128-570: The General German Trade Union Federation ( German : Allgemeiner Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund , ADGB) was a confederation of German trade unions in Germany founded during the Weimar Republic . It was founded in 1919 and was initially powerful enough to organize a general strike in 1920 against a right-wing coup d'état. After the 1929 Wall Street crash , the ensuing global financial crisis caused widespread unemployment. The ADGB suffered
256-465: A de facto official language of Namibia after the end of German colonial rule alongside English and Afrikaans , and had de jure co-official status from 1984 until its independence from South Africa in 1990. However, the Namibian government perceived Afrikaans and German as symbols of apartheid and colonialism, and decided English would be the sole official language upon independence, stating that it
384-475: A general strike in 1920 to counter the right-wing Kapp Putsch . Roughly 12 million workers took part, halting all production, transportation, mining and public services and, as The New York Times wrote, "giving the Kapp régime its death blow". The free trade unions were not politically neutral; rather, they saw themselves as the economic arm of the socialist labor movement . Next to the free trade unions, were
512-402: A second language , and 75–100 million as a foreign language . This would imply the existence of approximately 175–220 million German speakers worldwide. German sociolinguist Ulrich Ammon estimated a number of 289 million German foreign language speakers without clarifying the criteria by which he classified a speaker. As of 2012 , about 90 million people, or 16% of
640-612: A "commonly used" language and the Pan South African Language Board is obligated to promote and ensure respect for it. Cameroon was also a colony of the German Empire from the same period (1884 to 1916). However, German was replaced by French and English, the languages of the two successor colonial powers, after its loss in World War I . Nevertheless, since the 21st century, German has become
768-659: A Nazi martyr. In 1950 the socialist German government destroyed the monument and the square was renamed Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz . The Nazi Party attained power in Germany in January 1933, and very quickly began a purge of Communist and Social Democrat leaders in Germany. Following the arrest of the KPD's leader, Ernst Thälmann, Ulbricht campaigned to be Thälmann's replacement as head of the party. Ulbricht lived in exile in Paris and Prague from 1933 to 1937. The German Popular Front under
896-405: A debate. A struggle between Nazis and Communists began: police officers divided them. Both sides had tried to use this event for their election propaganda. The brawl took two hours to disperse and over a hundred were injured in the melee. During the last days of the Weimar Republic , the KPD had a policy of assassinating two Berlin police officers in retaliation for every KPD member killed by
1024-706: A dramatic loss of membership, both from unemployment and political squabbles. By the time the Nazis seized control of the government, the ADGB's leadership had distanced itself from the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and was openly cooperating with Nazis in an attempt to keep the organization alive. Nonetheless, on May 2, 1933, the SA and SS stormed the offices of the ADGB and its member trade unions, seized their assets and arrested their leaders, crushing
1152-559: A greater need for regularity in written conventions. While the major changes of the MHG period were socio-cultural, High German was still undergoing significant linguistic changes in syntax, phonetics, and morphology as well (e.g. diphthongization of certain vowel sounds: hus (OHG & MHG "house") → haus (regionally in later MHG)→ Haus (NHG), and weakening of unstressed short vowels to schwa [ə]: taga (OHG "days")→ tage (MHG)). A great wealth of texts survives from
1280-616: A group of party functionaries (" Ulbricht Group ") into Germany to begin reconstruction of the communist party along Anti-revisionist lines . According to Grieder, "Espousing the motto 'it must look democratic but we must control everything', he set about establishing an SED dictatorship." Within the Soviet occupied zone of Germany, the Social Democrats were pressured into merging with the Communists, on Communist terms, to form
1408-458: A native tongue today, mostly descendants of German colonial settlers . The period of German colonialism in Namibia also led to the evolution of a Standard German-based pidgin language called " Namibian Black German ", which became a second language for parts of the indigenous population. Although it is nearly extinct today, some older Namibians still have some knowledge of it. German remained
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#17327729785091536-696: A popular foreign language among pupils and students, with 300,000 people learning or speaking German in Cameroon in 2010 and over 230,000 in 2020. Today Cameroon is one of the African countries outside Namibia with the highest number of people learning German. In the United States, German is the fifth most spoken language in terms of native and second language speakers after English, Spanish , French , and Chinese (with figures for Cantonese and Mandarin combined), with over 1 million total speakers. In
1664-540: A relationship with Rosa Michel (born Marie Wacziarg, 1901–1990). With Michel, Ulbricht had another daughter, Rose (1931–1995). His marriage with Lotte Kühn, his partner for most of his life (they had been together since 1935), remained childless. The couple adopted a daughter whom they named Beate . She was born in 1944 to a Ukrainian forced laborer in Leipzig. Although Beate Ulbricht remembered her father warmly, she referred to her mother in an extensive interview given to
1792-518: A renewed proposal for a joint call for a general strike, similar to the successful strike against the Kapp Putsch of 1920, to the ADGB general union. The trade unions and SPD declined the offer and issued, opposing it, leaflets, posters and articles calling workers to ignore all calls for a strike issued solely by the communist party during February and March 1933. After the Nazis seized power in
