GERMANY 



2473 



GERMANY 



Religion. There is no imperial religion, and 

 in general it may be said that freedom of wor- 

 ship prevails, though certain of the states have 

 what are in effect state religions. In this 

 country, which was the birthplace of the Refor- 

 mation, the Protestant or Evangelical faith 

 predominates, claiming about sixty-one per 

 cent of the population, while the Catholics 

 have but thirty-six. There is a rather sharp 



territorial division, some states being largely 

 Evangelical, some Catholic; the distribution, 

 interestingly enough, is very similar to what 

 it was in the earliest days of Protestantism, 

 four centuries ago. 



There are within the country over 600,000 

 Jews, and in some states their religion under the 

 empire received state support, as did the Chris- 

 tian faiths. 



Government 



Before the old order in Germany passed away 

 in the autumn of 1918, the German Empire con- 

 sisted of twenty-six states, as follows : 



Kingdoms : Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony and 

 Wiirttemberg. 



Grand Duchies': Baden, Hesse, Mecklehburg- 

 Schwerin, Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Oldenburg and 

 Saxe-Weimar. 



Duchies : Anhalt, Brunswick, Saxe-Altenburg, 

 Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and Saxe-Meiningen. 



Principalities : Waldeck, Lippe, Schwarzburg- 

 Rudolstadt, Schwarzburg-Sondershausen, Reuss- 

 Schleiz, Reuss-Greiz and Schaumburg-Lippe. 



Free cities : Hamburg, Liibeck and Bremen. 



Imperial province : Alsace-Lorraine. 



With the end of the war and the crumbling 

 of the Empire more than 300 royal personages, 

 of high and low degrees, lost their exalted sta- 

 tions; many of them fled to safety in other 

 countries. In the old confederation of states 

 Prussia was the strongest member and under the 

 constitution of the Empire the king of Prussia 

 was the hereditary German emperor, with vast 

 powers in the civil organization and with sole 

 power of declaring war and peace. He ap- 

 pointed the Chancellor, who became responsible 

 for all the acts of his imperial master. 



There were two legislative bodies. The 

 Bundesrat represented the different states, and 

 in some degree was comparable to the American 

 Senate. The Reichstag, or Parliament, was the 

 lower body and to a slight extent could be com- 

 pared to the American House of Representa- 

 tives. 



t Republican Germany. Six months after the 

 close of the war, governmental affairs were yet 

 in an extremely unsettled condition, but strong 

 efforts were being made to organize a republic 

 upon a sure foundation. The territory of the 

 republic was to consist of all German states 

 which might choose by vote to be incorporated 

 in it. The legislative body is to be a National 

 Council and an Assembly, an upper and a lower 

 house, respectively. The chief executive is to 

 be president, who must be at least thirty-five 

 years old and a German citizen for at least ten 

 years. His ternT'bf office is to be seven years, 

 but the recall may be employed to dismiss him 

 through popular vote. At the head of the 

 Cabinet of fourteen members is to be the Chan- 

 cell or, corresponding to the English Premier. 



History of Germany 



Its Beginnings. Almost more than that of 

 any other nation, the history of Germany has 

 been one of wars. At almost any point where 

 the student takes it up, the clash of arms may 

 be heard, for the German nation, as a nation, 

 has been long in the making and every step 

 has been gained by conquest. It was as a fear- 

 less, warlike people that the Romans first 

 knew these dwellers on their northern bor- 

 ders, and the first definite fact in their history 

 was their defeat of the Roman consul Papirius 

 in 113 B.C. Eleven years later the great gen- 

 eral Marius administered in turn a defeat to 

 these Teutones, as they were called, for the 

 term Germans was a later name, probably 

 formed by the Romans from some Gallic word. 



It was Julius Caesar who during his cam- 

 paigns in Gaul gave to the Roman world the 

 first definite information about some of the 

 ba-rbaric tribes beyond the Rhine those tall, 

 fair-haired strangers who feared not even the 

 Roman legions. Nominally, Caesar brought 

 Germany under Roman sway, and in the days 

 of Augustus an attempt was made to convert 

 this nominal subjugation into a real one by 

 introducing Roman customs. The effect was 

 disastrous, however, because in A. D. 9 the Ger- 

 mans under Arminius won a complete victory 

 over the Roman legions in a battle which ranks 

 among the decisive ones of the world, for it 

 made it certain that Germany should be Teu- 

 tonic and not Latin (see FIFTEEN DECISIVE 



