134 Interesting Facts About Germany | Legacy Facts

# In the German language the word for Germany is Deutschland.

# The word "Germany" derives from the Latin Germania, the Roman word for the northern Alpine lands where the Barbarian tribes lived. Since the Alemanni tribe the French, Spanish, and Turkish call it Allemagne, Alemania, and Almanya, respectively. Italians call the country Germania, but the German language in Italian is called Tedesco.

# The word "Germany" originates from Julius Caesar, who called "Germania," the lands east of the Rhine River.

# Germany is Europe's 7th-largest country. It covers an area of 137,847 square miles, 34,836 square miles of which are covered by land, and 3,011 square miles contain water.

# A third of Germany is still covered in woodland and forests.

# One-third of Germany is powered by Renewable energy.

# The national animal of Germany is the Black Eagle.

# The oak is the national tree of France, Germany, Romania, Serbia, and the United Kingdom.

# Germany is nicknamed as the "Land of Poets & Thinkers."

# The capitals of Germany were all the cities of Aachen, Regensburg, Frankfurt-am-Main, Nuremberg, Weimar, Bonn, and Berlin.

# Berlin has nine times the size of Paris and has more bridges than Venice.

# In 5 countries, German is the official language: Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and Liechtenstein.

# The longest word currently in the German language which in use is "Rechtsschutzversicherungsgesellschaften", meaning "Insurance companies providing everyday protection."

# Germany is the largest economy in the European Union. With a US$ 4.0 trillion gross domestic product (GDP), it ranks fourth behind the United States, China, and Japan in the world.

# Germany is one of the world's most densely populated countries.

# Germany has the largest population in the European Union, with 83 million people as of 2019.

# The waves of immigrants have offset Germany's decades-long tendency to population decline.

# Germany and Japan have the world's lowest birth-rate.

# Parents in Germany can not give the first name to their babies before getting approval from the local Standesamt (Office of Statistics).

# Germany, Denmark, Iceland, and some other countries have official rules regarding what you can name a baby.

# Maximilian and Marie were among the most popular baby names in 2017.

# Müller is the most commonly used German surname.

# In Germany, you can not name your child "Matti" because that does not indicate gender.

# Germans do not have house numbers. The postman delivers mail by the last name, even in apartment blocks.

# In Germany, you can "rent a Jew" for socializing with them and breaking down prejudices in the process.

# At the age of 13 children are allowed to drink beer and wine in public. Actually, it is legal to drink in public in Germany, much to the envy of many other parts of the world.

# Without a visa or a visa issued upon arrival, German citizens can travel to 177 territories, the most in the world.

# In Germany, pillows are considered "passive weapons."

# In 80 percent of all transactions, German pay cash. It is less than 50 percent in the United States.

# 65 percent of German highways do not have a speed limit.

# During the first six months of 2016, migrants committed 142,500 crimes in Germany.

# The majority of taxi cabs in Germany are either Mercedes-Benz or Audi.

# In 2015, Germany had the highest number of requests for asylum.

# Germany is the world leader for penis enlargement, with approximately 8 in 100,000 German adult males opting for the operation.

# With an estimated 300,000 gay and lesbian residents, Berlin is Europe's third-largest gay city, after London and Amsterdam.

# One percent of the population of Germany is genetically immune to HIV.

# Due to the various types of streetlamps used, East and West Germany still look different from space.

# "Ostalgie" is a German term for East Germany which refers to nostalgia.

# The Oktoberfest in Munich is the largest folk and beer festival in the world. This officially starts the last week of September and continues in October until the first Sunday. It dates back to 1810 when Crown Prince Ludwig threw a party on October 12 to celebrate his marriage to Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen.

# The most popular sport in Germany is football (soccer).

# Handball was first invented in Germany, a game in which two teams pass a ball using their hands with the aim of throwing it into the other team's goal.

# They serve beer in McDonald's in France, Germany, Austria, Spain, and The Netherlands.

# More than 1,500 different beers are available in Germany.

# The Berlin Tempelhof Airport site was originally the land of Knights Templar in medieval Berlin, and the name of the airport came from this beginning.

# Büsingen am Hochrhein, aka Büsingen, is a German town, which is surrounded entirely by Swiss territory.

# Cayo Blanco del Sur, a tiny island off Cuba's coast, could still legally belong to East Germany, which no longer exists.

# The office of the Chancellor in Berlin is locally known as the "washing machine."

# The building of the German Parliament has a glass dome above it so that people can climb with a spiral ramp. The dome is a symbol of people being above the government, and the government should be transparent.

# Forbes magazine rated German Chancellor Angela Merkel as the second most powerful person in the world, and the highest-ranking female ever in 2012. Mattel, Inc. has also modeled a Barbie Doll after her.