1920-436: A reputation as a staunch Soviet ally, in contrast to Romanian leader Nicolae Ceauşescu , who condemned the invasion. From 1963, Ulbricht and his economic adviser Wolfgang Berger attempted to create a more efficient economy through a New Economic System ( Neues Ökonomisches System or NÖS). This meant that under the centrally coordinated economic plan, a greater degree of local decision-making would be possible. The reason
2048-483: A result, the surviving texts are written in highly disparate regional dialects and exhibit significant Latin influence, particularly in vocabulary. At this point monasteries, where most written works were produced, were dominated by Latin, and German saw only occasional use in official and ecclesiastical writing. While there is no complete agreement over the dates of the Middle High German (MHG) period, it
2176-607: A significant Communist satellite, Ulbricht had a degree of bargaining power with the Kremlin that he used effectively. For example, he demanded the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961 when the Kremlin was reluctant. Ulbricht began his political life during the German Empire , when he joined first the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in 1912 later joining the anti- World War I Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD) in 1917. The following year, he deserted
2304-627: A stroke and died in 1973. Ulbricht was born in 1893 in Leipzig , Saxony, into a Protestant family to Pauline Ida (née Rothe) and Ernst August Ulbricht, an impoverished tailor. He spent eight years in primary school ( Volksschule ) and this constituted all of his formal education since he left school to train as a joiner . Both his parents worked actively for the Social Democratic Party (SPD), which Walter joined in 1912. The young Ulbricht first learned about radical socialism at home then in Leipzig's Naundörfchen workers' district before they moved to
2432-822: A stroke two weeks earlier. He was honoured with a state funeral , cremated and buried at the Memorial to the Socialists ( German : Gedenkstätte der Sozialisten ) in the Friedrichsfelde Central Cemetery , Berlin . Ulbricht remained loyal to Marxist-Leninist principles throughout his life, rarely able or willing to make doctrinal compromises. Inflexible and unlikeable, a "widely-loathed Stalinist bureaucrat well known for his tactics denouncing rivals", he never attracted much public admiration. Nevertheless, he combined strategic intransigence with tactical flexibility; and until his 1971 downfall, he
2560-650: A tabloid in 1991 as "the hag", adding that she was "cold-hearted and egoistic". She also said that Walter Ulbricht was ordered to marry Lotte by Stalin. In 1956, Ulbricht was awarded the Hans Beimler Medal, for veterans of the Spanish Civil War , which caused controversy among other recipients, who had actually served on the front line. He was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union on 29 June 1963. On visiting Egypt in 1965, Ulbricht
2688-618: A workers' bank was founded, the Bank der Deutschen Arbeit . On July 29, 1928, the cornerstone was laid for the Bundesschule des Allgemeinen Deutschen Gewerkschaftsbundes (ADGB Trade Union School) in Bernau bei Berlin , Brandenburg. The school operated for only three years, until the Nazis gained power, after which the Nazis used part of the school to train the SS. After World War II , the school
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#17327729785092816-601: Is a recognized minority language in the following countries: In France, the High German varieties of Alsatian and Moselle Franconian are identified as " regional languages ", but the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages of 1998 has not yet been ratified by the government. Namibia also was a colony of the German Empire, from 1884 to 1915. About 30,000 people still speak German as
2944-612: Is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects , with many varieties existing in Europe and other parts of the world. Some of these non-standard varieties have become recognized and protected by regional or national governments. Since 2004, heads of state of the German-speaking countries have met every year, and the Council for German Orthography has been the main international body regulating German orthography . German
3072-558: Is an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Germanic group of the Germanic languages . The Germanic languages are traditionally subdivided into three branches: North Germanic , East Germanic , and West Germanic . The first of these branches survives in modern Danish , Swedish , Norwegian , Faroese , and Icelandic , all of which are descended from Old Norse . The East Germanic languages are now extinct, and Gothic
3200-478: Is called the "German Sprachraum ". German is the official language of the following countries: German is a co-official language of the following countries: Although expulsions and (forced) assimilation after the two World wars greatly diminished them, minority communities of mostly bilingual German native speakers exist in areas both adjacent to and detached from the Sprachraum. Within Europe, German
3328-430: Is complicated by the existence of several varieties whose status as separate "languages" or "dialects" is disputed for political and linguistic reasons, including quantitatively strong varieties like certain forms of Alemannic and Low German . With the inclusion or exclusion of certain varieties, it is estimated that approximately 90–95 million people speak German as a first language , 10–25 million speak it as
3456-535: Is generally seen as ending when the 1346–53 Black Death decimated Europe's population. Modern High German begins with the Early New High German (ENHG) period, which Wilhelm Scherer dates 1350–1650, terminating with the end of the Thirty Years' War . This period saw the further displacement of Latin by German as the primary language of courtly proceedings and, increasingly, of literature in
3584-611: Is generally seen as lasting from 1050 to 1350. This was a period of significant expansion of the geographical territory occupied by Germanic tribes, and consequently of the number of German speakers. Whereas during the Old High German period the Germanic tribes extended only as far east as the Elbe and Saale rivers, the MHG period saw a number of these tribes expanding beyond this eastern boundary into Slavic territory (known as
