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History
and Government
History: The
rich and complex history of what is now Germany is inseparable
from that of Central and Western Europe from the fifth
century onwards. It is often said that the Germanic
tribes destroyed the Roman Empire, but the Visigoths,
Ostrogoths and Franks who settled in Western Europe
after the deposition of the Emperor Romulus in 476AD
were anxious to perpetuate, at least in some of its
aspects, a system which they both admired and found
administratively convenient. Indeed, it was a Frank,
Charlemagne, who revived the Roman Empire in the West
in AD800, thus being the first to unite what is now
Germany together with the area of France and northern
Italy, albeit only for the 40 years of his own reign
and that of his son, Louis the Pious. The division of
Charlemagne's Empire was confirmed by the Treaty of
Verdun (AD843), as a result of which much of what is
now Germany passed to Louis' son, Louis the German.
During the next 80 years, Germany fragmented into five
large duchies (Saxony, Bavaria, Franconia, Lorraine
and Swabia), whose dukes managed to establish a de facto
hereditary tenure. The tenth century witnessed a growth
in the power of central authority under the leadership
of the House of Saxony, while in the 11th century and
early 12th century, under the Salian dynasty, the power
of the crown was in many ways at its height. In 1152,
following a disputed succession and a civil war, the
dynamic Frederick Barbarossa acceded to the throne:
he is one of the most significant figures in German
history. Frederick, his son Henry VI and his grandson
Frederick II made prodigious attempts to revive the
reality of royal power in Germany and Italy, but the
task proved impossible and by the late 13th century
the country was seething with civil war. This period
saw the emergence for the first time of the House of
Habsburg. Temporarily deposed by other dynasties during
the next 150 years, Albert V of Habsburg re-established
his clan's ascendancy in 1438. The Habsburgs were to
rule the empire, with only a brief interruption, until
1806. By this time Germany had dissolved into a patchwork
of over 300 states, some no more than a town or castle,
and increasingly the Habsburg Emperors derived their
power and influence from their extensive family lands.
In 1519, Charles V became Emperor, uniting by his dynastic
connections Spain, the Low Countries, Naples, Sicily,
Burgundy, the Holy Roman Empire and all the Spanish
possessions in the New World. Germany, in common with
much of the rest of Europe, was riven by the Reformation
at this time, despite Charles V's attempts to impose
a religious solution by force. The impossibility of
holding together such a large empire was recognised
by Charles himself, and on his abdication in 1556 the
imperial office and the Habsburg lands passed to his
brother Ferdinand I. Sporadic warfare against the Turks
continued, but a more serious catastrophe was the complex
Thirty Years War (1618-1648), during which many of Europe's
disputes were fought out on German soil. One of the
results of the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 was the emergence
of the previously minor state of Brandenburg-Prussia
as a major power; the territorial gains were built upon
by a series of cunning and ruthless rulers and, by the
early 18th century, the new kingdom was the scourge
of other European states, not least the Habsburg Empire.
Frederick the Great is the king most strongly associated
with the growth of Prussian militarism. By the time
the moribund Holy Roman Empire - not inaccurately described
by a contemporary as being 'neither holy, nor Roman,
nor an empire' - was formally abolished by Napoleon
in 1806 (by which time the Habsburgs had already assumed
the title of Emperors of Austria), much of its northern
and eastern parts had already been absorbed by Prussia.
After 1815 the German Confederation was established
with 39 states. German unification continued apace throughout
the century, the most significant figure being Count
(later Prince) Otto von Bismarck, Chancellor under Emperor
Wilhelm I. Various wars, both offensive and defensive,
were fought with other European states, the most notable
being the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71), and an increasingly
complex web of treaties and diplomacy (including the
Dual and Triple Alliances of 1878 and 1892) grew up,
which for a time contained the equally increasingly
ambitious policies of the major European states and
their empires. It was a revolt in Serbia which finally
shattered the illusion of European security, precipitating
a complex chain of events which led to World War I.
After 1918 a democratic constitution was adopted, but
political instability and severe economic problems assisted
the rise of the National Socialists under Adolf Hitler
during the 1930s. Hitler sought to reverse the perceived
humiliation imposed by the 1919 Treaty of Versailles
(the political settlement at the end of World War I)
by initiating a major rearmament programme which no
other European power seemed inclined to challenge. Hitler
then set about creating the Third Reich, first by merger
(Anschluss) with Austria, then annexation of
the Czech Sudetenland, followed by the then Czechoslovakia
itself. When Hitler threatened Poland, the UK and France
then drew the line: from there, it was a short route
to World War II. After six years of global warfare,
at an estimated cost of 60 million lives, the German
army was defeated in 1945 by the allied armies of the
USA, the USSR, Britain and others. This produced the
post-war division of Europe into Western and Soviet
spheres of influence. Germany was divided into two parts:
the eastern, Soviet-controlled portion became the German
Democratic Republic; the western part emerged to become
the Federal Republic of Germany. The city of Berlin,
which lay within the GDR, was itself divided into allied
and Soviet-controlled zones. East Berlin became the
capital of the GDR while the isolated West Berlin was
attached to the Federal Republic. The Federal Republic
was established in September 1949, under the supervision
of the three Western allied powers - the USA, Britain
and France. Federal politics adopted the familiar pattern
of Social Democratic (SPD) and centre-right Christian
Democrat (CDU) parties typical of most of Western Europe.