# In Germany, there are more than 300 different kinds of bread.

# In Germany, there are more than 1,000 different kinds of sausages.

# The Museum of Bread Culture in Ulm, Germany, has a collection of over 18,000 objects, none of which is bread.

# The first book ever to be printed was Johannes Gutenberg's Bible in the 1450s, and it can be seen in Mainz, Germany.

# The first magazine ever has seen was published in Germany in 1663.

# The first airline in the world was founded in Frankfurt, in 1909. It is named DELAG, which extends as the Deutsche Luftschiffahrts-Aktiengesellschaft and that translates into German Airship Transport Corporation.

# Germany is one of the top five countries with the highest number of Nobel Prize winners. They've got 102, including Albert Einstein.

# In Germany, the chinese checkers were invented.

# Hamburgers are named after Hamburg, Germany.

# The narrowest street on earth is in Reutlingen. It is called Spreuerhofstrasse and at its narrowest point, it is 31 cm (one foot) wide.

# Triberg is home to the biggest cuckoo clock in the world, with a pendulum of 8-meter long.

# There is a Museum of Snoring in Germany.

# In 1866, the German zoologist Ernst Haeckel used the word "ecology" for the first time.

# Fanta originated in Germany following the difficulty of importing Coca-Cola syrup into Nazi Germany during the Second World War.

# A German invented the gummy bears.

# Germany is the second-largest consumer of beer in the world.

# Germany was the first nation ever to implement Daylight Saving Time to save energy during World War 1.

# Gegenbach, Germany has the largest advent calendar in the world. Built-in the 18th century, each of the 24 windows in the town's Rathaus (town hall) marks one of the Advent calendar windows.

# BMW, Adidas, SAP, Mercedes-Benz, Nivea, Audi, Bayer, Volkswagen, and Siemens are all large German companies.

# Germany is one of the largest manufacturers of automobiles in the world. In 2011, they sold 5.9 million vehicles. Volkswagen's Golf is one of the best-selling cars of all time: it sold over 430,000 Golf throughout Europe in 2012 (125,000 ahead of its nearest rival). In 2013 Volkswagen, Mercedes, Audi, and BMW were the top-selling car brands in Germany.

# Trabant, the name given to the response of East Germany to Audi and Mercedes Benz, literally means "satellite." It was intended to be a tribute to Sputnik, the first-ever satellite by Soviet, which went into space in 1957.

# The descendants of the wife of Nazi Joseph Goebbels are today the richest family in Germany.

# The Quandt family, one of Germany's richest family and BMW's largest shareholder, took over Jewish business and used tens of thousands of slave laborers at their factories during the Third Reich of Adolf Hitler.

# Throughout Germany there are about 20,000 castles, the majority of which are at least 100 years old. Some of these castles have been transformed into museums, hotels, or cultural art centers where people can enjoy.

# It was suggested in a German middle-age legend that kissing a donkey would take away toothache pain.

# In 1853, the statue of Venus de Milo was placed on trial in Mannheim, Germany for nudity.

# Germany had three emperors in 1888: Wilhelm I, Frederick III, and Wilhelm II. At age 56, Frederick III died of larynx cancer, having ruled for only 99 days.

# In 17 nations, including Germany and Austria, denial of the Holocaust is either implicitly or explicitly a crime.

# More than half of the U.S. troops are stationed overseas in only four countries: Japan, Germany, South Korea, and Italy.

# Germany invited Mexico to join World War 1 in 1917 by attacking the United States in order to recover the lost territories of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.

# At the outset of World War 1, Tsar Nicholas II, King George V, and Kaiser Wilhelm II were first cousins and grandchildren of Queen Victoria.

# There were so few men in Germany after WW1 that only 1 in 3 women would find a husband.

# Germany's debt from the First World War was equivalent to 96,000 tons of gold.

# Germany paid its final reparations from the World War 1 Treaty of Versailles in 2010.

# During the First World War, marketers changed the name of sauerkraut to "Liberty Cabbage," because they were afraid that Americans would reject a German-named product.

# According to a report compiled by American intelligence officers, German leader Adolf Hitler took an estimated 74 different types of medications like crystal methamphetamine.

# It is believed that the Nazis sterilized 400,000 Germans who are considered to have lives that are not worth living.

# A loaf of bread cost 428 billion marks during hyperinflation (1923) in Germany, and 6 trillion for a kilogram of butter.

# Dachau, Germany's first NAZI concentration camp was opened 6 years before the second world war.

# The Red Army raped two million German women aged between 13 and 70 during World War 2.

# During the Battle of Stalingrad alone, more Germans were killed by the Russians than America killed during the course of the Second World War.

# During World War 2, most people believed that Germany would destroy the Soviet Union easily within 3 to 6 months. It took three and a half years and they lost.

