Germanic tribes were defeated by Julius Caeser (55 and 53 BC) but Roman
expansion N of the Rhine was stopped in 9 AD.  Charlemagne, ruler of the
Franks, consolidated Saxon, Bavarian, Rhenish, Frankish, and other lands;
after him the eastern part became the German Empire.  The thirty Years'
War (1618-1648) split Germany into small principalities and and kingdoms.
 After Napoleon, Austria contended with Prussia for dominance, but lost
the Seven Weeks' War to Prussia, 1866.  Otto von Bismarck (Prussian
chancellor) formed the North German Confederation, 1867.  In 1870
Bismarck maneuvred Napoleon III into war.  After the quick defeat of
France, Bismarck formed the German Empire and on Jan. 18, 1871, in
Versailles, proclaimed king Wilhelm of Prussia German emperor
(Deutscher kaiser).  The German Empire reached its peak before World War
I in 1914, with 208,780 sq. mi. plus a colonial empire.  After that
war Germany ceded Alsace-Lorraine to France; West Prussia and Posen
(Poznan) province to Poland; part of Schleswig to Denmark; lost all of its
colonies and the ports of Meml and Danzig.  Republic of Germany, 1919-1933,
Adolf Hitler led the National Socialist German Workers' (Nazi) party after
the World War I.  In 1923 he attempted to unseat the Bavarian government
and was imprisoned.  Pres. von Hindenburg named Hitler chancellor Jan.
30, 1933; on Aug. 3, 1934, the day after Hindenburg's death, the cabinet
joined the offices of president and chancellor and made Hitler leader
(fuehrer).  Hitler abolished freedom of speech and assembly, and began
a long series of persecutions climaxed by the murder of millions of
Jews and opponents.  Hitler repudiated the Versailles treaty and reparations
agreements.  He remilitarized the Rhineland the Rhineland 1936 and
annexed Austria (Anschluss, 1938).  At Munich he made an agreement with
Neville Chamberlain (British prime minister) which permitted Hitler to
annex part of Czechoslovakia.  He signed a non-agression treaty with
the USSR, 1939.  He declared war on Poland Sept. 1, 1939 precipitating
World War II.  With total defeat near, Hitler committed suicide in Berlin
Apr. 1945.  The victorious Allies voided all acts and annexations of
Hitler's Reich.  The zones of occupation administered by the allied
powers and later relinquished gave the USSR Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia,
and Mecklenburg, and the former Prussian provinces of Saxony and Brandenburg.
 The territory E of the Oder-Neisse line within 1937 boundaries comprising
the provinces of Silesia, Pomerania, and the southern part of East Prussia,
totalling about 41,220 sq. mi., was taken by Poland.  Northern East
Prussia was taken by the USSR.  The Western Allies ended the state of war
with Germany in 1951.  The USSR did so in 1955.  There was also created
the area of Greater Berlin, within but not part of the Soviet zone,
administered by the 4 occupying powers under the Allied Command.  In 1948
the USSR withdrew, established its single command in East Berlin, and cut
off supplies.  The Allies utilized a gigantic airlift to bring food to
West Berlin (1948-49).  In Aug. 1961, the East Germans built a wall
dividing Berlin, after over 3 million E. Germans had emigrated.  On Nov.
9, 1989 the E. German government announced the decision to open the border
with the West signaling the end of the infamous Berlin Wall.  A communism
was being rejected in E. Germany, talks began concerning German reunification.
 At a meeting in Ottawa, Feb. 1990, the foreign ministers of the World War
II "Big Four" Allied Nations - U.S., USSR, UK, and France - as well as
the foreign ministers of E. and W. Germany reached agreement on a format
for high-level talks on German reunification.  In May, NATO ministers
adopted a package of proposals on reunifications including the inclusion
of the united Germany as a full member of NATO, and the barring of the new
Germany from having its own nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons.
 In July 1990, the USSR agreed to conditions that would allow Germany to
become a member NATO.  The 2 nations agreed to monetary unification
under the W. German mark beginning in July.  The merger of the 2 Germanys
was to take place on Oct. 3, 1990, and the first all-German elections
since 1933 were scheduled for Dec. 2, 1990.                    @