Germany

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, coming into contact with the Celtic, Iranian, Baltic, and Slavic tribes. Under Augustus, Rome began to invade Germania. In 9 AD, three Roman legions were defeated by Arminius.

German Confederation, organization of 39 German states, established by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 to replace the destroyed Holy Roman Empire. It was a loose political association, formed for mutual defense, with no central executive or judiciary. Delegates met in a federal assembly dominated by Austria.

The Weimar Republic was created at a time of confusion and chaos after Germany had lost World War One. People were starving, the Kaiser had fled and the new Republic got off to a troubled start for two reasons:

1. Many Germans hated the government for signing the armistice in November 1918 - they called them the November criminals. The defeat in the war came as a huge surprise to the German people, which led to a theory that the brave German army had been ‘stabbed in the back’ by the politicians.

2. Many Germans felt their country had received a very harsh deal in the Treaty of Versailles. They resented the government for agreeing to its conditions and signing it, even though they were forced to by the Allies.

At the end of the Second World War, Germany was divided into four zones of occupation under the control of the United States, Britain, France and the Soviet Union. On 15 June, East German leader Walter Ulbricht declared that 'no one has the intention of building a wall', but on the night of 12-13 August a wire barrier was constructed around West Berlin. Established crossing points between the Western and Soviet sectors were closed, dividing neighbourhoods and separating families overnight.

A unification treaty was ratified by the Bundestag and the People's Chamber in September and went into effect on October 3, 1990. The German Democratic Republic joined the Federal Republic as five additional Länder, and the two parts of divided Berlin became one Land.