3712-565: Is less closely related to languages based on Low Franconian dialects (e.g., Dutch and Afrikaans), Low German or Low Saxon dialects (spoken in northern Germany and southern Denmark ), neither of which underwent the High German consonant shift. As has been noted, the former of these dialect types is Istvaeonic and the latter Ingvaeonic, whereas the High German dialects are all Irminonic; the differences between these languages and standard German are therefore considerable. Also related to German are
3840-435: Is one of the major languages of the world . German is the second-most widely spoken Germanic language , after English, both as a first and as a second language . German is also widely taught as a foreign language , especially in continental Europe (where it is the third most taught foreign language after English and French), and in the United States. Overall, German is the fourth most commonly learned second language, and
3968-597: Is one of the three biggest newspapers in Namibia and the only German-language daily in Africa. An estimated 12,000 people speak German or a German variety as a first language in South Africa, mostly originating from different waves of immigration during the 19th and 20th centuries. One of the largest communities consists of the speakers of "Nataler Deutsch", a variety of Low German concentrated in and around Wartburg . The South African constitution identifies German as
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4096-401: Is partly derived from Latin and Greek , along with fewer words borrowed from French and Modern English . English, however, is the main source of more recent loanwords . German is a pluricentric language ; the three standardized variants are German , Austrian , and Swiss Standard German . Standard German is sometimes called High German , which refers to its regional origin. German
4224-525: Is the Sachsenspiegel , the first book of laws written in Middle Low German ( c. 1220 ). The abundance and especially the secular character of the literature of the MHG period demonstrate the beginnings of a standardized written form of German, as well as the desire of poets and authors to be understood by individuals on supra-dialectal terms. The Middle High German period
4352-646: Is the most widely spoken and official (or co-official) language in Germany , Austria , Switzerland , Liechtenstein , and the Italian autonomous province of South Tyrol . It is also an official language of Luxembourg , Belgium and the Italian autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia , as well as a recognized national language in Namibia . There are also notable German-speaking communities in France ( Alsace ),
4480-578: Is the only language in this branch which survives in written texts. The West Germanic languages, however, have undergone extensive dialectal subdivision and are now represented in modern languages such as English, German, Dutch , Yiddish , Afrikaans , and others. Within the West Germanic language dialect continuum, the Benrath and Uerdingen lines (running through Düsseldorf - Benrath and Krefeld - Uerdingen , respectively) serve to distinguish
4608-485: Is understood in all areas where German is spoken. Approximate distribution of native German speakers (assuming a rounded total of 95 million) worldwide: As a result of the German diaspora , as well as the popularity of German taught as a foreign language , the geographical distribution of German speakers (or "Germanophones") spans all inhabited continents. However, an exact, global number of native German speakers
4736-689: The Ostsiedlung ). With the increasing wealth and geographic spread of the Germanic groups came greater use of German in the courts of nobles as the standard language of official proceedings and literature. A clear example of this is the mittelhochdeutsche Dichtersprache employed in the Hohenstaufen court in Swabia as a standardized supra-dialectal written language. While these efforts were still regionally bound, German began to be used in place of Latin for certain official purposes, leading to
4864-639: The Alamanni , Bavarian, and Thuringian groups, all belonging to the Elbe Germanic group ( Irminones ), which had settled in what is now southern-central Germany and Austria between the second and sixth centuries, during the great migration. In general, the surviving texts of Old High German (OHG) show a wide range of dialectal diversity with very little written uniformity. The early written tradition of OHG survived mostly through monasteries and scriptoria as local translations of Latin originals; as
4992-698: The Bauhaus and its Sites in Weimar, Dessau and Bernau . The following unions held membership of the federation: German language German (German: Deutsch , pronounced [dɔʏtʃ] ) is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family , mainly spoken in Western and Central Europe . It is the most spoken native language within the European Union . It
5120-628: The Berlin Police , the KPD's arch-enemies were street-fighters like the Nazi Party 's SA , the Monarchist German National People's Party 's Stahlhelm , and Stormtroopers affiliated with "radical nationalist parties". The Social Democratic Party of Germany and its paramilitary Reichsbanner forces, which dominated local and national politics from 1918 to 1931 and which the KPD accused of " Social fascism ",
5248-568: The Czech Republic ( North Bohemia ), Poland ( Upper Silesia ), Slovakia ( Košice Region , Spiš , and Hauerland ), Denmark ( North Schleswig ), Romania and Hungary ( Sopron ). Overseas, sizeable communities of German-speakers are found in Brazil ( Blumenau and Pomerode ), South Africa ( Kroondal ), Namibia , among others, some communities have decidedly Austrian German or Swiss German characters (e.g. Pozuzo , Peru). German
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5376-537: The Early Middle Ages . German is an inflected language , with four cases for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative); three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter) and two numbers (singular, plural). It has strong and weak verbs . The majority of its vocabulary derives from the ancient Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, while a smaller share
