nation draft Germany
A young nation with an old, many-centred culture, which has made facing the darkest chapter of its past part of who it is, and is still learning to be one country after forty years apart.
Brandenburg Gate · Thomas Wolf, www.foto-tw.de, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Understanding a German in 5 minutes
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Facing the past
No country has built so much of its identity around confronting its own crimes. Germans call it Vergangenheitsbewältigung, "working through the past": the Holocaust and Nazi rule are taught in depth at school, marked by memorials in every city and by brass "stumbling stones" outside victims' homes. It took decades, and the 1950s were largely silent. Many Germans carry the history as responsibility, not personal guilt, and some now argue about how memory should work in a diverse country.
- Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil — Susan Neiman, Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2019)
- A History of Germany 1918–2014: The Divided Nation — Mary Fulbrook, Wiley-Blackwell (2015)
- The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939–1945 — Saul Friedländer, HarperCollins (2007)
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A country of regions
Germany has been a single state only since 1871, and for most of its history it was a patchwork of kingdoms, bishoprics and free cities inside the Holy Roman Empire. That is why it is still federal, with sixteen states (Länder) that run schools and police, many regional capitals, and strong dialects and loyalties. Many people feel Bavarian, Saxon or Hamburgish as much as German, and Heimat, home region, is a word with real warmth.
- Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire — Peter H. Wilson, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2016)
- A Nation of Provincials: The German Idea of Heimat — Celia Applegate, University of California Press (1990)
- Germany: Memories of a Nation — Neil MacGregor, Allen Lane (2014)
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Two Germanys, one country
From 1949 to 1990 Germans lived in two states: the democratic, capitalist Federal Republic in the West and the communist GDR in the East, divided after 1961 by the Berlin Wall. Reunification on 3 October 1990 was a joy, but the economic shock that followed left lasting differences in wages, wealth and politics. Ossi (easterner) and Wessi (westerner) are still identities, and many easterners feel their experience is overlooked.
- A History of Germany 1918–2014: The Divided Nation — Mary Fulbrook, Wiley-Blackwell (2015)
- Lütten Klein: Leben in der ostdeutschen Transformationsgesellschaft — Steffen Mau, Suhrkamp (2019)
- Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949–1990 — Katja Hoyer, Allen Lane (2023)
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Order, rules and reliability
Many Germans value clear rules, planning, punctuality and doing things properly, from recycling to quiet Sundays. Historians link some of this to bitter experience of chaos: the Thirty Years' War, the hyperinflation of 1923 and the collapse of 1945. It is easy to caricature. Germans are also quick to question authority, protest in large numbers and debate fiercely, and the stereotype of the humourless rule-follower annoys them.
- Europe's Tragedy: A History of the Thirty Years War — Peter H. Wilson, Allen Lane (2009)
- The Great Disorder: Politics, Economics, and Society in the German Inflation, 1914–1924 — Gerald D. Feldman, Oxford University Press (1993)
- Germany: Memories of a Nation — Neil MacGregor, Allen Lane (2014)
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Prosperity with a social conscience
After 1948 West Germany rose from rubble to Europe's largest economy, built on engineering, exports, family-owned Mittelstand firms and a "social market economy" with strong unions and welfare. That model, and the trauma of the 1923 inflation, help explain why many Germans prize stability, savings and cautious public finances. Today the model is under strain from high energy costs, an ageing population and competition from China.
- Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 — Tony Judt, Penguin (2005)
- The Great Disorder: Politics, Economics, and Society in the German Inflation, 1914–1924 — Gerald D. Feldman, Oxford University Press (1993)
- A History of Germany 1918–2014: The Divided Nation — Mary Fulbrook, Wiley-Blackwell (2015)
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Europe, peace and a changing role
After two world wars, Germans built their security on European integration, reconciliation with France and Poland, and a deep reluctance to use military force. Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 shook that settlement: Chancellor Scholz called it a Zeitenwende, a turning point, and Germany began rearming. Many Germans still feel uneasy about military power, and about flags and national pride.
- Policy statement by Chancellor Olaf Scholz to the German Bundestag, 27 February 2022 — Olaf Scholz, Press and Information Office of the Federal Government (2022)
- Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 — Tony Judt, Penguin (2005)
- A History of Germany 1918–2014: The Divided Nation — Mary Fulbrook, Wiley-Blackwell (2015)
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A country of immigration
For a century Germans emigrated, above all to America. Since the 1950s Germany has drawn guest workers from Italy, Turkey and Yugoslavia, ethnic Germans from the former Soviet bloc, and refugees from the Balkans, Syria and Ukraine. In 2025 about 26% of people had an immigration history. Politicians long denied Germany was an immigration country; how to belong together is now one of its biggest debates.
- 21.8 million people in Germany with an immigration history in 2025 (press release) — Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) (2026)
- Gastarbeiter/-innen (lexicon entry) — Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung
- Migration Report 2015 — Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) (2016)
The story
The Holy Roman Empire
962 – 1516 The Holy Roman Empire
For more than eight centuries German lands formed the core of a loose, many-layered empire rather than a single state.
- Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire — Peter H. Wilson, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2016)
- Germany: Memories of a Nation — Neil MacGregor, Allen Lane (2014)
- A Concise History of Germany — Mary Fulbrook, Cambridge University Press (2019)
Read more
- Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire — Peter H. Wilson, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2016)
- Germany: Memories of a Nation — Neil MacGregor, Allen Lane (2014)
- A Concise History of Germany — Mary Fulbrook, Cambridge University Press (2019)
The Empire's patchwork of kingdoms, bishoprics, duchies and free cities is why Germany is still a federal country of strong regions, many capitals and fierce local loyalties. Many Germans now see its messy, negotiated way of sharing power as a distant ancestor of the EU and of the Federal Republic, rather than as a failed nation-state.
When the East Frankish king Otto I was crowned emperor in Rome in 962, he revived a western imperial title first given to Charlemagne in 800. The Empire that followed, later called the "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation", lasted until 1806.
Reformation & religious wars
1517 – 1648 Luther and the Reformation
Martin Luther's challenge to the Church from Wittenberg splits Western Christianity into Catholic and Protestant camps and divides German lands between them.
- Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet — Lyndal Roper, Bodley Head (2016)
- Germany: Memories of a Nation — Neil MacGregor, Allen Lane (2014)
- Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire — Peter H. Wilson, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2016)
- A Concise History of Germany — Mary Fulbrook, Cambridge University Press (2019)
- Reformation: Europe's House Divided, 1490–1700 — Diarmaid MacCulloch, Allen Lane (2003)
- Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes — Eamon Duffy, Yale University Press (2014)
- A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years — Diarmaid MacCulloch, Allen Lane (2009)
- Catechism of the Catholic Church (2nd edition) — Holy See, Libreria Editrice Vaticana (1997)
- What Happened at Vatican II — John W. O'Malley, Harvard University Press (2008)
Read more
- Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet — Lyndal Roper, Bodley Head (2016)
- Germany: Memories of a Nation — Neil MacGregor, Allen Lane (2014)
- Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire — Peter H. Wilson, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2016)
- A Concise History of Germany — Mary Fulbrook, Cambridge University Press (2019)
- Reformation: Europe's House Divided, 1490–1700 — Diarmaid MacCulloch, Allen Lane (2003)
- Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes — Eamon Duffy, Yale University Press (2014)
- A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years — Diarmaid MacCulloch, Allen Lane (2009)
- Catechism of the Catholic Church (2nd edition) — Holy See, Libreria Editrice Vaticana (1997)
- What Happened at Vatican II — John W. O'Malley, Harvard University Press (2008)
The Reformation gave Germany much of its written language, a culture of Bible-reading and schooling, and a religious map that still shows: a more Protestant north and east, a more Catholic south and west. Many Germans see in Luther the root of a habit of conscience and of arguing from principle, and also, more uneasily, of obedience to the state and of Christian hostility to Jews.
