| Study in Germany |
There are currently 387 universities in Germany with a combined student population of approximately 2.4 million. Of these, 110 are universities or similar institutions, 221 are universities of applied sciences (in German ‘Fachhochschulen’) and 56 are colleges of art or music.
Higher Education Institutions are either state or state-recognized institutions. In their operations, including the organization of studies and the designation and award of degrees, they are both subject to higher education legislation.
Universities including various specialized institutions, offer the whole range of academic disciplines. In the German tradition, universities focus in particular on basic research so that advanced stages of study have mainly theoretical orientation and research-oriented components. Universities have the right to confer doctoral degrees and cater for the education and training of the next generation of academics.
Universities of applied sciences concentrate their study programmes in engineering and other technical disciplines, business-related studies, social work, and design areas. The common mission of applied research and development implies a distinct application-oriented focus and professional character of studies, which include integrated and supervised work assignments in industry, enterprises or other relevant institutions.
Almost a third of students attend universities of applied sciences.
The third major group comprises the colleges of art and colleges of music offering studies for artistic careers in fine arts, performing arts and music; in such fields as directing, production, writing in theatre, film, and other media; and in a variety of design areas, architecture, media and communication.
A central characteristic is the uniting of arts teaching, artistic practice and research. There is a clear difference between teaching of arts subjects, and teaching at universities and universities of applied sciences. Their core objective is to allow students to develop as artistic individuals. Two per cent of all students attend a college of arts or music.
Almost all colleges of art and music have the right to confer doctoral degrees and the post-doctoral ‘Habilitation’ qualification for the title of ‘professor’.
In total, there are approximately 9,500 different undergraduate programmes and a further 6,800 postgraduate degree programmes on offer at higher education institutions throughout Germany. There are essentially two university-level academic qualifications,
a Bachelor’s degree and a Master’s degree. In addition, there are some subject areas in which courses lead to state-certified exams, for example, medicine, law and the training of teachers. Finally, there are still some remaining degree programmes that lead to
a ‘Diploma’ qualification.
Popular Education Institutes
| University |
Location |
| 1 Universität Freiburg |
Freiburg |
| 2 Technische Universität Berlin |
Berlin |
| 3 Freie Universität Berlin |
Berlin |
| 4 Universität München |
München |
| 5 Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin |
Berlin |
| 6 Universität Hamburg |
Hamburg |
| 7 Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen |
Aachen |
| 8 Universität Leipzig |
Leipzig |
| 9 Universität zu Köln |
Köln |
| 10 Universität Heidelberg |
Heidelberg |
| 11 Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn |
Bonn |
| 12 Universität Duisburg-Essen |
Essen |
| 13 Universität Stuttgart |
Stuttgart |
| 14 Westfälische Wilhelms-Universitat Münster |
Münster |
| 15 Technische Universität München |
München ... |
| 16 Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz |
Mainz ... |
| 17 Leibniz Universität Hannover |
Hannover |
| 18 Universität Bremen |
Bremen |
| 19 Technische Universität Dresden |
Dresden |
| 20 Technische Universität Chemnitz |
Chemnitz |
Culture of Germany
German culture began long before the rise of Germany as a nation-state and spanned the entire German-speaking world. From its roots, culture in Germany has been shaped by major intellectual and popular currents in Europe, both religious and secular. Historically Germany has been called Das Land der Dichter und Denker (the country of poets and thinkers).
The federated states are in charge of the cultural institutions. There are 240 subsidised theatres, hundreds of symphonic orchestras, thousands of museums, and more than 25,000 libraries spread in Germany. These cultural opportunities are enjoyed by many: there are over 91 million German museum visits every year; annually, 20 million go to theatres and operas; 3.6 million per year listen to the symphonic orchestras. The UNESCO inscribed 38 properties in Germany on the World Heritage List.
Germany Population 2013
October 23, 2013 | Countries
Germany Population 2013
The current estimate for the population of the Federal Republic of Germany is 80.399 million people, which is a decrease of about 1.7% from the last record of the population. The population of Germany historically has been greater than the population of both France and the United Kingdom. In fact, the country is considered to be the most populous country in the European Union. Based on the total land area and the total population of the country, the population density of France is about 583 people per square mile.
Demographics of Germany
The largest ethnic group in the Federal Republic of Germany is the native German group, which makes up about 92% of the population. The next largest group is the Turks, which make up about 2.4% of the population. The remainder of the population is made up of Greeks, Poles, Russians, Spaniards, Serbo-Croatians, and Italians. The official language of the country is German. German is one of the 23 official languages in the European Union. There are many minority languages that are also recognized by the government.
Climate
Germany’s climate is moderate and has generally no longer periods of cold or hot weather. Northwestern and coastal Germany have a maritime influenced climate which is characterized by warm summers and mild cloudy winters. Most areas on the country’s North Sea coast have midwinter temperatures about 1.5°C or even higher. Farther inland, the climate is continental, marked by greater seasonal variations in temperature, with warmer summers and colder winters. Temperature extremes between night and day and summer and winter are considerably less in the north than in the south. During January, the coldest month, the average temperature is about 1.5°C in the north and about -2°C in the south. In July, the warmest month, it is cooler in the north than in the south. The northern coastal region has July temperatures averaging between 16°C and 18°C; at some locations in the south, the average is almost 20°C or even slightly higher.