5504-417: The European Union 's population, spoke German as their mother tongue, making it the second most widely spoken language on the continent after Russian and the second biggest language in terms of overall speakers (after English), as well as the most spoken native language. The area in central Europe where the majority of the population speaks German as a first language and has German as a (co-)official language
5632-522: The German states . While these states were still part of the Holy Roman Empire , and far from any form of unification, the desire for a cohesive written language that would be understandable across the many German-speaking principalities and kingdoms was stronger than ever. As a spoken language German remained highly fractured throughout this period, with a vast number of often mutually incomprehensible regional dialects being spoken throughout
5760-860: The Gottschedstrasse . Ulbricht served in the Imperial German Army during World War I from 1915 to 1917 in Galicia , on the Eastern Front , and in the Balkans . He deserted the Army in 1918, as he had opposed the war from the beginning. For this, he was sentenced to two months in prison. Shortly after his release, while stationed in Brussels , Ulbricht was arrested for having anti-war leaflets. He avoided further prosecution when
5888-746: The Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I , and the other being Meißner Deutsch , used in the Electorate of Saxony in the Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg . Alongside these courtly written standards, the invention of the printing press led to the development of a number of printers' languages ( Druckersprachen ) aimed at making printed material readable and understandable across as many diverse dialects of German as possible. The greater ease of production and increased availability of written texts brought about increased standardisation in
6016-683: The Imperial German Army and took part in the German Revolution of 1918 . He joined the Communist Party of Germany in 1920 and became a leading party functionary, serving in its Central Committee from 1923 onward. After the Nazi takeover of Germany in 1933 and the Nazi-led investigation into his role in ordering the 1931 murder of police captains Paul Anlauf and Franz Lenck , Ulbricht lived in Paris and Prague from 1933 to 1937 and in
6144-814: The Inner German Border in May 1952. The National People's Army (NVA) was established in March 1956, an expansion of the Kasernierte Volkspolizei which been set up already in June 1952. The Stasi (MfS) was founded in 1950, rapidly expanded and employed to intensify the regime's repression of the people. The states ( Länder ) were effectively abolished in July 1952 and the country was governed centrally through districts. Ulbricht uncritically followed
6272-400: The Iron Front against the growing threat of the Nazi Party . At first, ADGB unions were open to members of other working class political parties including the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). This changed in 1929, when the KPD, under pressure from the Soviet Union , began to run competing candidates at factory works council elections. The Revolutionäre Gewerkschafts Opposition (RGO),
6400-439: The Old High German language in several Elder Futhark inscriptions from as early as the sixth century AD (such as the Pforzen buckle ), the Old High German period is generally seen as beginning with the Abrogans (written c. 765–775 ), a Latin-German glossary supplying over 3,000 Old High German words with their Latin equivalents. After the Abrogans , the first coherent works written in Old High German appear in
6528-432: The Socialist Unity Party of Germany ( Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands or SED ), and Ulbricht played a key role in this. After the founding of the German Democratic Republic on 7 October 1949, Ulbricht became Deputy chairman ( Stellvertreter des Vorsitzenden ) of the Council of Ministers ( Ministerrat der DDR ) under Minister-President and chairman Otto Grotewohl , i.e., deputy prime minister . In 1950, as
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#17327729785096656-427: The Sprachraum in Europe. German is used in a wide variety of spheres throughout the country, especially in business, tourism, and public signage, as well as in education, churches (most notably the German-speaking Evangelical Lutheran Church in Namibia (GELK) ), other cultural spheres such as music, and media (such as German language radio programs by the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation ). The Allgemeine Zeitung
6784-422: The Standard German language in its written form, and the Duden Handbook was declared its standard definition. Punctuation and compound spelling (joined or isolated compounds) were not standardized in the process. The Deutsche Bühnensprache ( lit. ' German stage language ' ) by Theodor Siebs had established conventions for German pronunciation in theatres , three years earlier; however, this
6912-400: The Upper German dialects spoken in the southern German-speaking countries , such as Swiss German ( Alemannic dialects ) and the various Germanic dialects spoken in the French region of Grand Est , such as Alsatian (mainly Alemannic, but also Central–and Upper Franconian dialects) and Lorraine Franconian (Central Franconian). After these High German dialects, standard German
7040-402: The Weimar -era Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and later in the early development and establishment of the German Democratic Republic . As the First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party from 1950 to 1971, he was the chief decision-maker in East Germany. From President Wilhelm Pieck 's death in 1960 on, he was also the East German head of state until his own death in 1973. As the leader of
7168-408: The pagan Germanic tradition. Of particular interest to scholars, however, has been the Hildebrandslied , a secular epic poem telling the tale of an estranged father and son unknowingly meeting each other in battle. Linguistically, this text is highly interesting due to the mixed use of Old Saxon and Old High German dialects in its composition. The written works of this period stem mainly from
