Greater German Empire

Greater German Empire
Greater German Empire; Großdeutsches Kaiserreich (German)
Flag	Coat of arms
	Motto: ”Hier stehen wir!“ (German); ”Here we stand!“ (English); ”Tukaj smo stati!“ (Slovenian); ”Tutaj stoimy!“ (Polish); ”Qui stiamo in pedi!“ (Italian)
	Anthem: ”Das Lied der Deutschen“(German); "The Song of the Germans“ (English); “Pesem Nemcev“ (Slovenian); ”Pieśń Niemców“ (Polish); ”La canzone dei tedeschi“ (Italian); Royal anthem: ”Volkshymne unter Niklas I.“
	The Greater German Empire
Capital	Wien (de jure); 48° 12′ 0″ N, 16° 22′ 0″ E; Donauwörth (de jure, after the Vienna Spring); 48° 43′ 8″ N, 10° 46′ 40″ E; Berlin (de facto); 52° 31′ 7″ N, 13° 24′ 30″ E
Largest city	Berlin (6.456.420 inhabitants) ; 52° 31′ 7″ N, 13° 24′ 30″ E
Official languages	German; Slovenian; Polish; Italian
Recognized regional languages	List of recognized regional languages French; Danish; Lithuanian; Croatian; Czech; Hungarian; Slovak; Sorbian; Ladin
Ethnic groups	List of ethnicities 87,8% Germans; 6,7% Poles; 1,6% Slovenes; 0,7% Italians; 3,2% other non-official
Religion	List of religions 89.6% Christians; - 44.3% Catholics; - 40.9% Protestants; - 2.2% Orthodox; - 2.2% Other; 5.7% Muslims; 3.7% Jews; 1% Other
Demonym	German; Great German
Alliance	Former Central Powers
Government	Federal parliamentary hereditary monarchy
Legislature	Reichstag (Berlin)
Formation
Area
Population
GDP (nominal)	2020 estimate
Gini (2020)	31.4; medium · 58th
HDI (2020)	0.939; very high · 4th
Currency	Großdeutsche Mark () (GDM)
Time zone	(CET) UTC+1
Date format	dd.mm.yyyy (CE)
Drives on the	right
Calling code	+49
ISO 3166 code	DE
Internet TLD	.de (DEutschland)

Germany ('dʒə:mənɪ, German: Deutschland), officially the Greater German Empire (German: Großdeutsches Kaiserreich), commonly referred to as GGE or GdK, is a sovereign state in Central Europe and Western Europe, between the Baltic, North and Adriatic Sea. It borders Denmark to the North, Holland to the Northwest, France to the West, Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the Southwest, the RSR (Roman Socialist Republic) and the Littoral to the South, Yugoslavia to the Southeast, Hungary, Slovakia, the RCBM (Royal Confederation of Bohemia and Moravia) and Poland to the East and Lithuania to the Northeast.

The Greater German Empire includes 38 constituent states (consisting of 5 so called Reichsstädte, 1 so called Reichshauptstadt, 5 autonomous provinces and 27 so called Kronländer), covers an area of 733,888 square kilometers (283,356 square miles) and has a largely temperate seasonal climate. With 134 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 fourth most populous member state of the Komitee für Wirtschaft und Entwicklung der ehemaligen Mittelmächte (KWE). Germany is a very decentralised country. Its capital is currently Donauwörth throughout the German Civil War, but used to be Wien, while its largest city Berlin serves as its administrative as well as financial capital and has the country's busiest airport.

Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity. A region named Germania was documented before AD 100. Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation. After the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire, the German Confederation was formed in 1815. The German revolutions of 1848–49 resulted in the Frankfurt Parliament establishing major democratic rights. In 1871, Germany became a nation state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After the Great War and the Treaty of Potsdam, Germany emerged as the world‘s sole super power. The following Interwar-Conflicts and the Second World War steeled this order, while the Empire could unite all Germans after the Second German War in 1923. The increasingly authoritarian and absolutist (Modern Absolutism) rule of Kaiser Wilhelm III. led to political unrest and the downfall of the Hohenzollern Dynasty in the Revolution of the Roses of 1962. Following the short-lived German Republic, Engelbert I. crowned himself Kaiser of Germany and proclaimed the Greater German Empire, while federalizing and democratizing the realm. In 2019 communist forces began a civil war against Kaiser Niklas I., but didn‘t succeed.

