History of Germany (Groß-Deutschland)

The concept of Germany as a distinct region 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. This was a geographic expression, as the area included both Germanic tribes and Celts. The victory of the Germanic tribes in the Battle of the Teutoberg Forest (AD 9) prevented annexation by the Roman Empire. Following the fall of the Roman Empire, the Franks subdued the other West Germanic tribes. When the Frankish Empire was divided among Charlemagne's heirs in 843, the eastern part (now Western Germany) became East Francia, ruled by Louis the German. Henry the Fowler became the first king of Germany in 919. In 962, Henry's son Otto I became the first emperor of what historians refer to as 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, who were elected by the princes and crowned by the pope. The northern states became Protestant in the early 16th century, while the southern states remained Catholic. Protestants and Catholics clashed in the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648), which left vast areas depopulated. The peace of Westphalia, which ended the war, is considered the effective end of the Holy Roman Empire and the beginning of the modern nation-state system. Although the Habsburg family continued to use the title "emperor", from this point on their authority was limited to Austria.

After the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815), Germany was reorganized and the number of states reduced to 39. These states were enrolled in an Austrian-led German Confederation. Nationalist sentiment led to the unsuccessful 1848 March Revolution. A German Empire was created in 1871 under the leadership of Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. The Reichstag, or elected parliament, had only a limited role in the imperial government. Unification was followed by an industrial revolution. By 1900, Germany's economy was by far the largest in Europe (and second only to the U.S. in the world). Successful in the First World War (1912-1918), Germany reinforced its position as the leading power in continental Europe. Emperor Wilhelm II came to power shortly before the war and his leadership during the war contributed to his prestige and reform efforts at enhancing democratic participation in the Empire.

The Great Depression, which began in 1929, led to a polarization of German politics and to an upsurge in support for the Communist and Fascist parties. In 1934, the National Socialists under Gerhardt Meinecker slowly gained power in the Rheinland and in Bavaria. The National Socialists, or Nazis, collaborated with the French in creating a Rhein-Deutschland puppet state, imposing a totalitarian regime on the southwest German states that quickly fell to France. After Fascist France's defeat, Germany was restored to its former territory, and annexed the rest of Lorraine into the German territory, expelling the French-speaking populations. In the late 1960s, the Soviet Union attempted an invasion of Prussian Germany and attempted to impose a Communist regime, which sparked British and American intervention in this conflict as well as Vietnam. In 1971, the USSR withdrew with a face-saving armistice deal that restored Germany's borders, and preserved the Belarus-Pact's countries as the USSR's field of influence. The German Reichsmark has continued to be the strongest European currency, and formed the basis for the new european currency, the Euromark, in 2003.

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