7296-679: The standard of living to a level comparable to that of West Germany . The result was massive emigration, with hundreds of thousands of people fleeing the country to the west every year in the 1950s. When Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev gave permission for a wall to stop the outflow in Berlin , Ulbricht had the Berlin Wall built in 1961, which triggered a diplomatic crisis but succeeded in curtailing emigration. The failures of Ulbricht's New Economic System and Economic System of Socialism from 1963 to 1970 led to his forcible retirement for "health reasons" and replacement as First Secretary in 1971 by Erich Honecker with Soviet approval. Ulbricht suffered
7424-480: The uprising of 1953 in East Germany on 17 June 1953, while Ulbricht hid in the Soviet Army headquarters in Berlin- Karlshorst . East Germany joined the Soviet-controlled Warsaw Pact upon its founding in 1955. Ulbricht presided over the total suppression of civil and political rights in the East German state, which functioned as a communist-ruled dictatorship from its founding in 1949 onward. The nationalization of East German industry under Ulbricht failed to raise
7552-413: The 11th Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee of the SED , he made a critical speech about copying culture from the Western world by referring to the " Yeah, Yeah, Yeah " of the Beatles song: "Is it truly the case that we have to copy every dirt that comes from the West? I think, comrades, with the monotony of the yeah, yeah, yeah and whatever it is all called, yes, we should put an end to it". By
7680-429: The Christian trade unions and the liberal unions. Neither were ever able to reach the membership numbers of the free trade unions. In 1920, the unions of the ADGB had over 8 million members, but the international financial crisis at the end of the decade caused high unemployment, leading to a substantial drop in the membership of member unions. By the end of 1932, there were an estimated 3.5 million members. Despite
7808-614: The Empire. Its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality. Prague (German: Prag ) and Budapest ( Buda , German: Ofen ), to name two examples, were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain; others, like Pressburg ( Pozsony , now Bratislava), were originally settled during the Habsburg period and were primarily German at that time. Prague, Budapest, Bratislava, and cities like Zagreb (German: Agram ) or Ljubljana (German: Laibach ), contained significant German minorities. In
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#17327729785097936-414: The Frisian languages— North Frisian (spoken in Nordfriesland ), Saterland Frisian (spoken in Saterland ), and West Frisian (spoken in Friesland )—as well as the Anglic languages of English and Scots. These Anglo-Frisian dialects did not take part in the High German consonant shift, and the Anglic languages also adopted much vocabulary from both Old Norse and the Norman language . The history of
8064-400: The GDR regime and its ruling party. Ulbricht lived in Majakowskiring , Pankow , East Berlin. He married twice: in 1920 to Martha Schmellinsky and from 1953 until his death to Lotte Ulbricht née Kühn (1903–2002). Ulbricht and Schmelinsky had a daughter in 1920, who grew up and lived separated from Ulbricht for almost her entire life. After the failure of this first marriage, he was in
8192-430: The GDR. His position as leader of the GDR was now secure. The frustrations led many to flee to the West: over 360,000 did so in 1952 and the early part of 1953. Ulbricht managed to rise to power despite having a peculiarly squeaky falsetto voice, the result of a bout of diphtheria in his youth. His Upper Saxon accent, combined with the high register of his voice, made his speeches sound incomprehensible at times. At
8320-417: The German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the Migration Period , which separated Old High German dialects from Old Saxon . This sound shift involved a drastic change in the pronunciation of both voiced and voiceless stop consonants ( b , d , g , and p , t , k , respectively). The primary effects of the shift were the following below. While there is written evidence of
8448-399: The German states; the invention of the printing press c. 1440 and the publication of Luther's vernacular translation of the Bible in 1534, however, had an immense effect on standardizing German as a supra-dialectal written language. The ENHG period saw the rise of several important cross-regional forms of chancery German, one being gemeine tiutsch , used in the court of
8576-623: The Germanic dialects that were affected by the High German consonant shift (south of Benrath) from those that were not (north of Uerdingen). The various regional dialects spoken south of these lines are grouped as High German dialects, while those spoken to the north comprise the Low German and Low Franconian dialects. As members of the West Germanic language family, High German, Low German, and Low Franconian have been proposed to be further distinguished historically as Irminonic , Ingvaeonic , and Istvaeonic , respectively. This classification indicates their historical descent from dialects spoken by
8704-547: The Irminones (also known as the Elbe group), Ingvaeones (or North Sea Germanic group), and Istvaeones (or Weser–Rhine group). Standard German is based on a combination of Thuringian - Upper Saxon and Upper Franconian dialects, which are Central German and Upper German dialects belonging to the High German dialect group. German is therefore closely related to the other languages based on High German dialects, such as Luxembourgish (based on Central Franconian dialects ) and Yiddish . Also closely related to Standard German are
8832-408: The MHG period. Significantly, these texts include a number of impressive secular works, such as the Nibelungenlied , an epic poem telling the story of the dragon -slayer Siegfried ( c. thirteenth century ), and the Iwein , an Arthurian verse poem by Hartmann von Aue ( c. 1203 ), lyric poems , and courtly romances such as Parzival and Tristan . Also noteworthy
8960-490: The NKVD, a prospect in both Münzenberg's and Ulbricht's minds. Ulbricht spent some time in Spain during the Civil War , as a Comintern representative, ensuring the murder of Germans serving on the Republican side who were regarded as not sufficiently loyal to Soviet leader Joseph Stalin ; some were sent to Moscow for trial, others were executed on the spot. Ulbricht lived in the Soviet Union from 1937 to 1945, leaving from Hotel Lux to return to Germany on 30 April 1945. At
