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Germany The People
Germany has a total population of 82,369,548 (2008 estimate). As is the case in many industrialized countries, the German population has grown substantially older on the average since the early 20th century. This is a result of declining birth rates and the shrinking of family size as Germans have chosen to have fewer children. In addition, the numbers of single-parent and one-person households are increasing.
The German population is overwhelmingly urban. Germany has more than three dozen cities exceeding 200,000 residents, and 12 metropolises with more than 500,000 residents. Three of Germany’s federal states are city-states: Berlin, Bremen, and Hamburg. Berlin is the capital and largest city.
Germany’s population density is highest in the northwest, especially in North Rhine-Westphalia (Nordrhein-Westfalen), which includes Germany’s old industrial heartland, the Ruhr Valley, and a number of large cities. Population density is lower in the former East Germany and in the more rural states of Schleswig-Holstein, Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen), and Bavaria.
A Ethnic Groups
Several ethnic minorities live in Germany, including the Danes of northern Schleswig-Holstein and the Sorbs of southeastern Brandenburg, who are descended from the Slavic tribes called the Wends. Foreign residents make up about 9 percent of Germany’s population. The largest group is Turkish, but there are also large numbers of East European refugees, as well as immigrants from European Union (EU) countries such as Italy, Spain, and Greece.
B Immigration
As a result of being defeated in World War I and World War II, Germany lost large areas of land. After World War II, many ethnic Germans fled from lost territories and East European countries to what remained of Germany. About 8 million refugees fled from East Prussia, the Czech Sudetenland, and the region between the Oder and Neisse rivers in Poland. About another 3 million ethnic Germans fled from Hungary, Yugoslavia, Romania, and other parts of Eastern Europe. Most of these ethnic Germans had lived for centuries in Eastern Europe. However, during and after the wars they were driven out, often violently, with the loss of an estimated 2 million German lives. This process began with the collapse of the German Empire (see German Unification) and Austria-Hungary in 1918 and the establishment of East European countries such as Czechoslovakia and Poland. The failed attempt of the Nazi Party to reconquer and expand German ethnic dominance by force led to the final flight and expulsion of ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe.
Once they arrived from their trek to East and West Germany, these millions of ethnic German refugees were rapidly integrated into German society. Many refugees continued to move from rural to urban areas, and from east to west as 2.5 million East Germans fled to West Germany before the Berlin Wall was built in 1961.
A second great population movement began in the 1950s as the rapidly expanding West German economy demanded a larger labor supply. To meet this demand, West Germany looked outside the country to fill labor needs. From 1955, under bilateral treaties with various countries that had underemployment, West Germany brought in thousands of so-called guest workers on limited-term contracts to work for a few years. WhenGermany’s economic growth slowed in the early 1970s, West Germany stopped foreign recruitment and expected the guest workers to return to their home countries. However, most of them—including large numbers of workers from Turkey and Yugoslavia—did not leave. In addition, many workers had brought their families with them to share in Germany’s opportunities, living standards, and welfare benefits.
During the 1980s and 1990s Germany continued to experience waves of migration. The disintegration of Eastern European Communist regimes led ethnic Germans from as far away as Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Russia, and Romania to seek a new life in Germany, where the Basic Law offers them instant citizenship even if they do not speak the language. The crumbling of Communist rule in East Germany was also accompanied by a massive migration of East Germans to West Germany. Finally, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, hundreds of thousands of people a year from Sri Lanka, Lebanon, West Africa, and other regions sought refuge in Germany under Article 16 of the Basic Law, which provides asylum for victims of political persecution.
Some Germans have not welcomed these immigrants; many believe that the immigrants came only to participate inGermany’s high living standards. Official responses to these different kinds of immigration challenges have been varied and at times inconsistent, especially since Germany is a federal country and different states and cities have widely varying labor needs and problems. Ethnic German “resettlers” and East German migrants still encounter prejudice even though they are German citizens. Asylum-seekers have been kept in hostels all over the country, barred from jobs and social integration while individual cases for political asylum are examined. This process can take years and has resulted in large numbers of people being turned away. Restrictive immigration procedures adopted in the early 1990s reduced the number of annual asylum seekers by two-thirds.
C Principal Cities
Germany’s largest cities tend to be either the capitals of former or present states—for example, Berlin, the capital of former Prussia; Munich, the capital of Bavaria; and Dresden, the capital of Saxony (Sachsen). In addition, many of Germany’s largest cities are centers of important super-regional functions or part of industrial areas. For example, the Rhine-Ruhr area, the center of German heavy industry, is a vast population hub with five large cities: Düsseldorf, Duisburg, Dortmund, Essen, and Cologne. Because many people live in adjacent areas or towns and commute to the city, each of these urban centers accounts for far more people than just those living within the city limits.
