Freundeskreis Tambacounda e.V.

Germany

Germany lies in central Europe with an area of 357.031km² making it about twice the size of Senegal. It shares borders with Denmark, Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria, Switzerland, France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands. The North Sea and the Baltic Sea form natural borders to the North. The form of government is a federal parliamentary republic with the seat of government in Berlin, the country’s capitol. It has 82.5 million inhabitants.

Economy

Germany has relatively few raw materials; its economy is mainly focused on the industrial and service sectors. Large areas of land are used for agricultural purposes, but only two to three percent of the workforce is employed in the agricultural sector. Germany has a gross domestic product of about € 2.2 trillion (as of 2004) making it the world’s third largest economy and industrial nation. Germany is also the world’s largest export nation.

Berlin

Germany’s capital was established in the 13^th Century and has since experienced many changes throughout its history. As a medieval trading town, the electoral seat of Saxony, a royal capital, an imperial capital, or as the cosmopolitan city of the Weimar Republic, Berlin’s importance has steadily grown.

After the Second World War, the Allies divided the city into four occupied sectors: one for the United States of America, one for Great Britain, one for France and one for the Soviet Union. The Federal Republic of Germany was founded on the 23^rd of May 1949 in the western zones with Bonn as its new capital. Although the eastern zone surrounded West Berlin, it retained its Allied special status until the Reunification on October 3^rd 1990. The eastern zone named East Berlin the “capital of the GDR.” On August 13^th 1961 the GDR began building the wall along the sector boarder.

Berlin Wall

The Berlin Wall is one of the most recognized symbols of the Cold War and the division of Germany. Beginning on the 13^th of August 1961, fortifications were built and expanded upon between West and East Berlin’s political border. Between 1961 and 1989 the Wall’s design was altered up to four times. The wall was 3.6m high, 155km long, of which 43km stretched across the inner city.

The number of deaths along the Berlin Wall and the inner German border range greatly from 86-238 people. Since 2005, through a joint research project, the Berlin Wall Association and the Center for Contemporary Historical Research Potsdam has examined the data available in order to provide the public with reliable facts and information.