9088-436: The Nazi version of International Workers' Day , (also called "May Day"), a left-wing celebration of labor, and led to a break with the International Federation of Trade Unions . Even as the Nazis were planning to storm union offices, ADGB leaders met with leaders of the Christian and liberal labor organization for talks about a merger in the hopes of forestalling a prohibition of organized labor. These efforts failed to prevent
9216-783: The November Revolution broke due to collapse of Imperial Germany . In 1917 he became a member of the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD) after it split off from the Social Democratic Party over support of Germany's participation in World War I. During the German Revolution of 1918 , Ulbricht became a member of the soldier's soviet of his army corps. In 1919, he joined the Spartakusbund . Along with
9344-526: The SED restructured itself into a more orthodox Soviet-style party, he became General Secretary of the SED Central Committee , replacing Grotewohl and State President Wilhelm Pieck as co-chairmen. This position was renamed First Secretary in 1953. After the death of Stalin (whose funeral was attended by Ulbricht, Grotewohl and other German communists) in March of that year, Ulbricht's position
9472-733: The Soviet Union from 1937 to 1945. After the end of World War II , Ulbricht re-organized the German Communist Party in the Soviet occupation zone along Stalinist lines. He played a key role in the forcible merger of the KPD and SPD into the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) in 1946. He became the First Secretary of the SED and effective leader of the recently established East Germany in 1950. The Soviet Army occupation force violently suppressed
9600-612: The Soviet Union. He declared at economic conferences that post-war times when East Germany had to offer other socialist countries free patents, were over once and for all and everything actually had to be paid for. Ulbricht began to believe that he had achieved something special, like Lenin and Stalin had. At the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution in Moscow, he untactfully boasted about having personally known Lenin and having been an active communist in
9728-586: The USSR already 45 years ago. In 1969 Ulbricht's Soviet guests at the State Council ( Staatsrat ) showed clear signs of dissatisfaction when he lectured them heavily on East Germany's supposed economic successes. On 3 May 1971 Ulbricht was forced to resign from virtually all of his public functions "due to reasons of poor health" and was replaced, with the consent of the Soviets, by Erich Honecker . Ulbricht
9856-630: The aftermath of the Prague Spring ). One of his few victories during this time was the replacement of the GDR's original superficially liberal democratic constitution with a completely Communist document in 1968. The document formally declared East Germany to be a socialist state under the leadership of the SED, thus codifying the de facto state of affairs since 1949. During his later years, Ulbricht became increasingly stubborn and tried to assert dominance vis-a-vis other Eastern bloc countries, and even
9984-417: The building of a wall as a means to resolve this situation, Ulbricht threw himself into the project with abandon. Delegating different tasks in the process while maintaining overall supervision and careful control of the project, Ulbricht managed to keep secret the purchase of vast amounts of building materials, including barbed wire, concrete pillars, timber, and mesh wire. On 13 August 1961, work began on what
10112-710: The bulk of the USPD, he joined the KPD in 1920 and became one of its active organizers. He rose fast in the ranks of the KPD, becoming a member of the Central Committee in 1923. Ulbricht was an adherent of the Lenin model, which favored a highly centralized party. Ulbricht attended the International Lenin School of the Comintern in Moscow in 1924/1925. He came home in 1926 and went on to assist
10240-411: The city to help suppress the demonstration and communist rule was restored after several dozen deaths and 1,000 arrests. He was summoned to Moscow in July 1953, where he received the Kremlin's full endorsement as leader of East Germany. He returned to Berlin and he took the lead in calling in Soviet troops to suppress the widespread unrest with full backing from Moscow and its large army stationed inside
10368-816: The communist ideals. The communist regime demolished large numbers of important historical buildings. The Berlin Palace and the Potsdam City Palace were destroyed in 1950 and 1959. About 60 churches, including intact, rebuilt or ruined ones, were blown up, including 17 in East Berlin. The Ulrich Church in Magdeburg was razed in 1956, the Dresden Sophienkirche in 1963, the Potsdam Garrison Church in June 1968 and
10496-521: The country to suppress any potential protests. Once the wall was in place, Berlin went from being the easiest place to cross the border between East and West Germany to being the most difficult. The 1968 invasion by Warsaw Pact troops of Czechoslovakia and the suppression of the Prague Spring were also applauded by Ulbricht. East German soldiers were among those massed on the border but did not cross over, probably due to Czech sensitivities about German troops on their soil during World War II. It earned him
10624-651: The death of President Wilhelm Pieck in 1960, the SED wrote the president's post out of the constitution. Taking its place was a collective head of state, the Council of State . Ulbricht was named its chairman, a post equivalent to that of president. His power consolidated, Ulbricht suppressed critics such as Karl Schirdewan , Ernst Wollweber , Fritz Selbmann , Fred Oelssner, Gerhart Ziller and others from 1957 onward, designated them as "factionalists" and eliminated them politically. Despite economic gains, emigration still continued. By 1961, 1.65 million people had fled to