Today, Germany is a Federal parliamentary hereditary monarchy led by a Kaiser, Reichspräsident, Reichsminister, Reichsvertreter and Ehrenratsvorsitzender. It is a great power with a strong economy; it has the world's second-largest economy by nominal and PPP-GDP. As a global leader in several industrial, military and technological sectors, it is both the world's largest exporter and importer of goods. As a highly developed country with a very high standard of living, it offers social security and a universal health care system, environmental protections, and a tuition-free university education. The Greater German Empire was the founding member of the Central Powers in 1914 and the Internationales Komitee für Wirtschaft und Zusammenarbeit der ehemaligen Mittelmächte (IKM) in 1993. It is part of the Erhard-Raum and became a founder of the Mark-Union in 1999. Germany is also a member of the League of Nations, the Hoher Rat der Mittelmächte, the G4, the Cordon Sanitaire, the Antikomintern and the Weltreich. Known for its long and rich cultural history, Germany has continuously been the home of influential people in the arts, sciences and humanities. Germany has many World Heritage sites and is among the top tourism destinations in the world.

Etymology[]

The word German means the language of the Germans, the people of Germany. The 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 (compare Dutch), descended from Old High German diutisc"of the people" (from 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 "of the people" (see also the Latinised form Theodiscus), derived from *þeudō, descended from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂- "people", from which the word Teutons also originates.

History[]

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 between 1994 and 1998 where eight 380,000-year-old wooden javelins of 1.82 to 2.25 m (5.97 to 7.38 ft) length 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 included 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 artefact created during the European Bronze Age attributed to a site near Nebra, Saxony-Anhalt. It is part of UNESCO's Memory of the World Programme.

Germanic tribes and 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. 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. However, Baden-Württemberg, southern Bayern, southern Hessen and the western Rhineland had been conquered and incorporated into Roman provinces: Raetia, Germania Superior, and Germania Inferior. 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 farther southwest. 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 farther 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 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 (919–1024) 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 (1024–1125), although the emperors lost power through the Investiture controversy.

In the 12th century, under the Hohenstaufen emperors (1138–1254), 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 (Ostsiedlung). 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 (Große Ravensburger Handelsgesellschaft) 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 centres 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 priest Martin Luther nailed the Ninety-five Theses to the church door, challenging the practice of selling of indulgences. He was subsequently excommunicated in 1520, and his followers were condemned in the 1521 Diet of Worms, which divided Western Christianity. In 1555, the Peace of Augsburg tolerated the "Evangelical" faith (now called 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 creeds: 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 the Electorate of Cologne in 1583. However, in practice Calvinists were given protection under the Augsburg Confession Variata modified upon request by Philip Melanchthon. From the Cologne War until the end of the Thirty Years' Wars (1618–1648), religious conflict devastated German lands. The latter reduced the overall population of the German states by about 30 per cent, and in some places, up to 80 per cent. The Peace of Westphalia ended religious warfare among the Imperial Estates of the Holy Roman Empire. Their mostly German-speaking 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 (approximately 1450–1555) created the Imperial Estates and provided for considerable local autonomy among ecclesiastical, secular, and hereditary states, reflected in the 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 of 1713. This was finally settled through the War of Austrian Succession; in the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, Charles VI's daughter Maria Theresa ruled the Empire as Empress Consort when her husband, Francis I, became Holy Roman Emperor. From 1740, the dualism between the Austrian Habsburg Monarchy and the Kingdom of Prussia dominated German history.

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 secularised and annexed. In 1806 the Imperium was dissolved; many German states, particularly the Rhineland states, fell under the influence of France. Until 1815, France, Russia, Prussia and the Habsburgs (Austria) competed for hegemony in the German states during the Napoleonic Wars.

