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A warm welcome to Germany in eight questions about the essentials. Easy to join in, and fun to learn something new along the way.
Fresh arrival 0–3 · On the right track 4–6 · Germany expert 7–8
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Berlin has been the capital of the whole country again since Germany was reunified in 1990. While the country was divided, the much smaller city of Bonn on the Rhine served as the capital of West Germany, and the parliament only finished moving to Berlin in 1999.
Photo: File:Museumsinsel Berlin Juli 2021 1 (cropped).jpg : Kasa Fue derivative work: G, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
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The German flag has three flat stripes: black, red and gold, officially called gold and not yellow. The colours became popular around 1848, and one well-known story links them to volunteer soldiers who wore black uniforms with red trim and shiny gold buttons.
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In German a pretzel is called a Brezel, and one popular story says its loops look like arms folded in prayer. Every July the city of Speyer holds a pretzel festival with a big parade, during which about 22,000 pretzels are thrown into the cheering crowd.
Photo: Sundar1, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.
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The Brandenburg Gate was built between 1788 and 1791. In 1806 the French emperor Napoleon took the chariot and horses on top, called the quadriga, all the way to Paris as a trophy, but in 1814 they were brought back home to Berlin.
Photo: Thomas Wolf, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.
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Beethoven was born in Bonn in 1770. As his hearing got worse, friends wrote their side of conversations in notebooks. At the first performance of his Ninth Symphony in 1824, a singer gently turned him around so he could see the applause he could not hear.
Photo: Joseph Karl Stieler, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain.
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Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm published their first book of tales in 1812. In 1838 they also started a giant German dictionary. Jacob got as far as the word 'Frucht', meaning fruit, and other scholars needed until 1961 to finish the whole thing.
Photo: Elisabeth Baumann, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain.
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Neuschwanstein, meaning 'New Swan Stone', was built from 1869 as the king's private hideaway, and he never saw it finished. He paid for it with his own money and lots of borrowing. Today it is one of Germany's best-loved sights, and it inspired Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland.
Photo: Thomas Wolf, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 de.
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Dachshund means 'badger dog' in German, because it was bred to follow badgers into their burrows. In 1972 a colourful dachshund called Waldi became the very first official Olympic mascot, at the Summer Games in Munich.
Photo: Katemil94, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
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