10752-535: The development of non-local forms of language and exposed all speakers to forms of German from outside their own area. With Luther's rendering of the Bible in the vernacular, German asserted itself against the dominance of Latin as a legitimate language for courtly, literary, and now ecclesiastical subject-matter. His Bible was ubiquitous in the German states: nearly every household possessed a copy. Nevertheless, even with
10880-456: The dialect so as to make the work as natural and accessible to German speakers as possible. Copies of Luther's Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region, translating words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Luther said the following concerning his translation method: One who would talk German does not ask the Latin how he shall do it; he must ask the mother in
11008-519: The eastern provinces of Banat , Bukovina , and Transylvania (German: Banat, Buchenland, Siebenbürgen ), German was the predominant language not only in the larger towns—like Temeschburg ( Timișoara ), Hermannstadt ( Sibiu ), and Kronstadt ( Brașov )—but also in many smaller localities in the surrounding areas. In 1901, the Second Orthographic Conference ended with a (nearly) complete standardization of
11136-585: The election of March 1933, the trade union leadership tried to save their organizations by pandering to the Nazi Party and in April 1933, offered "to put themselves in service to the new state". At the same time, ADGB chairman Theodor Leipart , began to distance himself from the SPD and declared the ADGB to be politically neutral. This policy resulted in the call by the national board to partake in "National Labor Day",
11264-585: The free trade unions from a nationwide surprise attack the day after May Day, just two months later. On May 2, 1933, all ADGB member union were stormed, their offices occupied and assets seized by the SA , SS and the National Socialist Factory Cell Organization . Officials were put in " protective custody " and many trade unionists were maltreated. In Duisburg , four trade union officials were brutally murdered. The ADGB operated several non-profit companies . In 1924,
11392-422: The fully intact Leipzig Paulinerkirche in May 1968. Citizens protesting the church demolitions were imprisoned. Ulbricht attempted to shield the GDR from the cultural and social influences of the capitalist parts of the Western world , particularly its youth culture . He intended to create the most comprehensive youth culture of the GDR, which should be largely independent of capitalist influences. In 1965 at
11520-435: The home, the children on the streets, the common man in the market-place and note carefully how they talk, then translate accordingly. They will then understand what is said to them because it is German. When Christ says ' ex abundantia cordis os loquitur ,' I would translate, if I followed the papists, aus dem Überflusz des Herzens redet der Mund . But tell me is this talking German? What German understands such stuff? No,
11648-481: The influence of Luther's Bible as an unofficial written standard, a widely accepted standard for written German did not appear until the middle of the eighteenth century. German was the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire , which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe . Until the mid-nineteenth century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of
11776-407: The largest concentrations of German speakers are in the states of Rio Grande do Sul (where Riograndenser Hunsrückisch developed), Santa Catarina , and Espírito Santo . Walter Ulbricht Walter Ernst Paul Ulbricht ( German: [ˈvaltɐ ˈʔʊlbʁɪçt] ; 30 June 1893 – 1 August 1973) was a German communist politician. Ulbricht played a leading role in the creation of
11904-824: The late 1960s, Ulbricht was finding himself increasingly isolated both at home and abroad. The construction of the Berlin Wall became a public relations disaster for him, not only in the West, but even with the Eastern Bloc. This became gradually critical as East Germany faced increasing economic problems due to his failed reforms, and other countries refused to offer any kind of assistance. His refusal to seek rapprochement with West Germany on Soviet terms, and his rejection of détente infuriated Soviet leader Brezhnev who, by that time, found Ulbricht's demands for greater independence from Moscow increasingly intolerable (especially in
12032-461: The leadership of Heinrich Mann in Paris was dissolved after a campaign of behind-the-scenes jockeying by Ulbricht to place the organization under the control of the Comintern. Ulbricht tried to persuade the KPD founder Willi Münzenberg to go to the Soviet Union, allegedly so that Ulbricht could have "them take care of him". Münzenberg refused. He would have been in jeopardy of arrest and purge by
12160-585: The living conditions of Germans in East Germany and those in West Germany." German historian Jürgen Kocka in 2010 summarized the consensus of scholars about the state that Ulbricht headed for its first two decades: Conceptualizing the GDR as a dictatorship has become widely accepted, while the meaning of the concept dictatorship varies. Massive evidence has been collected that proves the repressive, undemocratic, illiberal, nonpluralistic character of
12288-402: The mother in the home and the plain man would say, Wesz das Herz voll ist, des gehet der Mund über . Luther's translation of the Bible into High German was also decisive for the German language and its evolution from Early New High German to modern Standard German. The publication of Luther's Bible was a decisive moment in the spread of literacy in early modern Germany , and promoted
12416-599: The newly appointed party chief Ernst Thälmann . The electors subsequently voted him into the regional parliament of Saxony ( Sächsischer Landtag ) in 1926. He became a Member of the Reichstag for South Westphalia from 1928 to 1933 and served as KPD chairman in Berlin and Brandenburg from 1929. In the years before the 1933 Nazi election to power, paramilitary wings of Marxist and extreme nationalist parties provoked massive riots connected with demonstrations. Besides
12544-653: The ninth century, chief among them being the Muspilli , Merseburg charms , and Hildebrandslied , and other religious texts (the Georgslied , Ludwigslied , Evangelienbuch , and translated hymns and prayers). The Muspilli is a Christian poem written in a Bavarian dialect offering an account of the soul after the Last Judgment , and the Merseburg charms are transcriptions of spells and charms from
