Political history.
Germany’s political history includes some of the most memorable and impressing governmental regimes in the world. Germany started with total independence of territorial states, which was caused by the thirty years war in the early 1600’s. After that came the Holy Roman Empire Rule by the empire until his power started to weaken in favor of the princes. Then came French rule by Napoleon in 1806, which abolished Holy Roman Empire rule over Germany. In 1807, came the unification of Germany by Otto Von Bismarck under the leadership of Prussia. An Empire’s authoritarian constitution was created which gives elected national parliament power but gives Kaiser extensive powers. In 1919, the Weimar Republic was created after Germany had lost WWI and William II went into exile and the Treaty of Versailles was signed. Weimar was a parliamentary representative democracy, which the people did not like. In 1933, Hitler came into power and the Third Reich was started in 1934. After Hitler had killed most of the Jews in Europe and had invaded Poland, which started WWII, which Germany lost, Germany became divided. The Germans ruled Western Germany democratically, while Eastern Germany, which was separated by the Berlin Wall, was ruled communistically by the Soviets. In 1990, Kohl united Eastern and Western Germany once again. The culture throughout these hard times however was not necessarily changed a lot because German culture began long before Germany rose as a nation, which made it hard for the culture to change drastically from such a long period of time being the same. This brought some hardships for Germany but in the long run, it has made Germany as a whole thrive as a country. [1]
[1] "BBC News - Timeline: Germany." BBC News - Home. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/country_profiles/1053880.stm (accessed September 28, 2012).
[1] "BBC News - Timeline: Germany." BBC News - Home. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/country_profiles/1053880.stm (accessed September 28, 2012).