Names of Germany - History

History

The terminology for "Germany", the "German states" and "Germans" is complicated by the history of many different states in which German was the dominant language. Not until 1871 was there a nation state called Germany.

Name of the state Period National Diet House of regional representatives Regional states
Heiliges Römisches Reich Deutscher Nation until 1806 (Did not exist) (Immerwährender) Reichstag (Reichsstände)
Deutscher Bund 1815–1848/1866 (Did not exist) Bundesversammlung (often: Bundestag) Bundesstaaten
Deutsches Reich 1848/1849 Reichstag (Volkshaus) Reichstag (Staatenhaus) Staaten
Norddeutscher Bund 1866/1867–1871 Reichstag Bundesrat Bundesstaaten
Deutsches Reich 1871–1919 Reichstag Bundesrat Bundesstaaten
Deutsches Reich 1919–1933/1945 Reichstag Reichsrat Länder
Bundesrepublik Deutschland since 1949 Bundestag Bundesrat Länder (often: Bundesländer)
Deutsche Demokratische Republik 1949–1990 Volkskammer (Did not exist) Bezirke

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Famous quotes containing the word history:

    Most events recorded in history are more remarkable than important, like eclipses of the sun and moon, by which all are attracted, but whose effects no one takes the trouble to calculate.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    The visual is sorely undervalued in modern scholarship. Art history has attained only a fraction of the conceptual sophistication of literary criticism.... Drunk with self-love, criticism has hugely overestimated the centrality of language to western culture. It has failed to see the electrifying sign language of images.
    Camille Paglia (b. 1947)

    The history of his present majesty, is a history of unremitting injuries and usurpations ... all of which have in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world, for the truth of which we pledge a faith yet unsullied by falsehood.
    Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)