Expansion of the Germanic tribes 750 BC – AD 1

Martin Luther, (1483–1546) initiated the Protestant Reformation

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Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland (help·info), IPA: ), is a country in West-central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

Germany is a parliamentary federal republic of sixteen states (Bundesländer). The capital city and seat of government is Berlin. As a nation-state, the country was unified near the end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871. After World War II, Germany's territory was divided into two separate states along the lines of allied occupation in 1949. It became reunified again in 1990. Germany is a founding member of the European Union, and with over 82 million people it has the largest population among the EU member states.

The Federal Republic of Germany is a member state of the United Nations, NATO, the G8, the G4 nations and, as of 2006, ranked sixth in military expenditure. Germany is the world's third largest economy by nominal GDP, the world's largest exporter of goods, and the world's second largest importer of goods. In 2007 it held the rotating presidencies of both the European Council and the G8 summits.

History

The ethnogenesis of the Germanic tribes is assumed to have occurred during the Nordic Bronze Age, or at the latest, during the Pre-Roman Iron Age. From southern Scandinavia and northern Germany, the tribes began expanding south, east and west in the 1st century BC, coming into contact with the Celtic tribes of Gaul as well as Iranian, Baltic, and Slavic tribes in Eastern Europe. Little is known about early Germanic history, except through their recorded interactions with the Roman Empire, etymological research and archaeological finds.

Under Augustus, the Roman General Publius Quinctilius Varus began to invade Germania (a term used by the Romans running roughly from the Rhine to the Ural Mountains), and it was in this period that the Germanic tribes became familiar with Roman tactics of warfare while maintaining their tribal identity. In AD 9, three Roman legions led by Varus were defeated by the Cheruscan leader Arminius in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. Modern Germany, as far as the Rhine and the Danube, thus remained outside the Roman Empire. By AD 100, the time of Tacitus' Germania, Germanic tribes settled along the Rhine and the Danube (the Limes Germanicus), occupying most of the area of modern Germany. The 3rd century saw the emergence of a number of large West Germanic tribes: Alamanni, Franks, Chatti, Saxons, Frisians, Sicambri, and Thuringii. Around 260, the Germanic peoples broke through the Limes and the Danube frontier into Roman-controlled lands.