By 1500 the Western church was the backbone of European life and a target of mounting criticism. Renaissance popes like Alexander VI Borgia behaved as Italian princes, many clergy were poorly educated, and church offices were bought and sold.
Luther recovered the Gospel from a corrupt Church: salvation by grace through faith alone, the authority of Scripture alone and the priesthood of all believers.
The late-medieval church badly needed reform, and Catholics now acknowledge real abuses such as the sale of indulgences and share the blame for the split.
Luther's 1543 tract "On the Jews and Their Lies" urged burning synagogues and driving Jews out.
Most of the world's Protestants now live in Africa, Asia and Latin America and know Luther more as a spiritual ancestor than a German hero.
The Thirty Years' War
A war of religion and power fought largely on German soil kills at least a fifth of the Empire's people.
- Europe's Tragedy: A History of the Thirty Years War — Peter H. Wilson, Allen Lane (2009)
- Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire — Peter H. Wilson, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2016)
- Germany: Memories of a Nation — Neil MacGregor, Allen Lane (2014)
Read more
- Europe's Tragedy: A History of the Thirty Years War — Peter H. Wilson, Allen Lane (2009)
- Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire — Peter H. Wilson, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2016)
- Germany: Memories of a Nation — Neil MacGregor, Allen Lane (2014)
For centuries the war was Germany's great folk memory of catastrophe, passed down in stories, hymns and Grimmelshausen's novel Simplicissimus. It fed a lasting fear of chaos and of foreign armies fighting over German land, and a deep value placed on order, peace and settled rules. The Peace of Westphalia is still cited as a model of negotiated coexistence.
The war began in 1618 when Protestant nobles in Prague threw two imperial officials out of a castle window (they survived) in protest at Habsburg Catholic policies. A Bohemian revolt became a European war: Spain, Denmark, Sweden and Catholic France all intervened, and German lands became the battlefield.
Older accounts claimed the Empire lost a third or even half of its people.
The German Empire
1871 – 1918 Prussia and the Unification of Germany
After three wars led by Prussia, the German Empire is proclaimed in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles.
- Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600–1947 — Christopher Clark, Allen Lane (2006)
- Bismarck: A Life — Jonathan Steinberg, Oxford University Press (2011)
- A Concise History of Germany — Mary Fulbrook, Cambridge University Press (2019)
- Germany: Memories of a Nation — Neil MacGregor, Allen Lane (2014)
Read more
- Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600–1947 — Christopher Clark, Allen Lane (2006)
- Bismarck: A Life — Jonathan Steinberg, Oxford University Press (2011)
- A Concise History of Germany — Mary Fulbrook, Cambridge University Press (2019)
- Germany: Memories of a Nation — Neil MacGregor, Allen Lane (2014)
Germany as a single state is only about 150 years old, younger than the United States. It was made from above by Prussian arms rather than from below by the liberal revolutionaries of 1848, and historians still debate what that meant for Germany's path. The black-red-gold flag of 1848, not the black-white-red of 1871, is the flag of today's democracy.
Prussia began as a poor, scattered state around Berlin and Königsberg. In the eighteenth century its kings, above all Frederick the Great (r. 1740–86), built a disciplined army and an efficient bureaucracy that made it a great power.
Some historians, notably Hans-Ulrich Wehler, argued that unification under Prussian militarism and a weak parliament set Germany on a Sonderweg, a special path toward 1933.
The First World War and the Treaty of Versailles
About two million German soldiers die, the Kaiser falls, and a punitive peace leaves a bitterness the Nazis would exploit.
- Peacemakers: The Paris Conference of 1919 and Its Attempt to End War — Margaret MacMillan, John Murray (2001)
- A History of Germany 1918–2014: The Divided Nation — Mary Fulbrook, Wiley-Blackwell (2015)
- The Coming of the Third Reich — Richard J. Evans, Penguin (2003)
Read more
- Peacemakers: The Paris Conference of 1919 and Its Attempt to End War — Margaret MacMillan, John Murray (2001)
- A History of Germany 1918–2014: The Divided Nation — Mary Fulbrook, Wiley-Blackwell (2015)
- The Coming of the Third Reich — Richard J. Evans, Penguin (2003)
In Britain and France the Great War is the central war of memory; in Germany it is overshadowed by the Second. But the lessons drawn from Versailles still matter: postwar West Germany and its allies deliberately chose reconstruction and integration over punishment, and German leaders remain wary of peace settlements that humiliate a defeated nation.
Germany went to war in August 1914 expecting a short campaign. Instead came four years of trench warfare in which about two million German soldiers died, and a British naval blockade that brought hunger at home, remembered in the "turnip winter" of 1916–17.
Across the political spectrum Germans saw the treaty as a "Diktat", imposed without negotiation, and resented Article 231, which they read as blaming Germany alone for the war.
France had lost more soldiers than any other Western ally, and its industrial north had been wrecked by the fighting.
Most historians think the treaty was harsh but not crippling; Germany actually paid only part of the reparations.
The Weimar Republic
1919 – 1932 The Weimar Republic and Hyperinflation
Germany's first democracy produces a cultural golden age, but hyperinflation and depression help destroy it.
- The Great Disorder: Politics, Economics, and Society in the German Inflation, 1914–1924 — Gerald D. Feldman, Oxford University Press (1993)
- The Coming of the Third Reich — Richard J. Evans, Penguin (2003)
- A History of Germany 1918–2014: The Divided Nation — Mary Fulbrook, Wiley-Blackwell (2015)
Read more
- The Great Disorder: Politics, Economics, and Society in the German Inflation, 1914–1924 — Gerald D. Feldman, Oxford University Press (1993)
- The Coming of the Third Reich — Richard J. Evans, Penguin (2003)
- A History of Germany 1918–2014: The Divided Nation — Mary Fulbrook, Wiley-Blackwell (2015)
"Weimar" is shorthand in Germany for a democracy that failed. Its lessons are built into the postwar constitution: a strong chancellor, a ban on parties that seek to abolish democracy, and a 5% threshold for parliament. The trauma of 1923 helps explain why many Germans are famously wary of inflation and public debt, and why the Bundesbank and the euro's rules were built around price stability.
