Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant passages that can help answer the question.
Query: Who rules Germany?
Germany has a parliamentary system of government in which the chancellor is the nation's leading political figure and "de facto" chief executive. The president has a mainly ceremonial role, but he can give direction to general political and societal debates and has some important "reserve powers" in case of political instability (such as those provided for by Article 81 of the Basic Law). The German presidents have wide discretion about how they exercise their official duties.
Berlin (; ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3,723,914 (2018) inhabitants make it the second most populous city proper of the European Union after London. The city is one of Germany's 16 federal states. It is surrounded by the state of Brandenburg, and contiguous with its capital, Potsdam. The two cities are at the center of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region, which is, with 6,004,857 (2015) inhabitants and an area of 30,370 square km, Germany's third-largest metropolitan region after the Rhine-Ruhr and Rhine-Main regions.
A member of the CDU since 1954, he was elected as member of parliament in 1969. He continued to hold a mandate as member of the Bundestag until he became Governing Mayor of West Berlin, following the 1981 state elections. In 1984, Richard von Weizsäcker was elected as President of the Federal Republic of Germany and in 1989 he was re-elected for a second term. As yet, he is, together with Theodor Heuss, one of only two Presidents of the Federal Republic of Germany, who have served two complete five-year-terms. During his second term as President on 3 October 1990, the reorganized five states of the former German Democratic Republic and East Berlin joined the Federal Republic of Germany ("German reunification"), which made von Weizsäcker the first democratically legitimized head of state of Germany as a whole since Reich President Paul von Hindenburg had died in office on 2 August 1934.
German reunification in 1990 made Berlin the nominal capital of Germany again. This decision did not mandate that the republic's political institutions would also move. While some argued for the seat of government to move to Berlin, others advocated leaving it in Bonn — a situation roughly analogous to that of the Netherlands, where Amsterdam is the capital but the Hague is the seat of government. Berlin's previous history as united Germany's capital was strongly connected with the German Empire, the Weimar Republic and more ominously with Nazi Germany. It was felt that a new peacefully united Germany should not be governed from a city connected to such overtones of war. Additionally, Bonn was closer to Brussels, headquarters of the European Economic Community. Former chancellor Willy Brandt caused considerable offence to the Western Allies during the debate by stating that France wouldn't have kept the seat of government at Vichy after Liberation.
Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany on 30 January 1933 by Paul von Hindenburg. Upon taking office, Hitler immediately began accumulating power and changing the nature of the chancellorship. After only two months in office, and following the burning of the Reichstag building, the parliament passed the Enabling Act giving the chancellor full legislative powers for a period of four years – the chancellor could introduce any law without consulting Parliament. Powers of the chancellor continued to grow until August 1934, when the incumbent President Paul von Hindenburg died. Hitler used the Enabling Act to merge the office of chancellor with that of the president to create a new office, "the leader". Although the offices were merged, Hitler continued to be addressed as "Führer und Reichskanzler" indicating that the head of state and head of government were still separate positions, albeit held by the same man. This separation was made more evident when, in April 1945, Hitler gave instruction that upon his death the office of leader would dissolve and there would be a new president and chancellor. On 30 April 1945, when Hitler committed suicide, he was briefly succeeded as chancellor by Joseph Goebbels, as dictated in Hitler's will and testament. With Goebbels following Hitler's suicide with his own, the reins of power passed to Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz as president of Germany. Dönitz, in turn, appointed conservative Count Schwerin von Krosigk as head of government with the title “Leading Minister”.
Despite Cologne's status as the largest city in the region, nearby Düsseldorf was chosen as the political capital of the federated state of North Rhine-Westphalia. With Bonn being chosen as the provisional federal capital ("provisorische Bundeshauptstadt") and seat of the government of the Federal Republic of Germany (then informally West Germany), Cologne benefited by being sandwiched between two important political centres. The city became–and still is–home to a number of federal agencies and organizations. After reunification in 1990, Berlin was made the capital of Germany.
The Kingdom of Saxony was abolished in 1918 when King Frederick Augustus III of Saxony abdicated. The succession law until the abolition of the monarchy was semi-Salic primogeniture and required the successor to be born of an equal marriage, approved in advance by the head of the house. Accordingly, the last undisputed male member of the family was Prince Albert of Saxony, who assumed the headship of the royal house and the title "Margrave of Meissen" upon the death of his brother the Margrave Maria Emanuel in July 2012. This was challenged, however, by his nephew Prince Alexander of Saxe-Gessaphe who also claimed the headship based on a 1997 agreement, and who is said to have reached an agreement with Albert just prior to the funeral of Maria Emanuel which recognised Alexander as the dynasty's heir. With the death of Albert in October 2012 the dispute continued with Prince Rüdiger of Saxony, the only agnatic great grandson of the last King of Saxony, claiming the headship.