The cores of many of these large cities and many smaller ones are quite old and have maintained their historic centers with authentically preserved old buildings and cathedrals. Many small towns, such as Rothenburg ob der Tauber in northern Bavaria, boast medieval towers, gates, and parts of their ancient city walls. Many medium-sized and larger cities also pride themselves on a rich, publicly subsidized cultural life of theater, opera, music festivals, and galleries, which add modern refinement to regional traditions.
D Language
The principal and official language of Germany is German, an Indo-European language (see German Language). Standard High German is used for official, educational, and literary purposes. Spoken German, however, differs from High German in the form of dozens of distinctive dialects and simplified street usage. One version, Low German, or Plattdeutsch, resembles Dutch and is spoken in the seaboard areas of the northwest. Southern dialects such as Swabian and Bavarian may be hard to understand for North Germans or for foreign visitors who learned only High German in school. There are small language minorities, such as the Sorbs of southeastern Brandenburg and the Danes of northern Schleswig-Holstein; both of these groups also have some cultural autonomy. The various immigrant populations also retain their separate languages, such as Turkish, Greek, Italian, Spanish, and Croatian. However, the public schools require all children to learn German.
E Religion
Religion in Germany plays a fairly small role in society. Church attendance in Germany is much lower than that in the United States. Under German law, all churches are supported by a modest church tax that is collected by the state.
Roman Catholicism was the dominant religion in medieval Germany until the major crises and reformation efforts of the 14th and 15th centuries. After that time, Protestant churches came to power in the majority of principalities of the north, east, and center of the Holy Roman Empire. The actual Reformation began with the publication of the Ninety-five Theses of protest by Martin Luther in 1517. After considerable religious and political conflict, the Peace of Augsburg of 1555 decreed that each ruler of the approximately 300 German principalities could determine the religion of the subjects. The Catholics eventually met the rapid spread of Protestantism with the Counter Reformation, which involved internal church reforms and a stricter interpretation of church doctrine. Religious strife finally culminated in the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648), which devastated the country.
Roman Catholics, mainly concentrated in the south, make up about 35 percent of the German population. Protestants, the great majority of whom are Lutherans (see Lutheranism), make up about 37 percent of the people. Protestants live primarily in the north. Several German Protestant churches form a loosely organized federation called the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD). About 4 percent of the German population is Muslim (see Islam).
Only a very small percentage of Germans are Jewish (See also Judaism). Until the 19th century, the Jewish community was segregated and barred from many activities in most German states. In 19th-century Prussia and with the unification of Germany in 1871, German Jews were granted equal status under the law. At that point, German Jews became integrated into cultural and economic life. More than 500,000 Jews lived in Germany in the early 1930s. By the end of World War II in 1945, most of them had been killed by the Nazis in the Holocaust or had fled the country. By 1970 only about 33,000 Jews lived in Germany . With the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe and the fall of the Berlin Wall, tens of thousands of East European and Russian Jews began to settle in the larger cities of Germany , particularly Berlin. Today, due to in part to an immigration policy that generally grants visas to Jews from formerly Communist states, Germany is home to one of the fastest growing Jewish populations in Europe, now numbering more than 100,000.
F Education
Full-time school attendance in Germany is free and mandatory from age 6 to age 14, after which most children either continue in secondary schools or participate in vocational education until the age of 18. Kindergarten is not part of the public school system, although before unification EastGermany had a nearly universal system of childcare facilities. Under the treaty of unification, the East German public education system was required to conform to the model in use in West Germany .
Education in Germany is under the jurisdiction of the individual state governments, which results in a great deal of variety. Most states in the former West Germany have a three-track system that begins with four years of Grundschule (primary school), attended by all children between the ages of 6 and 9. After this period, a child’s further educational program is determined during two “orientation grades” (ages 10 and 11). Those who are university-bound then enter a track of rigorous preparatory secondary education by attending a highly competitive, academic Gymnasium (junior and senior high school). Many Gymnasium students leave school at age 16 to pursue business careers. Others graduate at age 19 after passing a week-long examination called the Abitur. If they pass, they receive a certificate, which is a prerequisite for entering a university. The Gymnasium has three alternative focuses: Greek and Latin, modern languages, and mathematics and science. Only about one-tenth of German students graduate from the Gymnasium.
The overwhelming majority of German students attend either a six-year Realschule (postprimary school), which offers a mixture of business and academic training, or a five-year Hauptschule (general school) followed by further skills training and on-the-job experience in a three-year vocational program, or Berufsschule. From age 14 nearly all Realschule and Hauptschule students, both male and female, enroll in trade apprenticeship programs, which combine training in workshops, factories, or businesses with vocational schooling. Apprentices are supervised by a trade master and must demonstrate their mastery of the trade in examinations.