The republic's constitution, written in the small city of Weimar in 1919, was one of the most democratic of its age, and women voted for the first time that year. Berlin in the 1920s became a world capital of art, film, science and nightlife: the Bauhaus, Brecht, Einstein, Marlene Dietrich.
Nazi dictatorship & war
1933 – 1945 The Nazi Dictatorship and the Second World War
Hitler's regime destroys democracy within months, persecutes its enemies and launches a war of conquest that kills tens of millions.
- The Coming of the Third Reich — Richard J. Evans, Penguin (2003)
- The Third Reich at War — Richard J. Evans, Penguin (2008)
- A History of Germany 1918–2014: The Divided Nation — Mary Fulbrook, Wiley-Blackwell (2015)
- Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 — Tony Judt, Penguin (2005)
Read more
- The Coming of the Third Reich — Richard J. Evans, Penguin (2003)
- The Third Reich at War — Richard J. Evans, Penguin (2008)
- A History of Germany 1918–2014: The Divided Nation — Mary Fulbrook, Wiley-Blackwell (2015)
- Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 — Tony Judt, Penguin (2005)
The twelve years of Nazi rule are the fixed point against which modern Germany defines itself. Post-war institutions, from the constitution's first article on human dignity to the reluctance to use military force, were built as answers to them. Most Germans learn about this period in depth at school, and many families still wrestle with what grandparents did, knew or suffered.
Within months of Hitler becoming chancellor on 30 January 1933, German democracy was gone. After the Reichstag fire in February, emergency decrees suspended civil rights. The Enabling Act of 23 March let the government make laws without parliament.
For decades many Germans told themselves that a small criminal clique had seduced or terrorised the nation.
The Holocaust (the Shoah)
Nazi Germany and its collaborators murder about six million Jews, two out of every three in Europe, in a deliberate attempt to destroy the Jewish people, along with Roma and Sinti, disabled people and others.
- Introduction to the Holocaust (Holocaust Encyclopedia) — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- The Holocaust: Resource Center and History — Yad Vashem, Yad Vashem, The World Holocaust Remembrance Center
- The Destruction of the European Jews — Raul Hilberg, Yale University Press (2003)
- The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939–1945 — Saul Friedländer, HarperCollins (2007)
- Jewish Americans in 2020 — Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center (2021)
- Documenting Numbers of Victims of the Holocaust and Nazi Persecution — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
- The Seventh Million: The Israelis and the Holocaust — Tom Segev, Hill and Wang (1993)
- Israel: A History — Anita Shapira, Brandeis University Press (2012)
- The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939–1945 — Saul Friedländer, HarperCollins (2007)
- Documenting Numbers of Victims of the Holocaust and Nazi Persecution — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
- Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil — Susan Neiman, Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2019)
- The Third Reich at War — Richard J. Evans, Penguin (2008)
- One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs under the British Mandate — Tom Segev, Metropolitan Books (2000)
- Mass Shootings at Babyn Yar (Babi Yar) — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (2024)
- The Jews of Arab Lands in Modern Times — Norman A. Stillman, Jewish Publication Society (1991)
- A History of Germany 1918–2014: The Divided Nation — Mary Fulbrook, Wiley-Blackwell (2015)
- Elie Wiesel – Facts (Nobel Peace Prize 1986) — Nobel Prize Outreach, NobelPrize.org
- The Question of Palestine — Edward W. Said, Times Books (1979)
- The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017 — Rashid Khalidi, Metropolitan Books (2020)
- Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881–2001 — Benny Morris, Vintage (2001)
- Genocide of European Roma (Gypsies), 1939–1945 — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
- We Are the Romani People — Ian Hancock, University of Hertfordshire Press (2002)
- The Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies — Guenter Lewy, Oxford University Press (2000)
Read more
- Introduction to the Holocaust (Holocaust Encyclopedia) — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- The Holocaust: Resource Center and History — Yad Vashem, Yad Vashem, The World Holocaust Remembrance Center
- The Destruction of the European Jews — Raul Hilberg, Yale University Press (2003)
- The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939–1945 — Saul Friedländer, HarperCollins (2007)
- Jewish Americans in 2020 — Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center (2021)
- Documenting Numbers of Victims of the Holocaust and Nazi Persecution — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
- The Seventh Million: The Israelis and the Holocaust — Tom Segev, Hill and Wang (1993)
- Israel: A History — Anita Shapira, Brandeis University Press (2012)
- The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939–1945 — Saul Friedländer, HarperCollins (2007)
- Documenting Numbers of Victims of the Holocaust and Nazi Persecution — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
- Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil — Susan Neiman, Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2019)
- The Third Reich at War — Richard J. Evans, Penguin (2008)
- One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs under the British Mandate — Tom Segev, Metropolitan Books (2000)
- Mass Shootings at Babyn Yar (Babi Yar) — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (2024)
- The Jews of Arab Lands in Modern Times — Norman A. Stillman, Jewish Publication Society (1991)
- A History of Germany 1918–2014: The Divided Nation — Mary Fulbrook, Wiley-Blackwell (2015)
- Elie Wiesel – Facts (Nobel Peace Prize 1986) — Nobel Prize Outreach, NobelPrize.org
- The Question of Palestine — Edward W. Said, Times Books (1979)
- The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017 — Rashid Khalidi, Metropolitan Books (2020)
- Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881–2001 — Benny Morris, Vintage (2001)
- Genocide of European Roma (Gypsies), 1939–1945 — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
- We Are the Romani People — Ian Hancock, University of Hertfordshire Press (2002)
- The Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies — Guenter Lewy, Oxford University Press (2000)
The Holocaust is the moral centre of modern German identity. Germans call the work of facing it Vergangenheitsbewältigung, "coming to terms with the past", and Erinnerungskultur, "memory culture". It shapes school curricula, the Stolpersteine set in pavements, Germany's special commitment to Israel's security, and fierce debates over antisemitism today.
Jews call it the Shoah, Hebrew for "catastrophe". When Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany in January 1933, about 500,000 Jews lived there, less than 1% of the population, and about nine million in Europe as a whole. Nazi ideology cast Jews not as a religion but as a "race" responsible for all of Germany's misfortunes.
Proof that Jews without a state of their own are defenceless; the world closed its doors to Jewish refugees, and only a Jewish state could guarantee "never again".
In the 1950s most West Germans preferred silence, and many former Nazis returned to careers.
Many Jews respect how seriously Germany has faced its past, and Germany's Jewish community has grown since 1990, largely through immigration from the former Soviet Union.
Palestinians had no part in Europe's crime but paid its price, losing their homeland to a state founded partly in its shadow.
Jerusalem's Grand Mufti, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, collaborated with Nazi Germany during the war and met Hitler in 1941; Israeli accounts often stress this.
Roma and Sinti were also persecuted as a "race", sterilised, deported and murdered alongside Jews, but their genocide was long left out of Holocaust memory, trials and compensation.
Defeat, Expulsion and Division
Germany surrenders, millions of Germans are expelled from the east, and the occupied country splits into two states.
- Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 — Tony Judt, Penguin (2005)
- Orderly and Humane: The Expulsion of the Germans after the Second World War — R. M. Douglas, Yale University Press (2012)
- A History of Germany 1918–2014: The Divided Nation — Mary Fulbrook, Wiley-Blackwell (2015)
- Speech in the Bundestag on the 40th anniversary of the end of the war in Europe, 8 May 1985 — Richard von Weizsäcker, Office of the Federal President (1985)
- Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany (English translation) — Federal Ministry of Justice
Read more
- Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 — Tony Judt, Penguin (2005)
- Orderly and Humane: The Expulsion of the Germans after the Second World War — R. M. Douglas, Yale University Press (2012)
- A History of Germany 1918–2014: The Divided Nation — Mary Fulbrook, Wiley-Blackwell (2015)
- Speech in the Bundestag on the 40th anniversary of the end of the war in Europe, 8 May 1985 — Richard von Weizsäcker, Office of the Federal President (1985)
- Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany (English translation) — Federal Ministry of Justice
Almost every German family has a story from these years: a grandmother who clawed rubble, a grandfather who came home from Soviet captivity years late, a family that fled Silesia or East Prussia with a handcart. The division created in 1949 shaped two different societies whose differences are still visible, and the Basic Law of 1949 remains the constitution of united Germany.
When Germany surrendered on 8 May 1945, its cities lay in ruins. Millions of soldiers were prisoners, millions of civilians were homeless, and the country was divided into four zones occupied by the United States, Britain, France and the Soviet Union, with Berlin likewise split. Germans later called it Stunde Null, "zero hour".
Many Germans long remembered 8 May 1945 as a day of defeat, collapse and suffering.
Between about 12 and 14 million Germans fled or were expelled from eastern Europe.
For Poles and Czechs the expulsions followed years of brutal German occupation, and were agreed by the Allies at Potsdam.
Two Germanys
1946 – 1989 The Economic Miracle (Wirtschaftswunder)
Currency reform, the social market economy and Marshall aid turn a ruined West Germany into Europe's leading economy within two decades.
- Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 — Tony Judt, Penguin (2005)
- A History of Germany 1918–2014: The Divided Nation — Mary Fulbrook, Wiley-Blackwell (2015)
- Germany: Memories of a Nation — Neil MacGregor, Allen Lane (2014)
Read more
- Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 — Tony Judt, Penguin (2005)
- A History of Germany 1918–2014: The Divided Nation — Mary Fulbrook, Wiley-Blackwell (2015)
- Germany: Memories of a Nation — Neil MacGregor, Allen Lane (2014)
The economic miracle gave West Germans a new, safer source of pride: the D-Mark, "Made in Germany", the VW Beetle and a strong welfare state. The model of the social market economy, with family-owned Mittelstand firms, worker representation on company boards and consensus between unions and employers, is still how many Germans think an economy should work.
On 20 June 1948 the western zones replaced the worthless Reichsmark with the Deutsche Mark. Almost overnight, shop windows filled with goods that had been hoarded. Economics director Ludwig Erhard, later economics minister, scrapped most price controls at the same time.
Guest Workers and a Country of Immigration
West Germany recruits millions of workers from southern Europe and Turkey; many stay, turning Germany into a country of immigration and home to Europe's largest Turkish diaspora.
- Gastarbeiter/-innen (lexicon entry) — Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung
- The Guest Worker Question in Postwar Germany — Rita Chin, Cambridge University Press (2007)
- 21.8 million people in Germany with an immigration history in 2025 (press release) — Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) (2026)
- A History of Germany 1918–2014: The Divided Nation — Mary Fulbrook, Wiley-Blackwell (2015)
- Bevölkerung mit Migrationshintergrund: Ergebnisse des Mikrozensus 2018 — Statistisches Bundesamt (Destatis) (2019)
- Turkey: A Modern History (4th edition) — Erik J. Zürcher, I.B. Tauris (2017)
Read more
- Gastarbeiter/-innen (lexicon entry) — Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung
- The Guest Worker Question in Postwar Germany — Rita Chin, Cambridge University Press (2007)
- 21.8 million people in Germany with an immigration history in 2025 (press release) — Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) (2026)
- A History of Germany 1918–2014: The Divided Nation — Mary Fulbrook, Wiley-Blackwell (2015)
- Bevölkerung mit Migrationshintergrund: Ergebnisse des Mikrozensus 2018 — Statistisches Bundesamt (Destatis) (2019)
- Turkey: A Modern History (4th edition) — Erik J. Zürcher, I.B. Tauris (2017)
About a quarter of people in Germany now have an immigration history, and the descendants of guest workers are footballers, ministers, entrepreneurs and the people who run the corner shop. For decades politicians insisted Germany was "not a country of immigration"; the slow acceptance that it is, and arguments over what belonging means, still shape German politics.
Short of labour during the economic miracle, West Germany signed recruitment agreements with Italy in 1955, then Spain and Greece (1960), Turkey (1961), Morocco, Portugal, Tunisia and Yugoslavia. The workers were called Gastarbeiter, "guest workers", because both governments expected them to rotate home.
Many first-generation workers did hard, dangerous jobs and expected to go home; their children grew up between two worlds and often felt Germany never quite accepted them.
The Berlin Wall
East Germany walls in West Berlin to stop its people fleeing; 28 years later, a peaceful revolution brings the Wall down.
- A History of Germany 1918–2014: The Divided Nation — Mary Fulbrook, Wiley-Blackwell (2015)
- The Victims at the Berlin Wall, 1961–1989: A Biographical Handbook — Hans-Hermann Hertle and Maria Nooke, Ch. Links Verlag (2011)
- Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall — Anna Funder, Granta (2003)
- The Collapse: The Accidental Opening of the Berlin Wall — Mary Elise Sarotte, Basic Books (2014)
- Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949–1990 — Katja Hoyer, Allen Lane (2023)
Read more
- A History of Germany 1918–2014: The Divided Nation — Mary Fulbrook, Wiley-Blackwell (2015)
- The Victims at the Berlin Wall, 1961–1989: A Biographical Handbook — Hans-Hermann Hertle and Maria Nooke, Ch. Links Verlag (2011)
- Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall — Anna Funder, Granta (2003)
- The Collapse: The Accidental Opening of the Berlin Wall — Mary Elise Sarotte, Basic Books (2014)
- Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949–1990 — Katja Hoyer, Allen Lane (2023)
9 November 1989 is one of the happiest days in German memory, and the peaceful revolution in the East is a source of pride. But four decades of division created two societies, and many people who grew up in the GDR feel their lives, achievements and losses under the dictatorship are still misunderstood or dismissed by West Germans.
Before 1961 the border through Berlin was the GDR's open wound. Between its founding in 1949 and 1961, millions of East Germans, many of them young and skilled, left for the West, most of them through the city. In 1953 a workers' uprising had been crushed by Soviet tanks.
For many in the West, and for victims of the regime, the GDR was simply an unjust state built on walls, surveillance and prisons.