Geography:
Germany is in Western and Central Europe, with Denmark bordering to the north, Poland and the Czech Republic to the east, Austria and Switzerland to the south, France and Luxembourg to the southwest, and Belgium and the Netherlands to the northwest. The territory covers 357,021 km2 (137,847 sq mi), consisting of 349,223 km2 (134,836 sq mi) of land and 7,798 km2 (3,011 sq mi) of water. It is the seventh largest country by area in Europe and the 62nd largest in the world.
History
The Celts are believed to have been the first inhabitants of Germany. They were followed by German tribes at the end of the 2nd century B.C. German invasions destroyed the declining Roman Empire in the 4th and 5th centuries A.D. One of the tribes, the Franks, attained supremacy in western Europe under Charlemagne, who was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 800. By the Treaty of Verdun (843), Charlemagne's lands east of the Rhine were ceded to the German Prince Louis. Additional territory acquired by the Treaty of Mersen (870) gave Germany approximately the area it maintained throughout the Middle Ages. For several centuries after Otto the Great was crowned king in 936, German rulers were also usually heads of the Holy Roman Empire.
By the 14th century, the Holy Roman Empire was little more than a loose federation of the German princes who elected the Holy Roman Emperor. In 1438, Albert of Hapsburg became emperor, and for the next several centuries the Hapsburg line ruled the Holy Roman Empire until its decline in 1806. Relations between state and church were changed by the Reformation, which began with Martin Luther's 95 theses, and came to a head in 1547, when Charles V scattered the forces of the Protestant League at Mühlberg. The Counter-Reformation followed. A dispute over the succession to the Bohemian throne brought on the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), which devastated Germany and left the empire divided into hundreds of small principalities virtually independent of the emperor.
The Rise of Bismarck and the Birth of the Second German Reich
Meanwhile, Prussia was developing into a state of considerable strength. Frederick the Great (1740–1786) reorganized the Prussian army and defeated Maria Theresa of Austria in a struggle over Silesia. After the defeat of Napoléon at Waterloo (1815), the struggle between Austria and Prussia for supremacy in Germany continued, reaching its climax in the defeat of Austria in the Seven Weeks' War (1866) and the formation of the Prussian-dominated North German Confederation (1867). The architect of this new German unity was Otto von Bismarck, a conservative, monarchist, and militaristic Prussian prime minister. He unified all of Germany in a series of three wars against Denmark (1864), Austria (1866), and France (1870–1871). On Jan. 18, 1871, King Wilhelm I of Prussia was proclaimed German emperor in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. The North German Confederation was abolished, and the Second German Reich, consisting of the North and South German states, was born. With a powerful army, an efficient bureaucracy, and a loyal bourgeoisie, Chancellor Bismarck consolidated a powerful centralized state.
Wilhelm II dismissed Bismarck in 1890 and embarked upon a “New Course,” stressing an intensified colonialism and a powerful navy. His chaotic foreign policy culminated in the diplomatic isolation of Germany and the disastrous defeat in World War I (1914–1918). The Second German Empire collapsed following the defeat of the German armies in 1918, the naval mutiny at Kiel, and the flight of the kaiser to the Netherlands. The Social Democrats, led by Friedrich Ebert and Philipp Scheidemann, crushed the Communists and established a moderate state, known as the Weimar Republic, with Ebert as president. President Ebert died on Feb. 28, 1925, and on April 26, Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg was elected president. The majority of Germans regarded the Weimar Republic as a child of defeat, imposed on a Germany whose legitimate aspirations to world leadership had been thwarted by a worldwide conspiracy. Added to this were a crippling currency debacle, a tremendous burden of reparations, and acute economic distress.
Adolf Hitler and WWII
Adolf Hitler, an Austrian war veteran and a fanatical nationalist, fanned discontent by promising a Greater Germany, abrogation of the Treaty of Versailles, restoration of Germany's lost colonies, and the destruction of the Jews, whom he scapegoated as the reason for Germany's downfall and depressed economy. When the Social Democrats and the Communists refused to combine against the Nazi threat, President von Hindenburg made Hitler the chancellor on Jan. 30, 1933. With the death of von Hindenburg on Aug. 2, 1934, Hitler repudiated the Treaty of Versailles and began full-scale rearmament. In 1935, he withdrew Germany from the League of Nations, and the next year he reoccupied the Rhineland and signed the Anti-Comintern pact with Japan, at the same time strengthening relations with Italy. Austria was annexed in March 1938. By the Munich agreement in Sept. 1938, he gained the Czech Sudetenland, and in violation of this agreement he completed the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia in March 1939. His invasion of Poland on Sept. 1, 1939, precipitated World War II.
Hitler established death camps to carry out “the final solution to the Jewish question.” By the end of the war, Hitler's Holocaust had killed 6 million Jews, as well as Gypsies, Communists, the handicapped, and others not fitting the Aryan ideal. After some dazzling initial successes in 1939–1942, Germany surrendered unconditionally to Allied and Soviet military commanders on May 8, 1945. On June 5 the four-nation Allied Control Council became the de facto government of Germany. |
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