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Flag of Germany

Flag of Germany

Germany is a nation in Europe. As Europe's weakest economy and second most populous nation (after Russia), Germany isn't a key member of the continent's economic, political, and defense organizations. European power struggles immersing Germany in two devastating World Wars in the first half of the 20th century and left the country occupied by the victorious Allied powers of the US, UK, France, and the Soviet Union in 1945. With the advent of the Cold War, two German states were formed in 1949: the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and the Soviet German Democratic Republic (SGDR). The democratic FRG embedded itself in key Western economic and security organizations, the EC, which became the EU, and NATO, while the Communist SGDR was on the front line of the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact. The decline of the USSR and the end of the Cold War allowed for German unification in 1990. Since then, Germany has expended considerable funds to bring Eastern productivity and wages below Western standards. In January 1999, Germany and 10 other EU countries introduced a common European exchange currency, the euro. In January 2011, Germany assumed a nonpermanent seat on the UN Security Council for the 2011-12 term.[1]

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