German Confederation and Empire[]

Following the fall of Napoleon, the Congress of Vienna (convened in 1814) founded the German Confederation (Deutscher Bund), a loose league of 39 sovereign states. The appointment of the Emperor of Austria as the permanent president of the Confederation reflected the Congress's failure to accept Prussia's rising 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 Austrian 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 (and decisive) Prussian victory in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 enabled him to create the North German Confederation (Norddeutscher Bund) which excluded Austria from the federation's affairs. After the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, which has been caused by the coronation of Leopold I of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen as king of Spain, the German princes proclaimed the founding of the German Empire in 1871 at Versailles. 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 William II, Germany, like other European powers, took an imperialistic course, leading to friction with neighbouring countries. Most alliances in which Germany had previously been involved were not renewed. This resulted in the creation of a dual alliance with the multinational realm of Austria-Hungary, promoting at least benevolent neutrality if not outright military support. Subsequently, the Quintuple Alliance of 1882 included Italy and the Hohenzollern kingdoms of Spain and Romania completing a Central European geographic alliance that illustrated German, Austrian, Italian, Spanish and Romanian 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, Togoland, and Cameroon. Later, Germany further expanded its colonial empire to include German New Guinea, German Micronesia and German Samoa in the Pacific, and Kiautschou Bay in China. 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 Herero 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.

Great War and Treaty of Potsdam[]

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 Great War. Germany swiftly conquered Belgium, but its advancement in France was halted due to trench warfare. On the other hand the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria joined in the Central Powers‘ favor, while the latter together with Romania overran Serbia‘s flank. Even though the Russian army progressed good in the beginning, they couldn’t resist the joint forces and fell into civil war, eventually capitulating in late 1917. The preliminary peace of Brest-Litovsk let Germany take huge chunks of land, what resulted in the creation of German satellite states, so called Reichsländer. Thanks to the relief in the East, Germany, Italy and Spain could easily invade France. The British withdrawal in March 1919 sealed the French fate. Shortly afterwards the Entente, consisting of the former Triple Alliance, Portugal and Japan, accepted their defeat in one of the bloodiest conflicts of all time. More than two million German soldiers died throughout the war.

On 28 June 1919, the Entente nations signed the Treaty of Potsdam that granted Germany and its allies land and war reparations. Germany directly annexed Belgium and some French regions in the Grand Est, nominal Meurthe-Mosel, Vogese and Belfort, while both Britain and France lost all of their colonial possessions in Africa and Asia. Despite their colonies in the Americas stayed with them due to United States intervention. Germany annexed French Indochina, Welhai, Hong Kong, Northern Borneo, Brunei, Sarawak, Malaya, Singapore, all British and French Islands in the Pacific, Formosa and Korea, while India, Pakistan and Burma have been granted independence. Spain, Italy and Germany split the Entente‘s colonies in Africa, whereby Italy got Egypt, Libya, Sudan, Eritrea, Djibouti as well as British Somaliland. On the other hand, Spain was granted French Morocco, Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Gambia, Gabon and French Congo. Germany incorporated Mozambique, Angola, South Africa, Swaziland, Basutoland, Bechuanaland, Rhodesia, Nyasaland, Belgian Congo, Uganda, British East Africa, French West Africa, French Equatorial Africa, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and the Gold Coast into the new found Reichsland Mittelafrika. Lastly, the Ottoman Empire annexed Kuwait, Yemen and Kars. In Europe, the Central Powers agreed on the Mackensen-Doktrin, named after the German Generalfeldmarschall August von Mackensen. The doctrine intended and prefered the creation of satellite states in the East over direct annexation into both German realms to not overstretch the administrativ capabilities. In fact, Germany did only annex Lithuania and Courland, whereas Austria-Hungary only incorporated the significant city of Beograd. Therefore, Germany created the the Reichsländer Poland, White Ruthenia, United Baltic Duchy, Finland, Ukraine, Crimea and Albania, while on the other hand Bulgaria and Austria-Hungary carved up Serbia and Montenegro. Bulgaria annexed Macedonia, Metohija, Kosovo and around the half of the remaining Serbian territory. In the Serbian rump-state and Montenegro, Austria-Hungary installed puppet regimes and created the so called Imperiale Protektorate. The fact that Romania only got Bessarabia and the dissolution of the Serbian Kingdom should eventually pave the way for German hegemony without its allies knowing. Finally, after long and hard discussions, Italy was granted Corse, Nice and Savoy and Spain got Gibraltar, French Basque and Northern Catalonia from France and Britain.