Portal:Germany/Selected article/2006
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These articles have appeared on the Portal:Germany page in 2006. They are (or were at the time of listing) Featured Articles unless marked otherwise.
Contents |
January
The foundations of the Hanseatic League (German: Hanse), an alliance of trading cities that for a time in the later Middle Ages and the Early Modern period maintained a trade monopoly over most of Northern Europe and the Baltic, can be seen as early as the 12th century, with the foundation of the new town of Lübeck in 1158/9 under the patronage of Henry the Lion of Saxony. Lübeck would become a central node in all the seatrade that linked the North Sea and the Baltic. There had been exploratory trading adventures, raids and piracy throughout this area— the sailors of Gotland sailed up rivers as far away as Novgorod— but there was no truly international economy before the Hanse (Braudel 1984).
Well before the term Hanse appeared in a document (1267), merchants in a given city began to form societies, or Hanse with the intention of trading with foreign cities, especially with the undeveloped Baltic, a source of timber, wax, resins, furs, even rye and wheat brought down on barges from the hinterland to port markets.
These societies worked to acquire special trade privileges for their members. For example, the merchants of Cologne (Köln) were able to convince Henry II of England to grant them special trading privileges and market rights in 1157. The Hanse creation, Lübeck, through which goods were transhipped between the North Sea and the Baltic gained the Imperial privilege of becoming an Imperial city in 1227, the only one east of the River Elbe. ... More
- This article was the Selected article from June 2005 to early February 2006. It was not a Featured article.
February
Cologne (German: Köln [kœln]; Kölsch: Kölle) is Germany's fourth-largest city after Berlin, Hamburg and Munich. Cologne lies at the River Rhine and is the largest city both in the German Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Area, one of the largest European metropolitan areas with almost 12 million inhabitants.
The city's world famous Cologne Cathedral (Kölner Dom) is seat to a Roman Catholic Archdiocese and just as important to the city as its specially brewed Kölsch beer. Cologne University is one of Europe's oldest universities and internationally renowned for its economics department. More...
- This article was not a Featured article.
March
The prince-electors or electoral princes of the Holy Roman Empire — German: Kurfürst (listen - singular), Kurfürsten (plural) — were the members of the electoral college of the Holy Roman Empire, having the function of electing the Emperors of Germany. During and after the 15th century they often merely formalised the elective monarchy into what was in fact a dynastic succession. Formally, they elected a King of the Romans, who became Holy Roman Emperor only when crowned by the pope. Charles V was the last to be actually crowned; all of his successors were merely "Emperors-Elect". Electors were among the princes of the Empire, but they had several privileges (in addition to electoral ones) which were disallowed to their non-electoral brethren. More...
April
The Volkswagen Type 2 was the second automotive line introduced by German automobile manufacturer Volkswagen. It was a van introduced in 1950, initially based on Volkswagen's first model, the Beetle, also known as the "Type 1". The Type 2 is generally considered to be the forerunner of modern cargo and passenger vans. The Type 2 spawned a number of imitators both in the United States and Europe including the Ford Econoline, Dodge B110 and the Chevrolet Corvan, the latter even adapting the Type 2's rear-engine configuration. Updated versions of this line are still being actively produced in international markets. More...
May
Sanssouci, the former summer palace of Frederick the Great, King of Prussia at Potsdam just outside Berlin in Germany, is often counted among the German rivals of Versailles. While Sanssouci is in the more intimate Rococo style and is far smaller than its French Baroque counterpart, Frederick's palace is notable for the numerous temples and follies in Sanssouci Park. Designed by Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff between 1745 and 1747 to fulfil Frederick the Great's need for a private residence where he could relax away from pomp and ceremony of the Berlin court, the palace is in fact little more than a large villa: its true French counterpart is Marly. Containing just ten principal rooms, the single-storey structure is sited on the brow of a terraced hill at the centre of its own park. So great was the influence of the King's personal taste in the design and decoration of the palace that it is characterized as "Frederician Rococo". So personal and unique to himself did Frederick the Great regard the palace that he conceived it as "a place that would die with him". More...
June
Albert Einstein (March 14, 1879 – April 18, 1955) was a theoretical physicist widely regarded as the most important scientist of the 20th century. He developed the special and general theories of relativity and made significant contributions to quantum mechanics, statistical mechanics, and cosmology. He was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize for Physics for his explanation of the photoelectric effect in 1905 (his "wonderful year") and "for his services to Theoretical Physics".
After British solar eclipse expeditions in 1919 confirmed that light rays from distant stars were deflected by the gravity of the Sun in the amount he had predicted in his theory of relativity, Einstein became world-famous, an unusual achievement for a scientist. In his later years, his fame perhaps exceeded that of any other scientist in history. In popular culture, his name has become synonymous with great intelligence and genius. More...