# Every year in Germany approximately 5,500 World War 2 bombs are found and defused, an average of 15 every day.

# Radioactive wild boars are still roaming across Germany, due to the Chernobyl disaster.

# Berlin still did not recover its pre-World War 2 population.

# In Germany, around 2,000 schools were closed from 1989 to 2009 due to a shortage of students.

# In Germany there is a specific word for learning to live with the past, particularly the Holocaust: "Vergangenheitsbewaltigung."

# In Germany the 9th of November is a significant day. Germany became a republic in the year 1918. The Bier Hall putsch in Munich in 1923. Kristallnacht, in 1938. The Berlin Wall collapsed in 1989.

# Soldiers in the military forces of Germany are allowed to disobey any order they think would violate human dignity according to their consciences.

# Germany officially abolished college tuition fees in 2014, even for international students.

# In Germany, running out of fuel on highways is illegal.

# In Germany, a prisoner who tries to escape from prison is not punished because it is a basic human instinct to be free.

# In Germany, performing the Nazi salute is a criminal offense punishable by up to 3 years in prison.

# When John f Kennedy visited Berlin, he infamously said "Ich bin ein Berliner," which also translates to "I am a jelly donut."

# In Berlin, Germany, there is a building project where they want to build a Christian church, a mosque and a synagogue all in one.

# The tradition of the Christmas tree began in Germany.

# Ulm Minster in Germany, the tallest church in the world, is being eroded away because men keep peeing on it.

# After an East German spokesman misspoke at a press conference, the Berlin Wall was torn down by mistakenly-empowered citizens, and immediate border crossing privileges were mentioned for every citizen.

# In 1987, David Bowie performed at the Berlin Wall, while East Germans gathered behind to listen. From the other side, you could hear them cheering and singing along.

# Don't even think about mowing your lawn on a Sunday afternoon or fixing the old shed. German law states that Sundays are a day of relaxation and silence. Neighbors are expected to remain quiet, and all grocery stores and other retail stores are closed.

# Before the wedding the bride is often "kidnapped" by friends, and the groom will have to hunt for her as she's taken to numerous taverns and the groom has to buy drinks for his friends.

# Many nursing homes in Germany have fake bus stops to collect people with dementia who are trying to leave. In Germany, the majority of nursing homes have fake bus stops to collect residents with dementia who try to leave.

# Germany is among the leading book nations in the world. Publishing about 94,000 titles annually.

# There are approximately 400 zoos in Germany, the most in the world.

# Americans spend more money annually on pets than Germany spends on its entire for defense budget.

# In 1916, citizens were allowed by the German Empire to take passport photos with their dogs.

# It is believed in Germany that if you bury your deceased dog under your doorway it's ghost will guard the house.

# In most U.S. states, declawing cats is legal but banned in at least 22 countries including Germany, Finland, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan.

# In German, the word "Danke" or "thank you" actually means "no." So next time someone asks you if you'd like to have a drink, make sure you say "please" or "please," because that means "yes."

# In 2016, Hamburg, Germany, banned coffee pods from government-run buildings because they create unnecessary waste and contain aluminum.

# Some of Germany's most well-known philosophers were Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche.

# German serial art vandal Hans-Joachim Bohlmann's attempt to destroy famous artworks by artists such as Rubens and Rembrandt has caused more than 138 million euros in damages.

# Germany is the land of the Grimm fairytales. If you visit the town of Hamelin, you will find painted rats on the pavements guiding you around the city.

# In Germany there is a brewery which is almost 1,000 years old. It's been operating continuously since the year 1040.

# In Germany, 60 percent of the 1,000 most popular videos on YouTube are blocked.

# More than 1,000 toads unexpectedly exploded in Altona, Germany in 2005.

# Prostitution, in Germany, is legal. Disabled people are also given a stipend to pay for sex and there are training centers where prostitutes can receive a certificate for disabled people in "qualified sexual accompaniment and assistance."

# It was the first time that Germany won the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, as a united country. The three previous times, West Germany won the soccer World Cup.

# A total of 1,681 Olympic medals were won by German athletes – summer and winter combined, from 1896 to 2014 – more than any other country except the United States.

# In Germany, there are more fan clubs for football ( soccer) than anywhere else in the world.

# German soccer player Mesut Ozil has donated his €300,000 World Cup victory bonus to pay 23 children's surgeries in Brazil.

# German-born Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl, chronicling her and the hiding of her family from the Nazis in Amsterdam during the Second World War for many years, sold over 300 million copies and translated into 67 languages around the world. She actually wrote her diary in an autograph book.

# The famous German tales include Hansel and Gretel, Rapunzel, and Snow White.

# During one of their US concerts in June 1998, the German hard rock band Rammstein, known for its hit "Du Hast," spent a night in a Massachusetts prison for a liquid-ejecting dildo stunt.

# Two of The Beatles were deported from Germany in 1960 for setting a condom on fire.

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