Germany & German Culture
 Worth in the excess of 100million US$ and often described
as "The Eighth Wonder of The World", the Amber Room is a missing
treasure which has fascinated art historians and bounty hunters
for generations. It is a room decorated entirely with the
light precious stone amber, essentially fossilised tree sap.
It was first created in Germany in the 1700s, then was given
to Russia before returning to Germany in Nazi times. People
have searched for it ever since it disappeared at the end
of World War II but to no avail. Many believe that it is cursed,
and may have been responsible for the grisly deaths of several
people involved with it.
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Beer is a very important part of life for many Germans. Germans
have the third largest annual consumption of beer per head
in Europe, beaten only by the Czech Republic and Ireland.
There are a vast variety of German beers, some of which are
popular worldwide, and inter-brewery competition within Germany
is fierce, so the standard is very high.
Despite hundreds of years of innovation though, German beer's
characteristics and flavour have remained relatively unchanged,
thanks mainly to the oldest food regulation in the world,
Germany's famous Reinheitsgebot.
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For almost thirty years the Berlin Wall divided the city
of Berlin in two. Overnight its construction separated friends
from friends, family from relatives, and one half of a great
city from the other. Then one day in 1989, among scenes of
great rejoicing and delight, this symbol of oppression was
torn down by the very people it was designed to control.
That great day will be remembered by many for generations,
but so too will the preceding decades of conflict and strife
that the Wall represented. Today, the Berlin Wall is barely
visible, although where it once stood has been marked out
in downtown Berlin over a distance of 20 kilometres with
a red line or a double row of cobblestones. All that remains
are a few vestiges about 1.5 km in length kept as memorials.
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Looking for a good read on Germany? Interested in German
culture, language and history or thinking of visiting the
country on business or vacation?
In association with Amazon we review some of our favourite
books on Germany.
Titles from Lonely Planet, Fodor's, Frommer's, Penguin, Aurum
Press, McGraw-Hill, Workman Publishing, Insight Guides, Cambridge
University Press, Rough Guides and Eyewitness.
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Germany was the birth place of the automobile, In 1876 the
four-stroke engine was invented by Nikolaus August Otto, then
in 1887 Karl Benz attached a couch to an internal combustion
engine, thus creating the first vehicle comparable to the
modern car. Germany now produces about 10 million cars per
year. The industry employs about 1.26 million people. German
companies such as Audi, Daimler, Mercedes, BMW, Volkswagen
and Porsche have factories producing millions of cars all
over the world. Mercedes was originally named after a client's
daughter, Volkswagen means 'people's car', and BMW stands
for 'Bayerische Motoren Werke' – 'Bavarian Motor Works'.
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The case of the cannibal Armin Meiwes shocked Germany and
the world. Meiwes was convicted of killing and eating a willing
partner, Bernd-Jurgen Brandes, after first dining on his victim's
flambéed penis.
Meiwes was convicted only of manslaughter because cannibalism
is not strictly speaking a crime in Germany, and because his
victim had volunteered to be eaten after replying to an internet
advert.
The two met after Meiwes placed the advert searching for a
well built man happy to be killed and eaten.
Brandes replied to the advert and wrote his will immediately
before he was killed. The couple first romped on a bare bed,
and Brandes, high on a combination of alcohol and painkillers,
asked Meiwes to bite his penis off.
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Albert Einstein made enormous advances in physics and became
the first, and perhaps only, 'super star scientist', achieving
great fame throughout the world. He campaigned for many political
issues, and his pressuring US President Roosevelt to develop
the atom bomb may have been crucial to the outcome of the
Second World War.
Einstein was born in Germany on March 14th 1879 and died in
the US in 1955. After his death his body was cremated but
his brain was examined and preserved in a jar. Contrary to
many peoples' expectations nothing unusual was found (it was
of average weight).
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Thinking about German food most people imagine sauerkraut,
massive sausages, and foaming mugs of beer. It's true a lot
of Germans love that, but it's by no means the whole story.
There is now lots of lighter, modern 'German' food, and of
course Germany is well stocked with Turkish, Italian, Thai,
Greek and Yugoslavian and Indian restaurants. Most popular
are the Turkish restaurants with Doner Kebabs (Döner
Kebap) and Falafel leading the way.
In Berlin almost every street has a Turkish restaurant, some
of which are open 24 hours.
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Johannes Gutenberg is widely credited as being the father
of printing in Europe.
Certain printing methods were available long before his time,
but they were too slow and it was Gutenberg who made them
practically applicable. Prior to his work on the printing
press, it took scribes approximately twenty years to transcribe
a single copy of the Bible.
Most books were then chained to the shelves, available only
to a privileged few. His inventions meant that reading finally
became available to a wider audience, a precursor to the Renaissance
and the modern scientific age.
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In 2005 Angela Merkel (nee Kasner) defeated the incumbent
Gerhard Schroeder to become German Chancellor, the first leader
of the reunited Germany to come from East Germany, and the
first female Chancellor in Germany.
Being the daughter of a member of the clergy meant life was
never easy for the young Merkel. Her family had shelves full
of banned books, watched West German television, and even
enjoyed games of Monopoly, the capitalist game of the enemy
West.
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German and German speaking philosophers have made vast contributions
to philosophy, and through philosophy, to the course of world
history.
