Significance of Germany

For several hundred years until the beginning of the 20th Century, Germany was one of the strongest and most respected, if somewhat feared, countries in Europe. Economically, militarily and politically, it was a center of power and influence that, with the advent of the two world wars initiated by the territorial ambitions of a few of its leaders, dissipated into the Cold War of the mid-20th Century and is only now, in the early years of the 21st, beginning to rebuild.