In the Federal Republic of Germany, each of its constituent states (or "Länder" - plural of "Land") has its own capital city, such as Dresden, Wiesbaden, Mainz, Düsseldorf, Stuttgart, and Munich, as do all of the republics of the Russian Federation. The national capitals of Germany and Russia: the Stadtstaat of Berlin and the Federal City of Moscow, are also constituent states of both countries in their own right. Each of the States of Austria and Cantons of Switzerland also have their own capital cities. Vienna, the national capital of Austria, is also one of the states, while Bern is the ("de facto") capital of both Switzerland and the Canton of Bern.
On the day before President Paul von Hindenburg's death on August 2, 1934, Hitler's cabinet had enacted a law combining the offices of Chancellor (the head of government) and President (the head of state); Adolf Hitler would henceforth be known as "Führer und Reichskanzler" (Leader and Chancellor) and was both head of state and commander in chief of the armed forces. The day of Hindenburg's death, the cabinet ordered a plebiscite for August 19 for the German people to approve the combination of the two offices.
In 1990, with the reunification of Germany, Berlin was also reunified and became the capital of the enlarged Federal Republic of Germany. There was some debate, however, on whether the seat of government should move to Berlin. Many believed that Bonn should remain the seat of government – a situation analogus to that of the Netherlands, where Amsterdam is the capital but The Hague is the seat of government. In 1991, after an emotional debate, the Bundestag voted to move the seat of government to Berlin by 1999.
Germany has a network of 227 diplomatic missions abroad and maintains relations with more than 190 countries. , Germany is the largest contributor to the budget of the European Union (providing 20%) and the third largest contributor to the UN (providing 8%). Germany is a member of NATO, the OECD, the G8, the G20, the World Bank and the IMF. It has played an influential role in the European Union since its inception and has maintained a strong alliance with France and all neighbouring countries since 1990. Germany promotes the creation of a more unified European political, economic and security apparatus.
German ( ) is a West Germanic language that is mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, South Tyrol (Italy), the German-speaking Community of Belgium, and Liechtenstein. It is also one of the three official languages of Luxembourg and a co-official language in the Opole Voivodeship in Poland. The languages which are most similar to German are the other members of the West Germanic language branch: Afrikaans, Dutch, English, the Frisian languages, Low German/Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, and Yiddish. There are also strong similarities in vocabulary with Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, although those belong to the North Germanic group. German is the second most widely spoken Germanic language, after English.
It was only during the 1871 Unification of Germany that the newly unified German Empire was first assigned an official capital. Since Berlin was the capital of Prussia, the leading state of the new Reich, it became the capital of Germany as well. Berlin had been the capital of Prussia and its predecessor, Brandenburg, since 1518. Berlin remained the capital of the united Germany until 1945. However, for a period of a few months following the First World War, the national assembly met in Weimar because civil war was ravaging Berlin. In 1945, Germany was occupied by the Allies as the outcome of World War II, and Berlin ceased to be the capital of a sovereign German state.
Only after Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck gradually built a unified German state under the Prussian royal house of Hohenzollern did "Kleinstaaterei" largely end in 1871 with the founding of the German Empire. (The only surviving petty states—Luxembourg and Liechtenstein—lie at the periphery of the German-speaking world.) The founding of the German Empire created a largely German nation-state. While the German Empire excluded the partly German but multinational Habsburg domains of Austria–Hungary, it included a substantial Polish minority in parts of eastern Prussia and other minorities along its northern and western borders. The unification of the German Empire put Germany on the map as a major European power, albeit too late to become a major colonial presence. Internally in the nation some of these fragmented boundaries and small political units continued to exist until the modern States of Germany were established in the Federal Republic after World War II.
The foundation for the influential position held by Germany today was laid during the (economic miracle) of the 1950s when West Germany rose from the enormous destruction wrought by World War II to become the world's third-largest economy. The first chancellor Konrad Adenauer, who remained in office until 1963, had worked for a full alignment with NATO rather than neutrality. He not only secured a membership in NATO but was also a proponent of agreements that developed into the present-day European Union. When the G6 was established in 1975, there was no question whether the Federal Republic of Germany would be a member as well.
