The Business Culture of Germany

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International Business

The Business Culture

of

Germany

Geography and Demography

Located in: Central Europe

Bordered by: The Baltic Sea, The North Sea, The Netherlands, Poland, Denmark , France, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg

Landscape: Low and high mountain ranges are interspersed with upland plains, terrace country, hilly regions and lakelands as well as wide, open lowlands. From north to south Germany is divided into five regions with different topographical features: the North German Plain, the Central Upland Range, the terrace panorama of the southwest, the Alpine foothills in the south and the Bavarian Alps.

Climate: Temperate and marine, cloudy, wet and cool winters and summers; occasional warm winds

Population: 82,424,609 (July 2004 est.)

Capital: Berlin

Languages: 99% of the population speaks German, although there are many dialects spoken in the various regions.

Ethnic groups:

The "Other" segment is made up of Greek, Polish, Italian, Russian, Serbo-Croatian and Spanish migrants.

Religions:

. The Catholic and Protestant churches contributed to social and political development.

2. Today, they publish documents and take part in debates on issues like peace and disarmament and labor market policy, abortion and protection of the environment.

3. The relationship between church and state is that of a partnership, regulated by concordats and agreements.

4. Around three million Muslims from 41 countries, most of them from Turkey form 2% of the population.

5. The Jewish communities have nearly 100,000 members and the largest Jewish community in Germany exists in Berlin with more than 11,000 members.

Politics

Germany is a constitutional federal democracy, whose political system is laid out in the 1949 'constitution' called Grundgesetz (Basic Law).

Parliament consists of Federal Assembly(Bundestag) and Federal Council(Bundesrat).

The head of government, the Bundeskanzler (Chancellor), is elected by the parliament.

Chief of state: President Johannes RAU (since 1 July 1999)

Chancellor: Gerhard Schroeder(SPD)

Major political parties

Alliance '90/Greens

Christian Democratic Union or CDU

Christian Social Union or CSU

Free Democratic Party or FDP

Party of Democratic Socialism or PDS

Social Democratic Party or SPD

History

The German language and the feeling of "Germanhood" go back more than a thousand years, but the state now known as Germany was unified as a modern nation-state only in 1871 in Versailles, when the German Empire, dominated by Prussia, was forged excluding Austria. This was the second German Reich.
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The first Reich(the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation) existed until dissolved in 1806 as one of the consequences of the Napoleonic Wars.

The Third Reich was that of the Nazis, which lasted only 12 years, from 1933 to 1945.

After being subdued by France in the Napoleonic Wars, France was to be perceived as Germany's arch-enemy in the successful Franco-Prussian War of 1871 and in World War I. Germany subsequently invaded France. After initial advances, the war amounted to a slow war in the trenches, killing many on both sides. The war ...

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