History of Germany

Germany, a country rich in culture and heritage, yet plagued by the fallout of World War I and World War II, has progressed to become the centerpiece of the European Union and the world's third richest economy. The first German Empire dates back to the Roman Empire starting in the 8th century AD. During the Middle Ages the German Empire fended off many attacks against their soil from the Hungarians and the Slavs. Fighting and power struggles continued until the 1400's, when the modern world gradually came into existence with intellectual, economic and political changes.

During the late 1490's and early 1500's, Maximilian I put into motion his plan to reform the German Empire by creating an Imperial Supreme Court (Reichskammergericht), levying imperial taxes and increasing the power of the Imperial Diet (Reichstag) (Wikipedia). By the mid 1500's Germany was a reforming nation with revolts, uprisings and a general division of the empire based on religious beliefs and resentment. This division of factions led to the Thirty Year's War which ravaged Germany from 1618 to 1648. The war ended in 1648 with the signing of the Peace of Westphalia. As a result, German territory was lost to France and Sweden.

In the following years, imperial power declined as states gained more power. This power struggle led to a century of resistance against German rule and persecution. The French revolution sparked a new war between France and its Eastern neighbors. In 1803 Napoleon relaunched the war against the Roman Empire and abolished almost all the smaller secular states and most of the imperial free cities (Wikipedia).

The Roman Empire was formally dissolved on August 6, 1806 when the last Holy Roman Emperor Francis II resigned. At that time the Confederation of the Rhine was established under Napoleon's protection and in 1815 Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo. Following Napoleon's defeat, the territory of the former Roman Empire was broken into a loose union of