The German Empire, also referred to as Imperial Germany, the Second Reich, or simply Germany, was the period of the German Reich from the unification of Germany in 1871 until the November Revolution in 1918, when the German Reich changed its form of government from a monarchy to a republic.
Otto, Prince of Bismarck, Count of Bismarck-Schönhausen, Duke of Lauenburg was a Prussian and later German statesman and diplomat.
Wilhelm II was the last German Emperor and King of Prussia from 1888 until his abdication in 1918, which marked the end of the German Empire and the House of Hohenzollern's 300-year reign in Prussia and 500-year reign in Brandenburg.
Bismarck was the first of two Bismarck-class battleships built for Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine. Named after Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, the ship was laid down at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg in July 1936 and launched in February 1939. Work was completed in August 1940, when she was commissioned into the German fleet. Bismarck and her sister ship Tirpitz were the largest battleships ever built by Germany, and two of the largest built by any European power.
The Austro-Prussian War, also by many variant names such as Seven Weeks' War, German Civil War, Brothers War or Fraternal War, known in Germany as Deutscher Krieg, Deutscher Bruderkrieg and by a variety of other names, was fought in 1866 between the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia, with each also being aided by various allies within the German Confederation. Prussia had also allied with the Kingdom of Italy, linking this conflict to the Third Independence War of Italian unification. The Austro-Prussian War was part of the wider rivalry between Austria and Prussia, and resulted in Prussian dominance over the German states.
The North German Confederation was initially a German military alliance established in August 1866 under the leadership of the Kingdom of Prussia, which was transformed in the subsequent year into a confederated state that existed from July 1867 to December 1870. A milestone of the German Unification, it was the earliest continual legal predecessor of the modern German nation-state known today as the Federal Republic of Germany.
The Second Schleswig War, also sometimes known as the Dano-Prussian War or Prusso-Danish War, was the second military conflict over the Schleswig-Holstein Question of the nineteenth century. The war began on 1 February 1864, when Prussian and Austrian forces crossed the border into the Danish fief Schleswig. Denmark fought troops of the Kingdom of Prussia and the Austrian Empire representing the German Confederation.
The German colonial empire constituted the overseas colonies, dependencies, and territories of the German Empire. Unified in the early 1870s, the chancellor of this time period was Otto von Bismarck. Short-lived attempts at colonization by individual German states had occurred in preceding centuries, but Bismarck resisted pressure to construct a colonial empire until the Scramble for Africa in 1884. Claiming much of the remaining uncolonized areas of Africa, Germany built the third-largest colonial empire at the time, after the British and French. The German colonial empire encompassed parts of several African countries, including parts of present-day Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Namibia, Cameroon, Gabon, Congo, Central African Republic, Chad, Nigeria, Togo, Ghana, as well as northeastern New Guinea, Samoa and numerous Micronesian islands.
The German Chancellery is an agency serving the executive office of the chancellor of Germany, the head of the federal government, currently Olaf Scholz. The Chancellery's primary function is to assist the chancellor in coordinating the activities of the federal government. The head of the Chancellery holds the rank of either a Secretary of State or a Federal Minister, currently held by Wolfgang Schmidt. The headquarters of the German Chancellery is at the Federal Chancellery building in Berlin, which is the largest government headquarters in the world.
The unification of Germany was a process of building the first nation-state for Germans with federal features based on the concept of Lesser Germany. It commenced on 18 August 1866 with adoption of the North German Confederation Treaty establishing the North German Confederation, initially a military alliance de facto dominated by Prussia which was subsequently deepened through adoption of the North German Constitution. The process symbolically concluded when most of south German states joined the North German Confederation with the ceremonial proclamation of the German Empire i.e. the German Reich having 25 member states and led by the Kingdom of Prussia of Hohenzollerns on 18 January 1871; the event was later celebrated as the customary date of the German Empire's foundation, although the legally meaningful events relevant to the accomplishment of unification occurred on 1 January 1871 and 4 May 1871.
Carl-Eduard Otto Wolfgang Jayme Anders, Prince of Bismarck, often known as Carl von Bismarck, is a German politician. A member of the CDU, he was a member of the Bundestag from 2005 to 2007.
The last battle of the German battleship Bismarck took place in the Atlantic Ocean approximately 300 nautical miles west of Brest, France, on 26–27 May 1941 between the German battleship Bismarck and naval and air elements of the British Royal Navy. Although it was a decisive action between capital ships, it has no generally accepted name. It was the culmination of Operation Rheinübung where the attempt of two German ships to disrupt the Atlantic Convoys to the United Kingdom failed with the scuttling of the Bismarck.
The Luxembourg Crisis was a diplomatic dispute and confrontation in 1867 between France and Prussia over the political status of Luxembourg.
Otto Christian Archibald, Prince of Bismarck, was a German politician and diplomat, and the Prince of Bismarck from 1904 to his death.
Conservatism in Germany has encompassed a wide range of theories and ideologies in the last three hundred years, but most historical conservative theories supported the monarchical/hierarchical political structure.
The Landtag of Prussia was the representative assembly of the Kingdom of Prussia implemented in 1849, a bicameral legislature consisting of the upper House of Lords (Herrenhaus) and the lower House of Representatives (Abgeordnetenhaus). After World War I and the German Revolution of 1918–19 the Landtag diet continued as the parliament of the Free State of Prussia between 1921 and 1934, when it was abolished by the Nazi regime.
The chancellor of Germany, officially the federal chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, is the head of the federal government of Germany, and the commander in chief of the German Armed Forces during wartime. The chancellor is the chief executive of the Federal Cabinet and heads the executive branch. The chancellor is elected by the Bundestag on the proposal of the federal president and without debate.
Events from the year 1871 in Germany.
Die Entlassung is a 1942 German film directed by Wolfgang Liebeneiner about the dismissal of Otto von Bismarck. It was one of only four films to receive the honorary distinction "Film of the Nation" by the Reich Propaganda Ministry Censorship Office.
The Armistice of Versailles that came into effect on 28 January 1871 brought to an end the active phase of the Franco-Prussian War. The signatories were Jules Favre, foreign minister in the provisional Government of National Defence, for the French and Otto von Bismarck, chancellor of the newly established German Empire, for Prussia and her allies. The suspension of hostilities initially lasted until 19 February, when it was extended through 26 February, when a preliminary peace treaty was signed, also at Versailles. The definitive Treaty of Frankfurt was signed on 10 May. Although technically an armistice, the military position of France at the time and the terms were such that it was de facto a conditional surrender by the vanquished to the victors.
