Welcome to the Germany Portal!
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Germany (German: Deutschland), officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central and Western Europe, lying between the Baltic and North Seas to the north and the Alps to the south. It borders Denmark to the north, Poland and the Czech Republic to the east, Austria and Switzerland to the south, France to the southwest, and Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands to the west.
Germany includes 16 constituent states, covers an area of 357,578 square kilometres (138,062 sq mi) and has a largely temperate seasonal climate. With 83 million inhabitants, it is the second most populous state of Europe after Russia, the most populous state lying entirely in Europe, as well as the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is a very decentralized country. Its capital and largest metropolis is Berlin, while Frankfurt serves as its financial capital and has the country's busiest airport.
In 1871, Germany became a nation-state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the Revolution of 1918–19, the empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic. The Nazi seizure of power in 1933 led to World War II, and the Holocaust. After the end of World War II in Europe and a period of Allied occupation, two new German states were founded: West Germany, formed from the American, British, and French occupation zones, and East Germany, formed from the western part of the Soviet occupation zone, reduced by the newly established Oder-Neisse line. Following the Revolutions of 1989 that ended communist rule in Central and Eastern Europe, the country was reunified on 3 October 1990.
Today, Germany is a federal parliamentary republic led by a chancellor. It is a great power with a strong economy. The Federal Republic of Germany was a founding member of the European Economic Community in 1957 and the European Union in 1993. Read more...
Selected article
![SMS Lothringen in the Kiel Canal](http://up.wiki.x.io/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5d/German_battleship_SMS_Lothringen_underway_in_the_Kiel_Canal_%28NH_46821%29.jpg/250px-German_battleship_SMS_Lothringen_underway_in_the_Kiel_Canal_%28NH_46821%29.jpg)
SMS Lothringen was the last of five pre-dreadnought battleships of the Braunschweig class, built for the German Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy). She was laid down in December 1902, was launched in May 1904, and was commissioned in May 1906. She was named for Lothringen (now Lorraine), a province of the German Empire from 1871 to 1918. The ship was armed with a battery of four 28 cm (11 in) guns and had a top speed of 18 knots (33 km/h; 21 mph). Like all other pre-dreadnoughts built around the turn of the century, Lothringen was quickly made obsolete by the launching of the revolutionary HMS Dreadnought in December 1906; as a result, her career as a front-line battleship was cut short.
Lothringen's peacetime career centered on squadron and fleet exercises and training cruises with II Battle Squadron. Scheduled to be withdrawn from service in July 1914 and replaced by newer dreadnought battleships, the outbreak of World War I that month prevented her retirement. She spent the first two years of the war primarily serving as a guard ship in the German Bight. She and the rest of II Squadron joined the dreadnoughts of the High Seas Fleet to support the raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool, and Whitby in December 1914. In poor condition by 1916, she was withdrawn from fleet service in February. She thereafter patrolled the Danish straits until she was replaced by the battleship Hannover in September 1917. She spent the rest of the war as a disarmed training ship.
After the war, Lothringen was retained by the re-formed Reichsmarine and converted into a depot ship for F-type minesweepers from 1919 to 1920. After the task of clearing the wartime minefields in the North Sea was completed, she was placed in reserve in March 1920. The ship remained inactive for the next decade and was stricken from the naval register in March 1931 and sold to ship breakers later that year. (Full article...)
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Anniversaries for August 23
![Signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact](http://up.wiki.x.io/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4c/MolotovRibbentropStalin.jpg/100px-MolotovRibbentropStalin.jpg)
- 1773 – Birth of philosopher Jakob Friedrich Fries
- 1939 – The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact is signed in Moscow
Did you know...
- ... that a geographer determined the surface area of Carl Friedrich Gauss's brain?
- ... that a scholar argued that the 2021 German novel About People, which is about the COVID-19 pandemic in the country, encourages "sympathy with rightwing extremists"?
- ... that Johann Joseph Dömling suggested in 1803 that venous blood contained carbon monoxide?
- ... that classical composer Carl Ludvig Lithander also worked as a teacher at a military academy?
- ... that Leonhard Kaiser, a student of Martin Luther, was burned at the stake on 16 August 1527 after being declared guilty of heresy?
- ... that Zionist activist Georg Kareski defended the Nuremberg Laws in a Nazi newspaper?
- ... that in Ludwig Krug's rendition of Adam and Eve (pictured), an ape mimics Adam eating the apple?
- ... that the first public performance of the two songs of Arnold Schoenberg's Zwei Gesänge, Op. 1, was met with hostile audience reactions?
Selected cuisines, dishes and foods
![Fischbrötchen with pickled herring](http://up.wiki.x.io/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7e/Fischbroetchen_01_%28fcm%29.jpg/220px-Fischbroetchen_01_%28fcm%29.jpg)
A Fischbrötchen (listen) (pl. "Fischbrötchen", lit. fish bread roll) is a sandwich made with fish and other components such as fresh white or dried onions, pickles, remoulade, creamy horseradish sauce, ketchup, or cocktail sauce. It is commonly eaten in Northern Germany, due to the region's proximity to the North Sea and Baltic Sea.
A common preparation is made with bismarck herring or soused herring. Other varieties use Brathering, rollmops, European sprat, salmon, smoked Atlantic mackerel, fried Atlantic cod, and other fish varieties (e.g., fish burgers). Prawns are sometimes used, as are various other species of food fish. Fischbrötchen are commonly served at fast food stands or take-out restaurants. (Full article...)Topics
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