United Germany
1990 – today Reunification and the East–West Divide
East Germany joins the Federal Republic less than a year after the Wall falls, but the economic shock leaves a lasting divide.
- A History of Germany 1918–2014: The Divided Nation — Mary Fulbrook, Wiley-Blackwell (2015)
- The Collapse: The Accidental Opening of the Berlin Wall — Mary Elise Sarotte, Basic Books (2014)
- Lütten Klein: Leben in der ostdeutschen Transformationsgesellschaft — Steffen Mau, Suhrkamp (2019)
- Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949–1990 — Katja Hoyer, Allen Lane (2023)
- Wahl zum 8. Thüringer Landtag am 1. September 2024: endgültiges Ergebnis — Thüringer Landesamt für Statistik (2024)
Read more
- A History of Germany 1918–2014: The Divided Nation — Mary Fulbrook, Wiley-Blackwell (2015)
- The Collapse: The Accidental Opening of the Berlin Wall — Mary Elise Sarotte, Basic Books (2014)
- Lütten Klein: Leben in der ostdeutschen Transformationsgesellschaft — Steffen Mau, Suhrkamp (2019)
- Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949–1990 — Katja Hoyer, Allen Lane (2023)
- Wahl zum 8. Thüringer Landtag am 1. September 2024: endgültiges Ergebnis — Thüringer Landesamt für Statistik (2024)
3 October is Germany's national day. Yet more than thirty years on, East and West still differ in wages, wealth, political choices and sense of being heard. Far-right and protest parties are much stronger in the East, and "Ossi" and "Wessi" remain living identities, especially for those who lived through the 1990s.
After the Wall fell, events moved faster than anyone expected. The chant changed from "We are the people" to "We are one people". In the first free elections in the GDR in March 1990, voters backed parties promising rapid unity.
Reunification was achieved peacefully and with allied consent.
Many East Germans experienced unity as being absorbed into a western system: their factories sold off or closed by the Treuhand privatisation agency, their qualifications devalued, top jobs filled by westerners.
The 2015 Refugee Summer
Germany takes in around 890,000 asylum seekers in a single year, mostly from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq, and divides over the decision.
- Migration Report 2015 — Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) (2016)
- 21.8 million people in Germany with an immigration history in 2025 (press release) — Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) (2026)
- Bundestag election 2025: final results — Die Bundeswahlleiterin (Federal Returning Officer) (2025)
Read more
- Migration Report 2015 — Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) (2016)
- 21.8 million people in Germany with an immigration history in 2025 (press release) — Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) (2026)
- Bundestag election 2025: final results — Die Bundeswahlleiterin (Federal Returning Officer) (2025)
2015 is a dividing line in German politics. For some it showed Germany at its best, a country that learned from its past and opened its doors. For others it was a loss of control that fuelled the rise of the AfD. Debates about borders, asylum, Islam and integration since then all refer back to it.
In the summer of 2015, war in Syria and conditions in camps across the Middle East drove hundreds of thousands of people toward Europe via Turkey, Greece and the Balkans. On 31 August Chancellor Angela Merkel told a press conference "Wir schaffen das", "We can manage this".
Thousands of volunteers met trains at Munich station with food and toys.
Critics, including many in Merkel's own conservative camp, argue the government lost control of the border, strained towns and schools, and underestimated the difficulty of integration.
For many Syrians and Afghans, Germany offered safety and a future, but also long waits in shelters, bureaucracy, family separation and, at times, hostility. Many have since become German citizens.
Energiewende and the Zeitenwende
Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine upends Germany's reliance on Russian gas and its post-war reluctance to invest in military power.
- Policy statement by Chancellor Olaf Scholz to the German Bundestag, 27 February 2022 — Olaf Scholz, Press and Information Office of the Federal Government (2022)
- Indicator: Share of renewables in gross electricity consumption — Umweltbundesamt (German Environment Agency) (2025)
- Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 — Tony Judt, Penguin (2005)
Read more
- Policy statement by Chancellor Olaf Scholz to the German Bundestag, 27 February 2022 — Olaf Scholz, Press and Information Office of the Federal Government (2022)
- Indicator: Share of renewables in gross electricity consumption — Umweltbundesamt (German Environment Agency) (2025)
- Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 — Tony Judt, Penguin (2005)
The war forced Germans to question two settled habits: trade with Russia as a path to peace ("Wandel durch Handel") and a deep scepticism about military strength. Rearmament, energy prices and support for Ukraine are now central political arguments, and the Energiewende, the shift to renewable power, is both a source of pride and a constant quarrel.
Three days after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, on 27 February 2022, Chancellor Olaf Scholz told the Bundestag that the world faced a Zeitenwende, a "turning point of an era". He announced a €100 billion special fund for the armed forces, a commitment to NATO's defence-spending target, and a plan to end dependence on Russian energy.
The invasion proved that Germany's Russia policy had failed and that a large, rich country must be able to defend itself and its allies; energy independence and renewables are a security issue.
Many Germans, especially in the East and on the pacifist left, distrust rearmament and arms deliveries and fear being drawn into war; others resent high energy prices and the cost of the energy transition.
Core values & worldview
If you want to understand a German, start with how a nation thinks about its own past. Most countries tell their history as a story to be proud of. Modern Germany, after the Nazi dictatorship and the murder of six million Jews, built its democracy on the opposite idea: that a nation should look hard at its crimes and learn from them.
- Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil — Susan Neiman, Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2019)
- The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939–1945 — Saul Friedländer, HarperCollins (2007)
- Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany (English translation) — Federal Ministry of Justice
That history helps explain a few things you will often notice.
Responsibility, not national pride. Many Germans are uncomfortable with flag-waving, military parades or loud patriotism. The black-red-gold flag came out on balconies in large numbers for the first time during the 2006 World Cup, and many people still feel a little uneasy about it. Pride is more often attached to the constitution, to the regions, or to things like engineering, football and environmental care.
- Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil — Susan Neiman, Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2019)
- A History of Germany 1918–2014: The Divided Nation — Mary Fulbrook, Wiley-Blackwell (2015)
Directness and honesty. In conversation many Germans say what they mean, and expect you to. Criticism of your plan is not personal; small talk can feel less important than getting things right. This can come across as blunt to British or American ears, but it usually signals respect.
Order, planning and reliability. Being on time, keeping promises and following agreed rules matter to many Germans. Collective memory of chaos, from the Thirty Years’ War to the 1923 hyperinflation that wiped out savings, is one reason stability is so highly valued.
- Europe's Tragedy: A History of the Thirty Years War — Peter H. Wilson, Allen Lane (2009)
- The Great Disorder: Politics, Economics, and Society in the German Inflation, 1914–1924 — Gerald D. Feldman, Oxford University Press (1993)
Privacy. The experience of two surveillance states, the Gestapo and the East German Stasi, which recruited informers among friends and family, has left Germans unusually protective of personal data. Some still prefer paying cash, and debates over cameras and data collection are lively.
- Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall — Anna Funder, Granta (2003)
Daily life & customs
Daily life has a rhythm many Germans cherish. Shops close on Sundays in most of the country, and Sunday is a quiet day for walks, family and cake. Kaffee und Kuchen, coffee and cake in the afternoon, is a weekend ritual, and many families still eat a cold supper of bread, cheese and cold cuts, Abendbrot.
- Germany: Memories of a Nation — Neil MacGregor, Allen Lane (2014)
Germans tend to separate work time from free time sharply: long holidays, often abroad, are almost sacred, and many people belong to a Verein, a club, for football, choir, hiking, gardening or the volunteer fire brigade. There are hundreds of thousands of registered clubs, and they are the backbone of local social life.
The year has its own shape: Carnival (Karneval or Fasching) in the Rhineland and the south before Lent, beer gardens in summer, Oktoberfest in Munich, St Martin’s lantern processions in November, and Advent with its wreaths, calendars and Christmas markets. Christmas Eve, not Christmas Day, is when presents are given.
Recycling is taken seriously, with separate bins and a deposit on bottles and cans. Language matters too: Germans use the formal Sie with people they don’t know well and switch to the informal du by invitation, though younger people and many workplaces now use du much more freely.
Wounds & sensitivities
The Nazi past and the Holocaust. This is the deepest wound, and the most serious subject. Many Germans have grown up learning about it in great detail, visiting concentration camp memorials on school trips and discovering, sometimes painfully, what their own grandparents did or knew.
- Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil — Susan Neiman, Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2019)
- A History of Germany 1918–2014: The Divided Nation — Mary Fulbrook, Wiley-Blackwell (2015)
Germans’ own suffering. Bombed cities, the deaths of millions of soldiers, mass rape in 1945, and the flight and expulsion of some 12 to 14 million Germans from the east are part of many family histories. For a long time it felt hard to talk about without seeming to relativise German guilt.
- Orderly and Humane: The Expulsion of the Germans after the Second World War — R. M. Douglas, Yale University Press (2012)
- Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 — Tony Judt, Penguin (2005)
Division and the East. For easterners, the GDR is a complicated memory: a dictatorship with prisons, informers and a deadly border, but also the setting of their childhoods. Being told their whole lives were worthless, or treated as backward “Ossis”, stings. Many easterners lost their jobs in the 1990s.
- Lütten Klein: Leben in der ostdeutschen Transformationsgesellschaft — Steffen Mau, Suhrkamp (2019)
- Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949–1990 — Katja Hoyer, Allen Lane (2023)
- The Victims at the Berlin Wall, 1961–1989: A Biographical Handbook — Hans-Hermann Hertle and Maria Nooke, Ch. Links Verlag (2011)
Colonialism. Germany’s short-lived empire in Africa and the Pacific was long forgotten. In 1904–08 German troops in what is now Namibia killed tens of thousands of Herero and Nama people, in what historians call the first genocide of the twentieth century; Germany officially acknowledged it as genocide in 2021.
- Genocide in German South-West Africa: The Colonial War of 1904–1908 and Its Aftermath — Jürgen Zimmerer and Joachim Zeller (eds.), Merlin Press (2008)
Racist violence. Attacks such as the arson at Solingen in 1993, the NSU murders of 2000–07 and the shootings in Hanau in 2020 are wounds above all for Germans of immigrant background, who often feel the authorities were too slow to see the threat.
- The Guest Worker Question in Postwar Germany — Rita Chin, Cambridge University Press (2007)
- A History of Germany 1918–2014: The Divided Nation — Mary Fulbrook, Wiley-Blackwell (2015)
Modern attitudes
Pro-European. Most Germans see the EU as the guarantee of peace and prosperity after two world wars, and reconciliation with France and Poland as an achievement to protect.
- Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 — Tony Judt, Penguin (2005)
Cautious about force, but changing. After 1945 pacifism ran deep, and many Germans hesitated to send weapons abroad. Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine changed this: Germany became one of Ukraine’s biggest backers and began rearming, though many, especially in the East, remain uneasy.
- Policy statement by Chancellor Olaf Scholz to the German Bundestag, 27 February 2022 — Olaf Scholz, Press and Information Office of the Federal Government (2022)
Green and worried about climate. Germany pioneered the Energiewende, the shift to renewable energy; renewables supplied about 54% of electricity consumption in 2024, and the last nuclear plants closed in 2023. Its costs and pace are fiercely argued over.
- Indicator: Share of renewables in gross electricity consumption — Umweltbundesamt (German Environment Agency) (2025)
Less religious. In 2024 Catholics made up about 24% and members of the main Protestant churches about 21%, while about 47% had no religious affiliation, the largest group for the first time; Muslims were about 4%. Churches still run many hospitals, kindergartens and charities, funded partly through a church tax.
- Religionszugehörigkeiten 2024 — Forschungsgruppe Weltanschauungen in Deutschland (fowid) (2025)
Political fragmentation. Post-war West Germany was famous for stable consensus between big centre-right and centre-left parties. That has frayed. In the 2025 federal election the CDU/CSU came first with 28.5%, and the far-right AfD second with 20.8%, its best result; other parties refuse to govern with it, a principle called the Brandmauer, “firewall”.
- Bundestag election 2025: final results — Die Bundeswahlleiterin (Federal Returning Officer) (2025)
Not all Germans are the same
North and south, regions and dialects. A Bavarian, a Hamburger, a Saxon and a Rhinelander may speak very different dialects and have different temperaments, food and festivals. Bavaria, Germany’s largest state by area, has its own strong identity, a mostly Catholic tradition and its own sister party to the CDU, the CSU. Northerners are stereotyped as reserved, Rhinelanders as cheerful carnival-goers, Swabians as thrifty.
- A Nation of Provincials: The German Idea of Heimat — Celia Applegate, University of California Press (1990)
- Germany: Memories of a Nation — Neil MacGregor, Allen Lane (2014)
- Germany — Encyclopaedia Britannica
East and West. Thirty-five years after reunification, people from the former GDR are on average less religious, earn less, vote differently and are more sceptical of NATO and of arms for Ukraine. Many younger people, though, feel the line matters less to them.
- Lütten Klein: Leben in der ostdeutschen Transformationsgesellschaft — Steffen Mau, Suhrkamp (2019)
- Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949–1990 — Katja Hoyer, Allen Lane (2023)
Catholic, Protestant and none. The south and west are traditionally Catholic, the north Protestant, and the East largely non-religious after decades of communism.
- Religionszugehörigkeiten 2024 — Forschungsgruppe Weltanschauungen in Deutschland (fowid) (2025)
- A Concise History of Germany — Mary Fulbrook, Cambridge University Press (2019)
Germans with immigrant roots. About a quarter of people in Germany have an immigration history: grandchildren of Turkish, Italian and Greek guest workers, ethnic Germans from Russia, Kazakhstan and Poland, and newer arrivals from Syria, Afghanistan and Ukraine. Many have been German for generations and are tired of being asked where they are “really” from.
- 21.8 million people in Germany with an immigration history in 2025 (press release) — Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) (2026)
- Gastarbeiter/-innen (lexicon entry) — Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung
Recognised minorities. Germany recognises four national minorities with long roots: Danes in Schleswig-Holstein, Frisians on the North Sea coast, the Slavic-speaking Sorbs in Saxony and Brandenburg, and German Sinti and Roma.
