Germany (Lonely Planet, 6th Edition) - Andrea Schulte-Peevers [29]
1939–45 WWII: Hitler invades Poland. France and Britain declare war on Germany. Millions of Jews are murdered during the Holocaust and 62 million civilians and soldiers die – 27 million in the former Soviet Union alone.
1945 Hitler kills himself in a Berlin bunker while a defeated Germany surrenders; Germany is split into Allied- and Soviet-occupied zones. Berlin has its own British, French, US and Soviet zones with checkpoints.
1948–49 The Soviet Union blocks land routes to Allied sectors of Berlin after cooperation between Allied and Soviet occupiers breaks down. Over 260,000 US and British flights supply West Berlin during the Berlin airlift.
1949 Allied-occupied West Germany becomes the FRG, with its capital in Bonn and Konrad Adenauer its first chancellor. A separate East Germany is founded in the Soviet-occupied zone, with Berlin as its capital.
1950 The CDU is founded at federal level in West Germany and Konrad Adenauer, known for his support for strong relationships with France and the US, is elected its first national chairman.
1951–61 The economic vision of Ludwig Erhard unleashes West Germany’s Wirtschaftswunder. Between 1951 and 1961 the economy averages an annual growth rate of 8%.
1953 Following the death of Stalin and unfulfilled hopes for better conditions in the GDR, workers and farmers rise up, strike or demonstrate in 560 towns and cities across the country. Soviet troops quash the uprising.
1954 West Germany wins the World Cup, a victory which is to become known as the ‘miracle of Bern’.
1961 On the night of 12 August, the GDR government begins building the Berlin Wall between East and West Germany. Work soon starts on concrete sections, the beginning of a 155km wall surrounding West Berlin.
1963 US President John F Kennedy declares in Berlin: ‘All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin. And therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words, ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’.
1972 Social Democrat chancellor Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik thaws relations between the two Germanys. The Basic Treaty is signed in East Berlin, paving the way for both countries to join the UN.
1974 West Germany joins the G8 group of industrialised nations, and hosts and wins the FIFA World Cup.
1977 The Deutscher Herbst (German Autumn) envelops West Germany when a second generation of the left-wing Red Army Faction (RAF) murders key business and state figures.
1982 A ‘constructive vote of no confidence’ brings down the SPD/FDP coalition under Helmut Schmidt. A conservative coalition government is formed in West Germany under Christian Democrat Helmut Kohl.
1985 Boris Becker wins Wimbledon tennis tournament and becomes the youngest player and first German to do so. West Germany receives its biggest confidence boost since its 1954 World Cup victory.
1989 Demonstrations are held in Leipzig and other East German cities. Hungary opens its border with Austria, and East Germans are allowed to travel to the West, prompting the fall of the Berlin Wall.
1990 Berlin becomes the capital of reunified Germany. Helmut Kohl’s conservative coalition promises East–West economic integration, creating unrealistic expectations of a blossoming economic landscape in the east.
1998 After its popularity wanes during the first decade of reunification, Helmut Kohl’s CDU/CSU & FDP coalition is replaced by an SPD and Bündnis 90/Die Grünen government.
2005 Angela Merkel becomes Germany’s first woman chancellor, leading a grand coalition of major parties after the election results in neither the SPD nor the CDU/CSU being able to form its own government.
2006 Germans proudly fly their flag as the country hosts the FIFA World Cup for the first time as a unified nation.
2008 The economic crisis bites deeply into German export industries. German banks are propped up by state funds as unemployment and state debt begin to rise again.
2009 The CDU/CSU and FDP achieve a majority in the federal election and are poised