Jews wearing Star of David badges, Lodz Ghetto, Poland, World War II, 1940-1944. The Nazis forced Jews into over-crowded ghettos from which thousands were deported to the death camps.

German (November) Revolution in Berlin, Germany, 1918.

German General Alfred Schlieffen, author of the Schlieffen Plan for the defeat of Russian and France. (Credit: Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

The sinking of Lusitania by a German submarine off the Old Head of Kinsale, Ireland, 1915. The tragedy killed 128 US citizens, helping bring the US into World War I. (Credit: Three Lions/Getty Images)

American troops throwing darts at a picture of the German Kaiser during World War One. (Credit: Paul Thompson/FPG/Archive Photos/Getty Images)

The bodies of the British soldiers lying dead in their trench during the Battle of the Somme, 1916. (Credit: Mondadori Portfolio/Getty Images)

Germany

Germany Archives | HISTORY

Home

HISTORY

World War I pitted Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire against Great Britain, the United States, France, Russia, Italy and Japan. New military technology resulted in unprecedented carnage. By the time the war was over and the Allied Powers claimed victory, more than 16 million people—soldiers and civilians alike—were dead.

World War I

The Roman Empire, led by rulers such as Julius Caesar, Augustus Caesar, Caligula and Nero, was a vast and powerful domain that gave rise to the culture, laws, technologies and institutions that continue to define Western civilization.

Ancient Rome

Immigration, the movement of people living in one country into another country, is a fundamental aspect of human history, though it was as controversial hundreds of years ago as it is today.

Immigration

The Holocaust, during which some 6 million Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and other people were systematically exterminated by Nazi Germany during World War II, was one of the most horrific war crimes ever committed.

Holocaust

World War II was the biggest and deadliest war in history, involving more than 30 countries. Sparked by the 1939 Nazi invasion of Poland, the war dragged on for six bloody years until the Allies defeated the Axis powers of Nazi Germany, Japan and Italy in 1945. Explore the battles, leaders and atrocities from the war and its impact on geopolitics and humankind.

World War II

1940

1942

1937

1938

Explore the wars, battles, leaders, civilizations, regimes, prominent figures and major events from the continent that encompasses 2 percent of the Earth’s surface. From Stonehenge to the Great Awakening to the French Revolution to the rise and fall of Communism in Russia, see how Europe’s often tumultuous history unfolded.

Germany

Topics

Goths and Visigoths

Reichstag Fire

Anti-Semitism

Weimar Republic

Stories

When German Immigrants Were America’s Undesirables

Was Germany Doomed in World War I by the Schlieffen Plan?

Why Was the Battle of the Somme So Deadly?

How the Sinking of Lusitania Changed World War I

This Day in History

Munich Pact signed

Norway surrenders to Germany

Nazis test new air force, Luftwaffe, on Basque town of Guernica

Germany annexes Austria

German saboteurs executed in Washington, D.C.

Nazis launch Kristallnacht