of biblical scenes.
The church was named Unionskirche in 1917 to commemorate the union of Lutheran and Reformed Protestants in the Duchy of Nassau in August 1817, the first of its kind (before the Prussian Union in September of the same year). The Unionskirche is a recognized monument under the Hague Convention. It is used by the Protestant congregation, and it is open to other institutions as a concert venue, including concerts of the Rheingau Musik Festival. It features an organ built in 1912 by Walcker Orgelbau and retaining the historic case dating back to 1783.
The church was restored from 2012 to 2017, completed for 500 years since the Reformation and 200 years since the Union. The restoration was awarded the Hessischer Denkmalschutzpreis (Hessian monument preservation prize). (Full article...)
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Anniversaries for May 7
- 1523 - Death of knight Franz von Sickingen
- 1617 - Death of astronomer David Fabricius
- 1833 - Birth of composer Johannes Brahms
- 1915 - A German submarine sinks the RMS Lusitania, about 1200 people die
- 1998 - The merger of Daimler-Benz and Chrysler Corporation to form DaimlerChrysler is announced
Did you know...
- ... that Oksana Lyniv founded the Youth Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine in 2016 and conducted them in thirty concerts across ten music festivals in 2022?
- ... that Thomas Mann insisted on omitting a passage on homoeroticism in the English translation of his work "On the German Republic"?
- ... that Heike Heubach became the first deaf member of the German Bundestag?
- ... that in opposition to his parents, opera star Joseph Schwarz began his career by running away from home to join a band of traveling minstrels?
- ... that Robert Winterberg's 1911 operetta Die Dame in Rot was adapted into English for Broadway?
- ... that in 1933 Nazi sympathisers attempted to kidnap two German-Jewish filmmakers in Liechtenstein?
- ... that in just one night, thousands of books on the experiences and medical care of transgender people in Nazi Germany were burned for being "un-German"?
- ... that Tilmann Köhler directed Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro in 2023 with playful "serious games" in which the women win by "wit, cleverness and presence of mind"?
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Due to its centuries-old history as a major port town the cuisine of Hamburg is very diversified and sapid as ingredients' supply was safe. Until the 20th century, the cuisine of Hamburg was predominantly characterized by the extensive choice of different kinds of fish from the river Elbe and the nearby Baltic Sea. The region of Vierlande supplied Hamburg with fresh vegetables. Fruit came from the area Altes Land and until industrialization the neighbourhood of Wilhelmsburg was considered the ‘milk isle’ of Hamburg. International trade in the Port of Hamburg made spices and exotic nutrition items from India and South America available since the 16th century, which were soon incorporated into civic kitchens.
On this basis, the cuisine of Hamburg developed which regrettably lost some of its characteristics nowadays due to the supraregional harmonization of the North German cuisine. But due to its high economic importance, Hamburg does feature many internationally recognized gourmet restaurants from which 11 were repeatedly awarded with a Michelin star in 2010. (Full article...)Topics
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