THE WORLD ATLAS

Empire · since 1871 · Europe

German Empire and Germany

Also known as German Empire, Germany, West Germany, East Germany, East Prussia, Germany (UK), Germany (USA), Germany (France), Germany (Soviet), German E. Africa (Tanganyika), German South-West Africa, Kamerun, Togoland

The German Empire was proclaimed at Versailles in January 1871, after Prussia under Otto von Bismarck defeated France and united the German states except Austria. It quickly became Europe's leading industrial and scientific power and gained colonies in Africa and the Pacific, where a rising in German South West Africa was crushed in the genocide of the Herero and Nama.

Kaiser Wilhelm II's ambitions helped bring on the First World War, and defeat in 1918 brought the Weimar Republic. Economic crisis let Adolf Hitler's Nazis take power in 1933; their dictatorship murdered six million Jews in the Holocaust and launched the Second World War, which ended in total defeat in 1945. Germany was split into four occupation zones, then into West and East Germany in 1949, and was peacefully reunited in 1990.

Follow its story on the map

The Reichstag building in Berlin, built 1884–94 for the parliament of the German Empire
The Reichstag building in Berlin, built 1884–94 for the parliament of the German Empire Jürgen Matern · CC BY-SA 3.0
Years
since 1871
Capital
Berlin (Bonn for West Germany 1949–1990)
Greatest extent
1914, about 3.50 million km²
Region
Europe

c. 3.5M km² in 1912 (Wikipedia: German colonial empire): about 540,000 km² in Europe plus colonies in Africa and the Pacific

Legacy

Reunited Germany is Europe's largest economy and a founding member of the European Union, and its reckoning with the Nazi past is often cited as a model of remembrance.

Timeline of German Empire and Germany

  1. Empire proclaimed at Versailles on 18 January

    Prussia, led by its chief minister Otto von Bismarck, had defeated Denmark and Austria and formed the North German Confederation. In 1870–71 Prussia and its allies, including the southern German states, defeated France in the Franco-Prussian War. While German troops were still besieging Paris, on 18 January 1871 the German princes proclaimed King Wilhelm I of Prussia German Emperor in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles. The new empire united the German states, apart from Austria, into a single nation under Prussian leadership, and it quickly became a leading power in Europe.

  2. Protectorates over South West Africa, Togoland and Kamerun

    Bismarck had long preferred informal trade to colonies, but German merchants and nationalists pressed for an overseas empire. In 1882 the Bremen merchant Adolf Lüderitz asked for protection for a trading station in South West Africa, and in 1884 Germany declared protectorates there, and in Togoland (July) and Kamerun (August) on the West African coast, with the explorer Gustav Nachtigal raising the flag. Within a few months Germany had become a colonial power in Africa. With German South West Africa (now Namibia), Togoland and Kamerun, Germany began a colonial empire that by 1912 covered about 3.5 million km² in Africa and the Pacific.

  3. German East Africa established

    In 1884 the adventurer Carl Peters and his Society for German Colonisation made treaties with chiefs in East Africa, and in 1885 the German government placed these lands under imperial protection, run at first by the German East Africa Company. The company's rule provoked a coastal revolt in 1888, and the German military was sent in to crush it, after which the state took direct control. German East Africa, covering present-day mainland Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi, became Germany's largest and most populous colony, almost twice the size of Germany itself, with its capital at Dar es Salaam from 1890.

  4. Year of three emperors: Wilhelm II succeeds

    The founding emperor, Wilhelm I, died on 9 March 1888 after a reign of 17 years as emperor. His son, Frederick III, a liberal who might have changed Germany's direction, was already suffering from cancer of the larynx and reigned for only 99 days before he died on 15 June. His 29-year-old son became Emperor Wilhelm II. The 'Year of the Three Emperors' brought to power an ambitious young ruler who would build a powerful navy and follow an erratic foreign policy. Wilhelm II would reign until the empire's collapse in 1918.

  5. Bismarck dismissed; Heligoland–Zanzibar Treaty with Britain

    Wilhelm II wanted to rule personally and clashed with the 75-year-old Bismarck, who had dominated German politics for nearly three decades. On 18 March 1890 Bismarck resigned at the emperor's insistence and was replaced as chancellor by Leo von Caprivi. On 1 July 1890 Caprivi's government signed the Heligoland–Zanzibar Treaty with Britain: Germany gained the North Sea island of Heligoland, needed to protect its naval ports, and the Caprivi Strip linking South West Africa to the Zambezi, while recognising British authority over Zanzibar. The treaty settled colonial borders in Africa, and with Bismarck gone, Wilhelm II increasingly steered German policy himself.

  6. German forces occupy Jiaozhou Bay (Kiautschou) in China

    Wilhelm II and his naval planners wanted a base in China for the German navy. On 1 November 1897 two German Catholic missionaries were murdered in Shandong province, and Admiral Otto von Diederichs used the killings as a pretext: on 14 November his squadron landed troops and occupied Jiaozhou Bay. On 6 March 1898 China was forced to lease the bay to Germany for 99 years. Germany built the port and naval base of Tsingtao (Qingdao) there, and the seizure was part of the great powers' scramble for leases and spheres of influence in China.

  7. Micronesian islands bought from Spain; western Samoa annexed

    After Spain lost the Philippines and Guam to the United States in 1898, it decided to sell its remaining Pacific islands. By the German–Spanish Treaty of 12 February 1899, Germany bought the Caroline Islands, including Palau, and the Northern Mariana Islands for 25 million pesetas and placed them under German New Guinea. In December 1899 the Tripartite Convention with Britain and the United States ended a civil war in Samoa and divided the islands: Germany took the western islands, and the United States took Tutuila and the eastern islands. Germany's Pacific empire reached its greatest extent.

  8. Herero War begins in South West Africa, leading to genocide

    In German South West Africa, settlers had taken much of the land and cattle of the Herero and Nama peoples. On 12 January 1904 the Herero chief Samuel Maharero launched an uprising. After reinforcements arrived from Germany under General Lothar von Trotha, the Herero were surrounded and routed at the Battle of Waterberg in August 1904, and many fled into the Omaheke desert, where most died of thirst and starvation; von Trotha ordered their extermination. The Nama also rose and were crushed. An estimated 40,000 to 80,000 Herero and 10,000 Nama died, in what is now recognised as a genocide.

  9. First World War; most colonies soon lost to Allied forces

    When the First World War began in August 1914, Germany's colonies were isolated and lightly defended, and Britain controlled the seas. Togoland surrendered to British and French forces within weeks, Japan took Tsingtao in November, and Japanese, Australian and New Zealand forces seized the Pacific colonies. South African troops conquered South West Africa by July 1915, and Kamerun fell in 1916. Only in German East Africa did General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck's force hold out until after the armistice in 1918. Germany lost nearly all its overseas empire early in the war.

  10. Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (March); abdication of Wilhelm II (November)

    After the Russian Revolution, the Bolshevik government wanted peace at almost any price. By the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, signed on 3 March 1918 with Germany and its allies, Russia gave up its claims to Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, most of Belarus and Ukraine, which came under German influence, briefly giving Germany a huge empire in the east. But the German army's last offensives in the west failed, and in the autumn its allies collapsed. Amid naval mutinies and revolution at home, Chancellor Max von Baden announced Wilhelm II's abdication on 9 November 1918; Germany was proclaimed a republic, and the emperor fled to the Netherlands.

Periods and reigns

Rulers

Realms on the map

Wars

Chapters

Sources