In the German states, revolutions began in March 1848, starting in Berlin and spreading across the other states which now make up Germany. The heart of the revolutions was in Frankfurt, where the newly formed National Assembly, the Frankfurt Parliament, met in St Paul's Church from May 1848, calling for a constitutional monarchy to rule a new, united German nation. To form the Assembly, near-democratic elections had taken place across the German states; the majority of the members were Saxon democrats. On 28 March 1849 the Assembly passed the first "Reichsverfassung" (constitution) for Germany, and in April 1849, Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia was offered the crown.
Rhineland-Palatinate is one of the 16 Bundesländer (federal states) of Germany. It has an area of 19,846 km² and about 4.048 million inhabitants. The capital is Mainz. The federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate was established on 30 August 1946.
Presidential elections were held in Germany on 29 March 1925, with a second round run-off on 26 April. They were the first direct elections to the office of President of the Reich (), Germany's head of state during the 1919–33 Weimar Republic. The first President, Friedrich Ebert, who had died on 28 February 1925, had been elected indirectly, by the National Assembly, but the Weimar Constitution required that his successor be elected by the "whole German people". Paul von Hindenburg was elected as the second president of Germany in the second round of voting.
The Catholic Church in Germany () or Roman-Catholic Church in Germany () is part of the worldwide Catholic Church in communion with the Pope, assisted by the Roman Curia, and of the German bishops. The current "speaker" (i.e., the chairperson) of the episcopal conference is Cardinal Reinhard Marx, metropolitan Archbishop of Archdiocese of Munich and Freising. It is divided into 27 dioceses, 7 of them with the rank of metropolitan sees. All the archbishops and bishops are members of the Conference of German Bishops. Due to a church tax compulsory for those who register civilly as Catholics, it is the wealthiest part of the Catholic Church in Europe.
Rhineland-Palatinate is located in western Germany covering an area of and a population of 4.05 million inhabitants, the seventh-most populous German state. Mainz is the state capital and largest city, while other major cities include Ludwigshafen am Rhein, Koblenz, Trier, Kaiserslautern, and Worms. Rhineland-Palatinate is surrounded by the states of North Rhine-Westphalia, Saarland, Baden-Württemberg, and Hesse. It also borders three foreign countries: France, Luxembourg and Belgium.
Germany is Kenya's third largest export market in Europe after the UK and the Netherlands.
The enzyme belongs to the group of oxidoreductases according to the EC classification and is dependent on FAD as cofactor, thus it was classified as an external flavoprotein monooxygenase (designated as type E). It forms a two-component system with a reductase (StyB, StyA2B). The reductase utilizes solely NADH to reduce the FAD, which is then transferred to the styrene monooxygenase (StyA, StyA1). Two types of that enzyme are described so far: StyA/StyB (designated E1), first described from "Pseudomonas" species, and StyA1/StyA2B (designated E2), first described from Actinobacteria. The E1-type is more abundant in nature and comprises a single monooxygenase (StyA) supported by a single reductase (StyB), whereas the E2-type has a major monooxygenase (StyA1) which is supported by fusion protein of a monooxygenase and reductase (StyA2B). The latter one is the source of reduced FAD for the monooxygenase subunits and has some side activity as a monooxygenase. So far all styrene monooxygenases perform enantioselective epoxidations of styrene and chemically analogous compounds, which makes them interesting for biotechnological applications.
s͎ is represented in Unicode by an s and U+034E (Combining Upwards Arrow Below).
ㅝ is one of the Korean hangul. The Unicode for ㅝ is U+315D.
Germany extends the non-applicability of the rule of the shorter term to all members of the European Economic Area in §120 of its "Urheberrechtsgesetz". It also does not apply the comparison of terms to U.S. works. In a case decided on October 7, 2003 by the "Oberlandesgericht" of Hesse in Frankfurt am Main, the court ruled that a U.S. work that had fallen in the public domain in the U.S. was still copyrighted in Germany. The court considered the rule of the shorter term inapplicable because of the bilateral copyright treaty between Germany and the United States, which had become effective on January 15, 1892 and which was still in effect. That treaty did not contain a rule of the shorter term, but just stated that works of either country were copyrighted in the other country by the other country's laws.