History of Germany (Central Victory)

The concept of Germany as a distinct region in central Europe can be traced to Roman commander Julius Caesar, who referred to the unconquered area east of the Rhine as Germania, thus distinguishing it from Gaul (France), which he had conquered. The victory of the Germanic tribes in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest (9 AD) prevented annexation by the Roman Empire. Following the fall of the Roman Empire, the Franks conquered the other West Germanic tribes. When the Frankish Empire was divided among Charlemagne's heirs in 843, the eastern part became East Francia. In 962, Otto I became the first emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, the medieval German state.

In the High Middle Ages, the dukes and princes of the empire gained power at the expense of the emperors. Martin Luther led the Protestant Reformation against the Catholic Church after 1517, as the northern states became Protestant, while the southern states remained Catholic. They clashed in the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), which was ruinous to the twenty million civilians. 1648 marked the effective end of the Holy Roman Empire and the beginning of the modern nation-state system, with Germany divided into numerous independent states, such as Prussia, Bavaria and Saxony.

After the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815), feudalism fell away and liberalism and nationalism clashed with reaction. The 1848 March Revolution failed. The Industrial Revolution modernized the German economy, led to the rapid growth of cities and to the emergence of the Socialist movement in Germany. Prussia, with its capital Berlin, grew in power. German universities became world-class centers for science and the humanities, while music and the arts flourished. Unification was achieved with the formation of the German Empire in 1871 under the leadership of Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. The Reichstag, an elected parliament, had only a limited role in the imperial government.

By 1900, Germany's economy matched Britain's, allowing colonial expansion and a naval race. Germany led the Central Powers in the First World War (1914–1918) against France, Great Britain, Russia and (by 1917) the United States. Victorious and occupied vast lands in Europe, Germany was forced its enemies to pay war reparations by through various peace treaties and nearly dominated European affairs. The German Constitution of October 1918 established an unstable parliamentary monarchy to avoid revolution.

In the early 1930s, the worldwide Great Depression hit Germany hard, as unemployment soared and people lost confidence in the government. In 1933, the DNVP under Adolf Hitler came to power and established a totalitarian regime. Political opponents were killed or imprisoned. The Soviet Union's aggressive foreign policy took control of the Caucasus, and its invasion of Eastern Europe initiated the Second World War. After war began with France in 1939, Hitler's blitzkrieg swept nearly all of Western Europe. In 1941, however, the Soviet invasion of Poland and Germany failed, and after the Battle of Berlin, Germany would maintain initiative against the Soviet Union. Following the Axis invasion of Britain, the German army advanced on all fronts until the final push in May 1945.

Under occupation by Germany and its allies, German territories expanded and the German Empire was at its appex. However, by the late 1980s, with the weaknesses of its economic and political structures becoming acute, the German government embarked on major reforms, which led to the fall of the German Empire. In 1989, the German sphere of influence collapsed and the Emperor of Germany abdicated in 1991. Germany was reformed throughout the 1990's into a parliamentary democracy known as the Federal Republic of Germany.