Since the German three-track system has often been accused of conforming to class distinctions, some states have opted instead for a comprehensive high school system that combines all the tracks within the same institution. The result is somewhat similar to an American high school, but far more competitive. Before unification, East Germany ’s polytechnic high schools also provided a comprehensive program. Since 1990, East German education has moved in the direction of West German models.
The Abitur is required for university entrance but there are alternative routes to it. Some students are permitted to change from one kind of school to another during the course of their education. Such midcourse changes are easiest at comprehensive high schools. Those who opt for three years of vocational training after tenth grade can also go on to specialized trade colleges, or Fachhochschulen. Schools of continuing education for adults, such as the many Volkshochschulen (German for “people’s colleges”), offer a variety of adult education courses and have some programs leading to diplomas.
Enrollments at German universities have quadrupled since the 1960s, which has caused the expansion of many old universities and the building of a number of new ones. Germany has quite a few venerable old universities, such as those of Heidelberg, Freiburg, Munich, Tübingen, and Marburg.
G Way of Life
High living standards, plentiful leisure time (including three weeks or more of mandatory paid vacation for most workers), and comprehensive social welfare benefits distinguish German society. Germany has a highly urbanized society, with lifestyles that emphasize recreational, leisure, and physical fitness activities. Many Germans enjoy hiking, camping, skiing, and other outdoor pursuits. Germans are known for their love of traveling, and millions travel abroad each year. Soccer is the most popular sport in the nation, and many Germans belong to local soccer clubs. Germans are also known for their love of food, especially rich pastries, veal and pork dishes, and many types of sausages and cheeses. German-made wine and beer are famous all over the world. Also popular are lively social gatherings at outdoor beer or wine gardens or cellar restaurants where wine or beer is stored.
German society has undergone vast changes in recent decades. Since the early 1960s, for example, television has homogenized popular culture and brought urban ways of thinking to rural areas. In fact, the rapid spread of automobile ownership in the 1950s and 1960s made rural isolation a thing of the past. The old village communities, whose cultural life was dominated by the parish and the elementary school, have almost disappeared. The one-room schools in which eight grades used to be instructed simultaneously no longer exist. Young women find that most of the traditional barriers to a career of their own choosing, in particular barriers to diversified vocational and higher education, have broken down. Women have also been freed from the constraints of the traditional family roles of motherhood and child rearing by birth control and a greatly lowered birth rate. Today, Germany’s birthrate is among the lowest in the world.
Some people in the former East Germany look back fondly on the days before unification when their way of life was modest but also highly egalitarian. Unification brought greater personal freedom to East Germans, but the capitalistic market economy also brought the heightened competition and a hectic pace of life common in the West. The former East Germany still has considerably lower wage levels and living standards than the more prosperous West Germany. Many large state-owned manufactures and cooperative agricultural enterprises in East Germany did not survive the transformation to a market economy, a process that resulted in unusually high unemployment. The German government continues to invest tens of billions of dollars every year to modernize the infrastructure of roads, transport, communications, and housing in the former East Germany.
H Social Problems
Germany does not have large pockets of poverty or great economic disparity. Crime levels are substantially lower than those in the United States, and the possession of guns is controlled. However, there are significant numbers of homeless people and problems of violence, alcoholism, and drug abuse. Nonviolent crimes, such as theft and burglary in urban areas, have increased since the 1970s.
Since the 1960s youth violence and crime have increased steadily. Disruptive behavior and gang membership characterize some urban secondary schools. Neighborhood youth gangs sometimes engage in vandalism, car theft, and other crimes. Some teens belong to punk and skinhead groups, which may espouse drug use, violence, or racism. In addition, gangs of “soccer rowdies” frequently disrupt games or cause riots afterward.
In the early 1990s the great influx of foreigners, especially illegal aliens and asylum-seekers, coincided with the collapse of the East German Communist regime. Unification brought numerous economic and social problems to Germany, including increased taxes, budget deficits, housing shortages, strikes and demonstrations, high unemployment, and rising crime rates. Enormous social changes and economic fears brought xenophobia (fear of foreigners) to the surface. While an angry public focused on the unwelcome strangers and competitors for scarce housing and other benefits, neighborhood youth gangs attacked visible aliens and set fire to their government-assigned housing shelters. At its peak in 1992 this antiforeign violence became the object of extraordinary media concern inGermany and abroad, where it was sometimes interpreted as a sign of German racism and the revival of Nazi activities. Massive counter-demonstrations drew millions of Germans opposed to racism and antiforeign violence. Nevertheless, episodes of racist violence continued into the new millennium, claiming an estimated 100 lives between 1990 and 2000.
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