Fun Facts about Germany

• Germany is a Country much younger than the US and most other English-speaking countries. Even though the German language has been spoken by many different peoples for over 1400 years in the area, it was only in 1871 that the German kingdoms, dukedoms, and many sovereign states and cities were united as one national state.
• Germany is the most populated country in the EU today with over 80 million people. Almost 10% of the population are non-Germans, and another 10% are Germans but have a “migratory” background.
• There is a Barbie Doll named after Chancellor Angela Merkel.
• There are over 300 different types of bread in Germany.
• Beer brewed in Germany follows a five hundred year old “Purity Law”.
• Germany has access to the Northern Sea and the Baltic Sea to the North, about a third of the country is covered by forest, and the Zugspitze with almost 3000 meters is the highest mountain.
• There are two ethnic minorities in Germany: Some 50,000 Danes in the North, and the Sorbes (a slavic people) in the Spreewald area.
• German is the ninth-most spoken language in the world (spoken by approximately 120 million people). In Europe, it is spoken in six countries (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Belgium and Luxembourg).
• Jiddish and Pensylvania Dutch are old dialects of German.

Here are some interesting links:

• Interesting facts about Germany.
• Here is an interesting article about tipping in restaurants.

If you know somebody who has lived in Germany many decades ago, then you may be able to bring tears to their eyes if you show them some of these old German film-clips:

• “Ein Freund, ein bester Freund”
• Lilian Harvey
• Zarah Leander
• Marlene Dietrich, on one of her return trips to Germany after the war, sings “Sag mir wo die Blumen sind”
• Hans Albers sings “Auf der Reeperbahn nachts um halb eins”
• The Comedian Harmonists sing German folk songs in 1932 (very rare clips!)