For
a quick brief check The CIA Factbook | Conventional
long form: Federal Republic of Germany conventional short form: Germany local
short form: Deutschland former: German Empire, German Republic, German Reich local
long form: Bundesrepublik Deutschland 16
states (Laender, singular - Land);
Baden-Wuerttemberg, Bayern, Berlin, Brandenburg,
Bremen, Hamburg, Hessen, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Niedersachsen, Nordrhein-Westfalen,
Rheinland-Pfalz, Saarland, Sachsen, Sachsen-Anhalt, Schleswig-Holstein, Thueringen
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| As
Europe's largest economy and most populous nation, Germany remains a key member
of the continent's economic, political, and defense organizations. European power
struggles immersed the country in two devastating World Wars in the first half
of the 20th century and left the country occupied by the victorious Allied powers
of the US, UK, France, and the Soviet Union in 1945. With the advent of the Cold
War, two German states were formed in 1949: the western Federal Republic of Germany
(FRG) and the eastern German Democratic Republic (GDR). The democratic FRG embedded
itself in key Western economic and security organizations, the EC, which became
the EU, and NATO, while the Communist GDR was on the front line of the Soviet-led
Warsaw Pact. The decline of the USSR and the end of the Cold War allowed for German
unification in 1990. Since then, Germany has expended considerable funds to bring
eastern productivity and wages up to western standards. In January 2002, Germany
and 11 other EU countries introduced a common European currency, the euro. |
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