- National minorities in Germany — Federal Ministry of the Interior
Generations. Older Germans remember the war or the hardship after it; the “68ers” confronted their parents about the Nazi past; those who grew up in the GDR lived through upheaval; the youngest grew up in a united, diverse, European country.
- A History of Germany 1918–2014: The Divided Nation — Mary Fulbrook, Wiley-Blackwell (2015)
Meeting someone
Conversation starters
- Where they’re from. Ask about their region, its dialect and food; regional pride runs deep and usually comes with good stories.
- A Nation of Provincials: The German Idea of Heimat — Celia Applegate, University of California Press (1990)
- Football. Most people have a club, and the Bundesliga, the national team and local rivalries are safe, lively ground.
- Holidays and the outdoors. Germans travel widely and love hiking, cycling and lakes; ask where they went last summer.
- Bread, beer and food. Regional breads, beers and dishes are a source of pride and a reliable topic.
- 1989. Older people often remember exactly where they were when the Wall fell, and are glad to tell you.
- The Collapse: The Accidental Opening of the Berlin Wall — Mary Elise Sarotte, Basic Books (2014)
Topics to approach carefully
- The Nazi era. Germans talk about it seriously and openly, but don’t joke about Hitler, assume every German is defensive about it, or ask what their grandfather did unless they bring it up.
- Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil — Susan Neiman, Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2019)
- East and West. Avoid treating the GDR as only a joke or easterners as backward; listen to how they describe it.
- Lütten Klein: Leben in der ostdeutschen Transformationsgesellschaft — Steffen Mau, Suhrkamp (2019)
- Migration and the AfD. These are divisive; people may hold strong views either way.
- Migration Report 2015 — Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) (2016)
- Israel and Gaza. Germany sees Israel’s security as a special responsibility arising from the Holocaust, and debates over the Gaza war and antisemitism are especially charged.
- Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil — Susan Neiman, Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2019)
Common misconceptions
- “Germans have no sense of humour.” German humour exists in abundance, often dry, ironic or satirical, and cabaret and comedy are hugely popular. It just may not show in a business meeting.
- “Everyone wears lederhosen and drinks beer at Oktoberfest.” That is Bavarian, and even there mostly for festivals. Northern Germans may never have owned a pair.
- “Germans don’t talk about the war.” The opposite: few nations talk about their past as much.
- Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil — Susan Neiman, Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2019)
- “Germany has always been a nation.” It has been a single state only since 1871, and was divided again from 1949 to 1990.
- Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire — Peter H. Wilson, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2016)
- A Concise History of Germany — Mary Fulbrook, Cambridge University Press (2019)
- “All Germans are punctual and efficient.” Ask any German about Deutsche Bahn, the national railway, and you’ll hear otherwise.
People everyone knows
Martin Luther
An Augustinian monk and professor at Wittenberg whose 95 Theses against the sale of indulgences (1517) set off the Reformation. Refusing to recant at the Diet of Worms in 1521, he went on to translate the Bible into a vivid German that helped shape the modern written language. He is also remembered, with growing unease, for his vicious late writings against Jews, which Nazis later quoted. Germany marked the 500th anniversary of the Reformation with a national holiday in 2017.
- Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet — Lyndal Roper, Bodley Head (2016)
- Germany: Memories of a Nation — Neil MacGregor, Allen Lane (2014)
Otto von Bismarck
The Prussian minister-president who united Germany "by iron and blood" through three short wars against Denmark, Austria and France, and served as the first chancellor of the German Empire from 1871 to 1890. He fought the Catholic Church and the socialists, yet also created the world's first national health, accident and old-age insurance in the 1880s, the root of Germany's welfare state. He remains a towering and ambivalent figure: Bismarck towers and streets are everywhere.
- Bismarck: A Life — Jonathan Steinberg, Oxford University Press (2011)
- Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600–1947 — Christopher Clark, Allen Lane (2006)
Sophie Scholl
A Munich student in the White Rose resistance group, who with her brother Hans distributed leaflets denouncing Nazi crimes, including the murder of Jews. Caught at the university on 18 February 1943, she was tried by the People's Court and beheaded four days later, aged 21. Schools, squares and streets across Germany bear her name; she stands for the conscience of the "other Germany".
- The Third Reich at War — Richard J. Evans, Penguin (2008)
- A History of Germany 1918–2014: The Divided Nation — Mary Fulbrook, Wiley-Blackwell (2015)
Konrad Adenauer
Former mayor of Cologne, removed by the Nazis, who became West Germany's first chancellor (1949–1963) at 73. He tied the new Federal Republic firmly to the West, NATO and European integration, reconciled with France, and agreed reparations to Israel in 1952. Critics note that he also let many former Nazis back into public service. "Der Alte" (the old man) set the tone of a cautious, prosperous, Western-facing Germany.
- A History of Germany 1918–2014: The Divided Nation — Mary Fulbrook, Wiley-Blackwell (2015)
- Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 — Tony Judt, Penguin (2005)
Willy Brandt
A Social Democrat who fled Nazi Germany, became mayor of West Berlin when the Wall went up, and was chancellor from 1969 to 1974. His Ostpolitik sought "change through rapprochement" with the Soviet bloc. In Warsaw in December 1970 he knelt in silence at the Ghetto Uprising memorial, an image that still defines German atonement. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1971.
- A History of Germany 1918–2014: The Divided Nation — Mary Fulbrook, Wiley-Blackwell (2015)
- Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 — Tony Judt, Penguin (2005)
Angela Merkel
A pastor's daughter and physicist raised in East Germany, she became the first woman and first former East German to serve as chancellor (2005–2021). She steered Germany through the 2008 financial crisis, the euro crisis and the pandemic, and in 2015 kept the borders open to hundreds of thousands of refugees ("Wir schaffen das"). Admired abroad for steadiness, she is now also criticised for deepening dependence on Russian gas and neglecting defence.
- Migration Report 2015 — Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) (2016)
- A History of Germany 1918–2014: The Divided Nation — Mary Fulbrook, Wiley-Blackwell (2015)
Try it yourself
The quickest way into a culture: a song, a film, a book and a dish.
“Human dignity shall be inviolable. To respect and protect it shall be the duty of all state authority.”
“The 8th of May was a day of liberation. It liberated all of us from the inhumanity and tyranny of the National Socialist regime.”
“Wir schaffen das. (We can manage this.)”