The dominant political figure of the era was Konrad
Adenauer, Chancellor between 1949 and 1963. Adenauer
and his Economics Minister Ludwig Erhard were the principal
architects of the country's phenomenal economic growth
after 1945. A major foundation of this was the European
Coal and Steel Community, under which the Federal Republic
and France, together with several smaller neighbours,
established a free trade area in these products. This
was the basis of the European Economic Community, which
was formally established by the 1957 Rome Treaty. The
Christian Democrats remained in power until 1972, at
which point the SPD took control of the Bundestag under
the leadership of Willi Brandt. Brandt resigned in 1974
and was replaced by Helmut Schmidt. Brandt initiated
Ostpolitik under which peaceful co-operation
became the centrepiece of relations with the GDR; it
was conceived as an alternative to the sterility of
the Cold War. The Soviets had sponsored the creation
of the GDR in October 1949 and granted formal independence
to the country five years later. During the 1950s, the
GDR embarked on a full-scale programme of socialist
development complete with wholesale agricultural reform
and breakneck industrial construction. Popular discontent
with some of the policies culminated in a series of
uprisings throughout the decade - notably in 1953 -
which were put down forcefully. Political power in the
GDR was vested solely in the hands of the Sozialistische
Einheitspartei Deutschlands (SED - Socialist Unity
Party), an amalgam of leftist and pre-war anti-fascist
parties dominated by the Communist Party. Walter Ulbricht
was succeeded as Party First Secretary in 1971 by Erich
Honecker, who remained in the post almost until the
end of the GDR. As with West Germany, relations with
the 'other' Germany dominated the political agenda in
the GDR. Ostpolitik was continued by Brandt's
successor, Helmut Schmidt, and by the Government which
took office after the SPD lost its overall majority
at the 1980 election. This was a coalition of the SPD
and the small centrist Free Democrats, then led by Hans-Dietrich
Genscher, who became West Germany's Foreign Minister
for the next 12 years. The coalition collapsed in 1982
after which the Free Democrats promptly switched sides
and teamed up with the right-wing Christian Democrats
(CDU) under Helmut Kohl. Kohl was to become the most
electorally successful Chancellor in post-war German
history, winning four consecutive polls before his eventual
defeat in 1998. He will also be remembered for presiding
over German unification, which dramatic process began
in 1985 with the accession of Gorbachev in Moscow and
steadily gathered momentum until its climax at the end
of 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse
of the East German state. The first free election for
a national GDR leadership was held in March 1990, and
victory went to the Alliance for Germany coalition led
by Lothar de Mazière and firmly backed by Chancellor
Kohl and the CDU. The final decision on unification
was not, of course, exclusively one for the Germans:
the agreement of the wartime Allies was required. The
West presented no problems: Washington was enthusiastic,
while Paris, London and - surprisingly - Moscow were
lukewarm but not obstructive. Unified Germany, with
nearly 80 million people and twice the GNP of the EU's
next largest member, dominates the Union economically.
The political complexion of united Germany's government
was decided at national elections on December 3 1990.
As expected, Chancellor Kohl's CDU-controlled alliance
won a comfortable majority in the Bundestag. The major
problem facing Kohl's third administration was the state
of the Eastern economy. Although it was a huge drain
on the exchequer's resources, the implementation of
the Government's policy (see Business Profile
for details) has, in retrospect, been largely vindicated
as average incomes in the East have steadily risen towards
the level of those in the West. On the political front,
Kohl, the CDU and its allies were greatly assisted by
the lack of either unity or of coherent, distinctive
policies on the part of the Social Democrat opposition.
It was not until Kohl's final term - following his victory
with a reduced majority in 1994 - that a new leadership
emerged within the SDP capable of challenging the veteran
Chancellor. Prominent among these were would-be Chancellor
Gerhard Schröder and party chair Oskar Lafontaine,
both younger men who cut their political teeth in the
1960s and had a very different view of Germany's future
from Kohl's generation with its experiences rooted in
World War II. The shift in the popular mood away from
the CDU became apparent from 1995 onwards. At the next
general election held in September 1998, the SPD won
a 7% majority over its rival and immediately opened
negotiations with the Greens to form a 'red-green' coalition
government. After 17 years as Chancellor and 25 years
as party leader, Kohl stood down. Since then he has
become embroiled in a major scandal over illegal funding
of political parties - an unfortunate ending to the
career of one of Germany's most prominent post-war politicians.
Chancellor Schröder immediately declared his intention
to seek continuity in both economic and foreign policy:
despite difficulties in the early stages, mostly related
to the downturn of the German economy, the government
has more or less kept to that pledge. Abroad, Germany
has been heavily involved in diplomatic and military
activities in the Balkans, while leading the EU's efforts
to forge distinctive policies in both the Middle East
and Far East. The Foreign Ministry is in the hands of
Joschka Fischer, the most senior of the Green Party
ministers in the coalition government. The Greens have
entered government for the first time, and also hold
one of Germany's two seats on the EU Commission. As
elsewhere in Europe, immigration and asylum have become
major politicial issues - Germany hosts the largest
number of any EU nation - and the debate has coincided
with the growth of violent neo-Nazism. Again, this is
a trend which is now evident throughout much of Western
Europe.
Government: The
present constitution dates from May 1949, the Federal
Republic of Germany being formally established four
months later. The country is a parliamentary democracy
with a bicameral legislature (Bundesrat and Bundestag,
with 68 and 663 members respectively). Executive authority
lies with the Federal Government, led by the Federal
Chancellor. The Federal President is the constitutional
head of state. Each of the states has its own legislature
with power to pass laws on all matters not expressly
reserved for the competence of the Federal Government.
The former German Democratic Republic has been absorbed
into this system, adding five Länder to the total.
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