it's not easy to provide a prologue for germany - so very many facets to consider! but then, quite a few people know nothing about germany, or they mix it up with georgia or ghana or guinea or or or. even worse, they may only associate dictator hitler with germany. so, here is a mini-introduction:
beside russia, germany is the largest country in europe, with a population of 83 mio; its capital is berlin. it is located in the center of europe, north of the alp mountains. the currrent germany was created in 1945 after the end of ww-2, in which germany got down completely. compared to its status in 1939, germany lost 1945 about 1/3 of its area, mainly eastern provinces. in 1949 germany split in 'capitalist' west germany and 'communist' east germany. in 1990, after the collapse of the sowjet union, germany was re-unified.
germany's history: the first quasi-predecessor was the "holy roman empire", established in 962, and lasting until 1806. it consisted of about 10 powerful duchies (e.g., saxony, bavaria). in 1815, the german confederation, a loose league of 39 sovereign states, was installed. then, in 1871, eventually the german empire was re-born, dominated by prussia. after the end of ww-1 germany became a republic. the worst time of germany followed in 1933, with adolph hitler, named the "third empire", which got destroyed in ww-2.
finally, some essential german citizens were: bach (composer), beethoven (composer), benz (car inventor), duerer (painter), einstein (physisist), goethe (author), gropius (architect), gutenberg (printer), kant (philosopher), luther (priest), marx (philosopher), mozart (composer), porsche (engineer), schopenhauer (philosopher), schweitzer (humanitarian), zeppelin (engineer), zuse (computer inventor).
personal note: i lived in germany until 1993, and frequently visited it afterwards, until 2016 - so the reported tours spread out over a large time frame.