Listen
- Beethoven's Ninth Symphony Its finale sets Schiller's "Ode to Joy"; it was played as the Wall fell and its melody is the anthem of the European Union.▶ Listen
- Kraftwerk, "Autobahn" (1974) The Düsseldorf band's electronic hymn to the motorway helped invent synth-pop and techno, and is a reminder that German pop culture shaped the world.▶ Listen
Watch
- The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen) Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's 2006 drama about a Stasi officer spying on a playwright in East Berlin; it won the Oscar for best foreign-language film.▶ Watch
- Good Bye, Lenin! Wolfgang Becker's 2003 comedy about a son who hides the fall of the Wall from his ailing, loyal socialist mother; gentle, funny and full of Ostalgie.▶ Watch
Read
- Faust Goethe's two-part drama of a scholar who sells his soul for knowledge and experience; the most quoted work in German, and a school staple.Find it
Taste
- Bread and Abendbrot Germany is proud of its many kinds of bread, and a cold supper of bread, cheese and cold cuts, Abendbrot ("evening bread"), is still common at home.Recipe
See & do
- Tatort The Sunday-evening crime series, running since 1970, with teams in different cities; watching it is a weekly ritual, often in pubs and with friends.Look it up
- Christmas markets Mulled wine (Glühwein), gingerbread and wooden crafts in town squares through Advent; Nuremberg's and Dresden's are among the oldest.Look it up
- Football and the Bundesliga Club loyalty is local and deep, the "50+1" rule keeps most clubs controlled by their members, and four men's World Cup wins (1954, 1974, 1990, 2014) mark the national story.Look it up
Where
Homeland Diaspora Significant place
Related
Jewish people · Poland · Russia · Turkey (Türkiye) · Israel · Ukraine · Catholicism
Sources & further reading
- Protestants: The Faith That Made the Modern World — Alec Ryrie, Viking, 2017
- Israel: A History — Anita Shapira, Brandeis University Press, 2012
- Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall — Anna Funder, Granta, 2003
- Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881–2001 — Benny Morris, Vintage, 2001
- Gastarbeiter/-innen (lexicon entry) — Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung
- A Nation of Provincials: The German Idea of Heimat — Celia Applegate, University of California Press, 1990
- Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600–1947 — Christopher Clark, Allen Lane, 2006
- Reformation: Europe's House Divided, 1490–1700 — Diarmaid MacCulloch, Allen Lane, 2003
- A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years — Diarmaid MacCulloch, Allen Lane, 2009
- Bundestag election 2025: final results — Die Bundeswahlleiterin (Federal Returning Officer), 2025
- Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes — Eamon Duffy, Yale University Press, 2014
- The Question of Palestine — Edward W. Said, Times Books, 1979
- Germany — Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Turkey: A Modern History (4th edition) — Erik J. Zürcher, I.B. Tauris, 2017
- Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany (English translation) — Federal Ministry of Justice
- National minorities in Germany — Federal Ministry of the Interior
- Migration Report 2015 — Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF), 2016
- 21.8 million people in Germany with an immigration history in 2025 (press release) — Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), 2026
- Religionszugehörigkeiten 2024 — Forschungsgruppe Weltanschauungen in Deutschland (fowid), 2025
- The Great Disorder: Politics, Economics, and Society in the German Inflation, 1914–1924 — Gerald D. Feldman, Oxford University Press, 1993
- The Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies — Guenter Lewy, Oxford University Press, 2000
- The Victims at the Berlin Wall, 1961–1989: A Biographical Handbook — Hans-Hermann Hertle and Maria Nooke, Ch. Links Verlag, 2011
- Catechism of the Catholic Church (2nd edition) — Holy See, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997
- We Are the Romani People — Ian Hancock, University of Hertfordshire Press, 2002
- What Happened at Vatican II — John W. O'Malley, Harvard University Press, 2008
- Bismarck: A Life — Jonathan Steinberg, Oxford University Press, 2011
- Genocide in German South-West Africa: The Colonial War of 1904–1908 and Its Aftermath — Jürgen Zimmerer and Joachim Zeller (eds.), Merlin Press, 2008
- Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949–1990 — Katja Hoyer, Allen Lane, 2023
- France and the Great War, 1914–1918 — Leonard V. Smith, Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau and Annette Becker, Cambridge University Press, 2003
- Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet — Lyndal Roper, Bodley Head, 2016
- Peacemakers: The Paris Conference of 1919 and Its Attempt to End War — Margaret MacMillan, John Murray, 2001
- The Collapse: The Accidental Opening of the Berlin Wall — Mary Elise Sarotte, Basic Books, 2014
- A History of Germany 1918–2014: The Divided Nation — Mary Fulbrook, Wiley-Blackwell, 2015
- A Concise History of Germany — Mary Fulbrook, Cambridge University Press, 2019
- Germany: Memories of a Nation — Neil MacGregor, Allen Lane, 2014
- Elie Wiesel – Facts (Nobel Peace Prize 1986) — Nobel Prize Outreach, NobelPrize.org
- The Jews of Arab Lands in Modern Times — Norman A. Stillman, Jewish Publication Society, 1991
- Policy statement by Chancellor Olaf Scholz to the German Bundestag, 27 February 2022 — Olaf Scholz, Press and Information Office of the Federal Government, 2022
- Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire — Peter H. Wilson, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2016
- Europe's Tragedy: A History of the Thirty Years War — Peter H. Wilson, Allen Lane, 2009
- Jewish Americans in 2020 — Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, 2021
- Orderly and Humane: The Expulsion of the Germans after the Second World War — R. M. Douglas, Yale University Press, 2012
- The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017 — Rashid Khalidi, Metropolitan Books, 2020
- The Destruction of the European Jews — Raul Hilberg, Yale University Press, 2003
- The Coming of the Third Reich — Richard J. Evans, Penguin, 2003
- The Third Reich at War — Richard J. Evans, Penguin, 2008
- Speech in the Bundestag on the 40th anniversary of the end of the war in Europe, 8 May 1985 — Richard von Weizsäcker, Office of the Federal President, 1985
- The Guest Worker Question in Postwar Germany — Rita Chin, Cambridge University Press, 2007
- The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939–1945 — Saul Friedländer, HarperCollins, 2007
- The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939–1945 — Saul Friedländer, HarperCollins, 2007
- Bevölkerung mit Migrationshintergrund: Ergebnisse des Mikrozensus 2018 — Statistisches Bundesamt (Destatis), 2019
- Lütten Klein: Leben in der ostdeutschen Transformationsgesellschaft — Steffen Mau, Suhrkamp, 2019
- Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil — Susan Neiman, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019
- Wahl zum 8. Thüringer Landtag am 1. September 2024: endgültiges Ergebnis — Thüringer Landesamt für Statistik, 2024
- The Seventh Million: The Israelis and the Holocaust — Tom Segev, Hill and Wang, 1993
- One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs under the British Mandate — Tom Segev, Metropolitan Books, 2000
- Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 — Tony Judt, Penguin, 2005
- Indicator: Share of renewables in gross electricity consumption — Umweltbundesamt (German Environment Agency), 2025
- Documenting Numbers of Victims of the Holocaust and Nazi Persecution — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
- Introduction to the Holocaust (Holocaust Encyclopedia) — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- Documenting Numbers of Victims of the Holocaust and Nazi Persecution — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
- Mass Shootings at Babyn Yar (Babi Yar) — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2024
- Genocide of European Roma (Gypsies), 1939–1945 — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
- The Holocaust: Resource Center and History — Yad Vashem, Yad Vashem, The World Holocaust Remembrance Center