Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central and Western Europe, lying between the Baltic and North Seas to the north, and the Alps to the south. It borders Denmark to the north, Poland and the Czech Republic to the east, Austria and Switzerland to the south, France to the southwest, and Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands to the west.
German is a West Germanic language that is mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, South Tyrol (Italy), the German-speaking Community of Belgium, and Liechtenstein. It is also one of the three official languages of Luxembourg and a co-official language in the Opole Voivodeship in Poland. The languages which are most similar to German are the other members of the West Germanic language branch: Afrikaans, Dutch, English, the Frisian languages, Low German/Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, and Yiddish. There are also strong similarities in vocabulary with Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, although those belong to the North Germanic group. German is the second most widely spoken Germanic language, after English.
The German Empire, also known as Imperial Germany, was the German nation state that existed from the unification of Germany in 1871 until the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1918.
Nazi Germany is the common English name for Germany between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party (NSDAP) controlled the country through a dictatorship. Under Hitler's rule, Germany was transformed into a totalitarian state that controlled nearly all aspects of life via the Gleichschaltung legal process. The official name of the state was Deutsches Reich until 1943 and Großdeutsches Reich from 1943 to 1945. Nazi Germany is also known as the Third Reich, meaning "Third Realm" or "Third Empire", the first two being the Holy Roman Empire (800–1806) and the German Empire (1871–1918). The Nazi regime ended after the Allies defeated Germany in May 1945, ending World War II in Europe.
World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. The vast majority of the world's countries—including all the great powers—eventually formed two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. A state of total war emerged, directly involving more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. The major participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. World War II was the deadliest conflict in human history, marked by 50 to 85 million fatalities, most of whom were civilians in the Soviet Union and China. It included massacres, the genocide of the Holocaust, strategic bombing, premeditated death from starvation and disease, and the only use of nuclear weapons in war.
Esslingen is a Landkreis (district) in the centre of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Neighboring districts are Rems-Murr, Göppingen, Reutlingen, Böblingen and the district-free city Stuttgart.
Freudenstadt is a town in Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. It is capital of the district Freudenstadt. The closest population centres are Offenburg to the west and Tübingen to the east.
Horb am Neckar is a town in the southwest of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river, between Offenburg to the west and Tübingen to the east. It has around 25,000 inhabitants, of whom about 6,000 live in the main town of Horb, and the remainder in 18 associated villages and districts which form part of the same municipality. If the entire municipality is counted, it is the largest town in the District of Freudenstadt.
Adolf Hitler was a German politician and leader of the Nazi Party. He rose to power to become dictator of Germany, serving as Chancellor from 1933 and Führer ("Leader") from 1934. During his dictatorship from 1933 to 1945, he initiated World War II in Europe by invading Poland in September 1939. He closely supervised military operations during the war and by December 1941 had full control of all strategic decisions, especially on the Eastern Front. He was central to the perpetration of the Holocaust.
Schopfloch is a municipality in the district of Freudenstadt in Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. It is located in the northern part of the Black Forest (Schwarzwald).
Feuchtwangen is a city in Ansbach district in the administrative region of Middle Franconia in Bavaria, Germany. In the year 2019 Feuchtwangen celebrated its 1200th jubilee based on the first mention of its Benedictine monastery.
World War I, also known as the First World War or the Great War, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. Contemporaneously described as "the war to end all wars", it led to the mobilisation of more than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, making it one of the largest wars in history. It is also one of the deadliest conflicts in history, with an estimated nine million combatants and seven million civilian deaths as a direct result of the war, while resulting genocides and the 1918 influenza pandemic caused another 50 to 100 million deaths worldwide.
Lenningen is a town in the district of Esslingen in Baden-Württemberg in Germany.
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was a genocide in which Nazi Germany, aided by its collaborators, systematically murdered some six million European Jews—around two-thirds of the Jewish population of Europe—between 1941 and 1945, during World War II. Jews were targeted for extermination as part of a larger event during the Holocaust era, in which Germany and its collaborators persecuted and murdered other groups, including Slavs ; the Roma; the "incurably sick"; political and religious dissenters such as communists and Jehovah's Witnesses; and gay men, resulting in up to 17 million deaths overall.
Justin Rosenfeld was a producer and distributor of films in Germany during the time of the Weimar Republic. He was born in 1901 in Schopfloch, Bavaria, Germany. Studied law and economics and was initially employed by the banking house of Wilhelm Vogt & Co in Hamburg. He subsequently became President of Orbis Film G.m.bH of Berlin where he had full responsibility for advertising, licensing and translation of non German language films for the German market. As a producer he oversaw the stories, casting and production of German language films. Particularly noteworthy and successful was Razzia in Sankt Pauli (1932). This film portrayed a slice of life in the gritty harbor quarter of Hamburg. It may have been the first instance of employment, as extras, of local people playing roles which were the same as their day-to-day activities, that is to say, policemen, locals in a harbor tavern and men and women of questionable character. This film was banned in 1933 by the Nazi censors as counter to morality. As a Jew he was forced to cease his film work and arrested in 1938, though subsequently released. He fled to the United States and died in Rochester, New York in 1947.
Austria, officially the Republic of Austria, is a country of nearly 9 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Hungary and Slovakia to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west. The territory of Austria covers 83,879 km2 (32,386 sq mi). The terrain is highly mountainous, lying within the Alps; only 32% of the country is below 500 m (1,640 ft), and its highest point is 3,798 m (12,461 ft). The majority of the population speaks local Bavarian dialects as their native language, and German in its standard form is the country's official language. Other local official languages are Hungarian, Burgenland Croatian, and Slovene.
National Socialism, more commonly known as Nazism, is the ideology and practices associated with the Nazi Party – officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party – in Nazi Germany, and of other far-right groups with similar aims.
The Eutingen im Gäu–Freudenstadt railway is a railway line in the German state of Baden-Württemberg that runs from the cultural landscape of the Gäu to the eastern edge of the Black Forest, connecting Eutingen and Freudenstadt. It is a section of the Gäu Railway from Stuttgart to Freudenstadt opened on 1 September 1879.
Lachoudisch is a near-extinct dialect of German, containing many Hebrew and Yiddish, native to the Bavarian town of Schopfloch. It was created in the sixteenth century. Few speakers remained after the Holocaust.
The Gäu Perimeter Way is a hiking trail in the Northern Black Forest in Germany and the easternmost of the long distance paths managed by the Black Forest Club. With a length of 120 kilometres, it runs in six stages from Mühlacker to Freudenstadt.
