German culture

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This article is about the culture of the German-speaking world; for an article on the culture of Germany as a political state see Culture of Germany.

German culture (German: Deutsche Kultur) is a term that refers to the heritage and worldview of the people from the German-speaking world, or Deutschsprechende Welt. It refers to the worldview and culture of the people of Austria, Germany, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and Switzerland and some German speaking people from Belgium, Gdansk (now in Poland), Strasbourg (now in France), and Bohemia (now in the Czech Republic). Despite their varied and turbulent past, and a politically divided German-speaking people, their worldview and expression remain common and unsegmented, exemplified in the music of German-speaking composers (e.g. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Mahler or Schönberg), lyrical poems and literature (e.g. Walter von der Vogelweide, Goethe, the Brothers Grimm, Schiller, Heine or Brecht as well as important works written by unknown authors as the Nibelungenlied or Ludwigslied) and scientific philosophy (e.g. Albertus Magnus, Kant, Hegel, Heidegger, Nietzsche or Adorno).

German culture is quite diverse as a result of the varied history of the German speaking people. The German speaking world have been independent principalities eg: Liechtenstein or incorporated into larger confederations, such as the Holy Roman Empire, Prussia or the Confederation of the Rhine, or have been political units like Bohemia, or are political states like Germany, Austria; etc.

The German language was once the lingua franca of central, eastern and northern Europe, and remains one of the most popular foreign languages taught worldwide, in Europe the second most popular after English.