July
The Cathedral of Magdeburg, officially called the Cathedral of Saints Catherine and Maurice (known as Magdeburger Dom in German) was the first Gothic cathedral in Germany and with a height of 99,25 and 100.98 m, it is the tallest cathedral in the former East Germany. The cathedral is in Magdeburg, the capital city of the Bundesland of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, and is also home to the grave of Otto I the Great.
The first church built in 937 at the location of the current cathedral was an abbey called St. Maurice, dedicated to Saint Maurice. The current cathedral was constructed over the period of 300 years starting from 1209, and the completion of the steeples took place only in 1520. Despite being repeatedly looted, the Cathedral of Magdeburg is rich in art, ranging from antiques to modern art. More...
August
Georg Forster (November 27, 1754 – January 10, 1794) was a German naturalist, ethnologist, travel writer, journalist, and revolutionary. At an early age, he accompanied his father on several scientific expeditions, including James Cook's second voyage to the Pacific. From 1778-1784, Forster taught Natural History at the Collegium Carolinum in Kassel and continued later at Vilnius University (1784-1787) until he accepted the position of head librarian at the University of Mainz in 1788. When the French took control of Mainz in 1792, Forster became one of the founders of the Jacobin club there and went on to play a leading role in the Mainz Republic, the earliest republican state in Germany. While he was in Paris as a delegate of the young Mainz Republic, Prussian and Austrian coalition forces regained control of the city and Forster was declared an outlaw. Unable to return to Germany, he died in Paris of illness in early 1794. More...
September
A Zeppelin is a type of dirigible, more specifically a type of rigid airship pioneered by Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin in the early 20th century based in part on an earlier design by David Schwarz. Due to the outstanding success of the Zeppelin design, the term zeppelin in casual use came to refer to all rigid airships.
These giant aircraft were used for passenger transport as well as for military purposes. The DELAG (Deutsche Luftschiffahrts-AG), which can be considered the first commercial airline, served scheduled flights well before World War I, and after the outbreak of the conflict, the German military made extensive use of Zeppelins as bombers and scouts.
Under the guidance of Hugo Eckener, the successor of the deceased count, civilian Zeppelins experienced a renaissance in the 1920s. They reached their zenith in the 1930s, when the airships LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin and LZ129 Hindenburg operated regular transatlantic flights between Germany and both North and South America. The Hindenburg disaster in 1937 triggered the fall of the "giants of the air", though other factors, including political issues, contributed to the demise of the Zeppelin. More...
October
Paragraph 175 (known formally as §175 StGB; also known as Section 175 in English) was a provision of the German Criminal Code from 15 May 1871 to 10 March 1994. It made homosexual acts between males a crime, and in early revisions the provision also criminalized bestiality.
The statute was amended several times. The Nazis broadened the law in 1935 and increased §175 StGB prosecutions by an order of magnitude; thousands died in concentration camps, regardless of guilt or innocence. East Germany reverted to the old version of the law in 1950, limited its scope to sex with youths under 18 in 1968, and abolished it entirely in 1988. West Germany retained the Nazi-era statute until 1969, when it was limited to "qualified cases"; it was further attenuated in 1973 and finally revoked entirely in 1994 after German reunification. More...
November
Max Weber (April 21, 1864 – June 14, 1920) was a German political economist and sociologist who is considered one of the founders of the modern study of sociology and public administration. He began his career at the University of Berlin, and later worked at Freiburg University, University of Heidelberg, University of Vienna and University of Munich. He was influential in contemporary German politics, being one of Germany's negotiators at the Treaty of Versailles and the member of the commission charged with drafting the Weimar Constitution.
His major works deal with rationalisation in sociology of religion and government, but he also contributed much in the field of economics. His most famous work is his essay The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, which began his work in the sociology of religion. More...
December
The IG Farben Building or the Poelzig Building was built from 1928 to 1930 as the corporate headquarters of the IG Farben conglomerate in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. It is also known as the Poelzig Ensemble or Poelzig Complex, and previously as the IG Farben Complex, and the General Creighton W. Abrams Building. A competition to design the building was won by the architect Hans Poelzig. On its completion, the complex was the largest office building in Europe and remained so until the 1950s.
The building was the headquarters for research projects relating to the development of Nazi wartime synthetic oil and rubber, and the production administration of magnesium, lubricating oil, explosives, methanol, and Zyklon B, the lethal gas used in concentration camps. After WWII, the IG Farben Building served as the headquarters for the Supreme Allied Command and became the principal location for implementing the Marshall Plan, which largely financed the post-war reconstruction of Europe. The state apparatus of the Federal German Government was devised there. The IG Farben Building served as the headquarters for the US Army's V Corps and the Northern Area Command (NACOM) until 1995. The US Army renamed the building the General Creighton W. Abrams Building in 1975. More...
