• Total aid: $6.78bn (donations)

Unlike the US and France, Germany's aid programs are not directly motivated by its desire for political influence in the world's poorer regions. Most are multilateral, though there is also a strong tradition of direct aid. Much comes from church organizations such as the Protestant Brot für die Welt. Many German volunteers and missionaries work overseas on aid programs.

German unification in the 19th century brought together a mosaic of states with a common linguistic, but varied cultural, heritage.

• 1815 German Confederation under nominal Austrian leadership.
• 1834 Zollverein Customs Union of 18 states, including Prussia.
• 1862 Otto von Bismarck appointed Prussian chancellor.
• 1864–1870 Prussia defeats Austrians, Danes, and French; north German states under Prussian control.
• 1871 Southern states join Prussian-led unified German Empire under Wilhelm I.
• 1870s Rapid industrialization.
• 1890 Kaiser Wilhelm II accedes, with aspirations to German world role. Bismarck sacked.
• 1914–1918 World War I.
• 1918 Germany signs armistice; Weimar Republic created.
• 1919 Treaty of Versailles: colonies lost and reparations paid. Rhineland demilitarized.
• 1923 France occupies Ruhr; financial collapse, hyperinflation.
• 1933 Adolf Hitler chancellor after Nazis elected largest party. One-party rule; rearmament.
• 1935 Nuremberg Laws; official persecution of Jews begins.
• 1936 German entry into Rhineland. Axis alliance with Italy.
• 1938 Annexation of Austria and Sudetenland.
• 1939 Invasion of Poland starts World War II.
• 1940 France, Belgium, Netherlands, and Norway invaded.
• 1941 USSR invaded.
• 1942–1943 Germans defeated by Red Army at Stalingrad.
• 1945 German surrender; Allies control four occupation zones.
• 1949 Germany divided: communist East led by Walter Ulbricht 1951– 1971, Erich Honecker 1971–1989; liberal democratic West led by CDU's Konrad Adenauer, 1949–1963.
• 1955 West Germany joins NATO.
• 1961 Berlin Wall built.
• 1966–1969 West German "grand coalition" of CDU and SPD.
• 1969–1982 SPD-led West German governments under Willy Brandt until 1974, then Helmut Schmidt.
• 1973 Both Germanies join UN.
• 1982 Helmut Kohl West German chancellor, CDU–FDP coalition.
• 1989 Fall of Berlin Wall.
• 1990 Reunification of Germany. First all-German elections since 1933; Kohl heads government.
• 1998 Gerhard Schröder heads coalition of SPD and Greens.
• 2000 Disgrace of Kohl in party funding scandal.
• 2001 Coalition of SPD and former communist PDS in city of Berlin.
• 2002 Euro fully adopted. SPD–Green coalition reelected.
• 2003 Economy enters recession.
• 2004 Horst Köhler of CDU elected president.

Weather chart

Germany has a broad climatic range. The upper Rhine valley is very mild and suitable for wine making. The Bavarian Alps, the Harz Mountains, and the Black Forest are by contrast cold, with heavy falls of snow in winter.