Perhaps the most influential were the 'great triumvirate'
of Immanuel Kant, Georg Hegel and Karl Marx. Other noteworthy
philosophers include Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche,
Martin Heidegger and the Nobel prize-winner Hermann Hesse.
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German is the official language of Germany, Liechtenstein
and Austria, as well as being spoken in parts of Switzerland,
eastern France, northern Italy, Luxembourg, Belgium, and a
few places in Eastern Europe.
There are also large German speaking communities in North
and South America. In total it is the mother tongue of about
100 million people. It is an Indo-European language particularly
closely related to English, Frisian, Yiddish, Dutch, and Afrikaans.
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Germany undoubtedly has one of the greatest musical traditions
of any country in the world.
Although in modern times few German bands have achieved international
recognition, many influential classical composers have come
from Germany.
They include Bach, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Wagner
and Mendelssohn to mention just a few. Germany also has a
rich tradition of traditional folk songs and religious carols.
Rammstein and Kraftwerk are two of Germany's more famous modern
bands.
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Germany, or the Federal Republic of Germany as it is officially
titled, is a parliamentary democracy of about 80 million people.
It was created in 1949 at the end of four years of Allied
occupation after World War II. In 1990 it was united with
East Germany (The German Democratic Republic). The post-unification
political system is largely similar to that of pre-unification
West Germany.
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Germany is criss-crossed by rivers and waterways, enjoys
a temperate climate, and the elevation of the land rises to
well over 9,000 ft (2,700 m). It is natural that such a landscape
should be characterized by great beauty and awe inspiring
scenes. Furthermore, the long history of civilization there,
as well as the country's cultural and technological preeminence,
means that its human landscape makes for impressions as profound
and beautiful as the natural. With the co-operation of the
tourism departments of German cities, as well as that of several
professional photographers, Soccerphile.com is proud to bring
you a growing kaleidoscope of the many faces of Germany. Whether
you are intending to visit Germany for the World Cup in 2006
and want a preview of what awaits you, or whether you are
browsing for your viewing pleasure, click and enjoy a variety
of sights from the very heart of Europe. Remember: our collection
is growing. Please come back for more.
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With more than 500 courses and 300,000 players Germany is
certainly a place where you can enjoy good golf. It's crucial
that you plan your trip properly in advance as you won't be
able to just hire clubs and walk onto a course, but don't
let that put you off, there are many great courses worth every
Euro of the green fee. The number of German golf courses has
rocketed in the last fifteen years, in part due to the popularity
brought to the sport by the greatest German golfer of all
time, Bernhard 'The Ice Man' Langer.
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Possibly there is no football so misunderstood as that of
Germany. Non-Germans may think of them as professional, nearly
invincible, and always playing the same style of football.
The facts do not bear out these perceptions though. Here are
just a few examples:
Professionalism came late to German football and the national
team regularly lost to professional teams such as England
and Austria, sometimes by a large margin.
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German hearts were broken by Brazil in the 2002 World Cup
final. But historians of the game in Berlin, Cologne and Hamburg
must have felt a certain amount of pride in the result. After
all, it was the Germans who were partly responsible for the
organisation of the Brazilian game and helped found the longest
running football club in existence in the country. It would
fall to Germans in the southernmost state of Rio Grande do
Sul to found Brazil's longest-running football club: Sport
Club Rio Grande.
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German wines are mainly white: the ratio of white to red
wine produced in Germany is about 4 to 1.
Germany has a quarter of a million acres of vineyards. Prices
of quality German wine in Germany are about 40% of the prices
one would pay for the same wine in the USA and the UK.
White German wines can accompany a meal or be used for sipping.
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A generally laid-back attitude towards sex in Germany makes
the country a naturally attractive place for gays and lesbians
to feel at home in. Germany, where people can sunbathe nude
in the middle of the capital city; Germany, where it's de
rigueur for men of whatever sexuality to parade as fat pouting
dames on carnival night. Germany, where prostitution is legal
and the age of consent is 14. A place that can be this relaxed
and funloving is unlikely to get overly puritan about how
gay men and women get their pleasures.
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With a record seven World Driver's Championship victories,
the most Grand Prix victories, and the most championship points
ever, Michael Schumacher (alias 'The Red Baron', 'Red Devil'
'Schuey' or 'Schumi') is undoubtedly the most successful driver
in Formula 1 history.
His father, Rolf Schumacher, owned the local go-karting track
and Michael was racing karts by the age of four. He won the
world Formula 3 series in 1990 and had success in the World
Endurance Championship before getting his Formula 1 debut.
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It is estimated that 1.2 million German men use prostitutes
each year, and the industry has an annual turnover of US$1.6
billion.
Prostitution was legalised in Germany in 2002. The idea was
to remove the industry from criminal hands and thus reduce
the illegal trafficking of women, make working conditions
safer and reduce stigma.
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We all know what Germans are like, don't we? The men are
fat, and love beer, leather trousers, sauerkraut or bratwurst
and beer, and have dodgy facial hair. The women are icy Teutonic
beauties with blonde hair and blue eyes. Both sexes loathe
inefficiency, love the Fatherland, have never been late for
anything in their lives, and would secretly quite like to
invade Europe, even if they have to do it via the EU. They
speak perfect English, and eat about five meals a day. They
don't know the meaning of the word Witz (joke in German).
Well, that's the stereotype, let's check out how true it is.
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