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Imperialism In Germany

Decent Essays

Origins of major cultures

The emergence of the nation has been understood in very different ways at different times. Humanist scholars of the early sixteenth century initiated a discourse about the German nation by identifying contemporaneous populations as descendants of ancient Germanic peoples, as they were represented in the writings of Roman authors such as Julius Caesar (100–44 B.C.E. ) and Cornelius Tacitus (c. 55–c.116 C.E. ), author of the famous work Germania. From the viewpoint of Ulrich von Hutten (1488–1523), among others, Tacitus provided insight into the origins and character of a virtuous nation that was in many ways equal or superior to Rome. The German humanists found their hero in Armin, or Hermann, who defeated the Romans …show more content…

By 1794, French troops had taken the west bank of the Rhine, which had previously been divided among many different principalities; by 1806, Napoléon Bonaparte (1769–1821) had disbanded the Holy Roman Empire. In the same year, Napoléon's armies defeated Prussia and its allies in the simultaneous battles of Jena and Auerstädt. In its modern form, German nationalism took shape in response to this defeat. In the War of Liberation (1813–1815), in which many patriots participated as volunteers, the allied forces under Prussian leadership were successful in expelling the French from Germany. After the Congress of Vienna (1815), however, those who had hoped for the founding of a German nation-state were disappointed, as the dynastic rulers of the German territories reasserted their political …show more content…

At the north end of Schleswig, Holstein has nearly 50,000 people of Danish descent. There are nearly 60,000 people from Sorbian Lusatia in the Saxony and Brandenburg regions, and Romani and Sinti living in the whole territory. Frisian people live in Schleswig - Holstein in the West Bank and northwest lower Saxony.
Major Religions
The majority of Germans (60-70%) are Christian. Germany’s Christian population is evenly split between Roman Catholics and the EKD (Evangelical Church of Germany), which includes both Lutheran Protestants and Calvinists. Germany's two Christian populations are split up by region. Most areas in the South and West are predominantly Catholic, while areas in the North and East are mostly Protestant. This divide stems from the preferences of local rulers in the 15th and 16th centuries. There is also a high atheist population in many eastern parts of Germany. This is due to the influence of the German Democratic Republic’s Communist regime, which discouraged religion in East Germany from the 1950s to the reunification of Germany in

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