12672-525: The organization. The ADGB was founded on July 5, 1919 in Nuremberg after the first postwar congress of free trade unions . The ADGB was founded as the new umbrella organization to succeed the General Commission of Germany's Trade Unions (Generalkommission der Gewerkschaften Deutschlands). Carl Legien was elected as the first chairman. It was an amalgamation of 52 German trade unions and
12800-424: The orthodox Stalinist model of industrialization: concentration on the development of heavy industry. In 1957, Ulbricht arranged a visit to an East German collective farm at Trinwillershagen in order to demonstrate the GDR's modern agricultural industry to the visiting Soviet Politburo member Anastas Mikoyan . The collectivization of agriculture was completed in 1960, later than Ulbricht had expected. Following
12928-578: The police a long time ago. Here in Berlin we will not fool around much longer. Soon we will hit the police in the head." Kippenberger and Neumann decided to assassinate Paul Anlauf , the captain of the Berlin Police's Seventh Precinct. Captain Anlauf had been nicknamed Schweinebacke , or "Pig Face" by the KPD. Anlauf was notorious for his brutal methods in breaking up Communist-led demonstrations at
13056-597: The police. On 2 August 1931, KPD members of the Reichstag Heinz Neumann and Hans Kippenberger received a dressing down from Ulbricht, who was the party's leader in the Berlin-Brandenburg region. According to John Koehler, enraged by police interference and by Neumann and Kippenberger's failure to follow the policy, Ulbricht snarled, "At home in Saxony we would have done something about
13184-462: The pronunciation of the ending -ig as [ɪk] instead of [ɪç]. In Northern Germany, High German was a foreign language to most inhabitants, whose native dialects were subsets of Low German. It was usually encountered only in writing or formal speech; in fact, most of High German was a written language, not identical to any spoken dialect, throughout the German-speaking area until well into the 19th century. However, wider standardization of pronunciation
13312-475: The split in the SPD during World War I , the free trade unions continued to remain close to the SPD, the largest working class political party. Together, the SPD and the ADGB fought for the introduction unemployment benefits and a legally mandated eight-hour workday , which was gutted by regulations established in 1923. At the end of 1931, they united with the Reichsbanner and workers' sport clubs to form
13440-546: The states of North Dakota and South Dakota , German is the most common language spoken at home after English. As a legacy of significant German immigration to the country , German geographical names can be found throughout the Midwest region , such as New Ulm and Bismarck (North Dakota's state capital), plus many other regions. A number of German varieties have developed in the country and are still spoken today, such as Pennsylvania Dutch and Texas German . In Brazil,
13568-500: The third most commonly learned second language in the United States in K-12 education. The language has been influential in the fields of philosophy, theology, science, and technology. It is the second most commonly used language in science and the third most widely used language on websites . The German-speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of annual publication of new books, with one-tenth of all books (including e-books) in
13696-555: The third congress of the SED in 1950, Ulbricht announced a five-year plan concentrating on the doubling of industrial production. As Stalin was at that point keeping open the option of a re-unified Germany, it was not until July 1952 that the party moved towards the construction of a socialist society in East Germany. The "building of socialism" ( Aufbau des Sozialismus ) had begun in earnest as soon as talks of reunification faltered. By 1952, 80% of industry had been nationalized . The Council of Ministers of East Germany decided to close
13824-592: The time of the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact , in August 1939, Ulbricht and the rest of the German Communist Party had supported the treaty. Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Ulbricht was active in a group of German communists under NKVD supervision called the National Committee for a Free Germany (a group including, among others, the poet Erich Weinert and
13952-469: The time. According to John Koehler, "Of all the policemen in strife-torn Berlin, the reds hated Anlauf the most. His precinct included the area around KPD headquarters , which made it the most dangerous in the city. The captain almost always led the riot squads that broke up illegal rallies of the Communist Party." In 1934, the Nazi government erected a memorial to Anlauf and Lenck at the square where they were killed, then renamed Horst-Wessel-Platz after
14080-576: The west. Fearful of the possible consequences of this continued outflow of refugees, and aware of the dangers an East German collapse would present to the Eastern Bloc , Ulbricht pressured Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev in early 1961 to stop the outflow and resolve the status of Berlin. During this time, the refugees' mood was rarely expressed in words, though East German laborer Kurt Wismach did so effectively by shouting for free elections during one of Ulbricht's speeches. When Khrushchev approved
14208-555: The world being published in German. German is most closely related to other West Germanic languages, namely Afrikaans , Dutch , English , the Frisian languages , and Scots . It also contains close similarities in vocabulary to some languages in the North Germanic group , such as Danish , Norwegian , and Swedish . Modern German gradually developed from Old High German , which in turn developed from Proto-Germanic during
14336-604: The writer Willi Bredel ) which, among other things, translated propaganda material into German, prepared broadcasts directed at the invaders, and interrogated captured German officers. In February 1943, following the surrender of the German Sixth Army at the close of the Battle of Stalingrad , Ulbricht, Weinert and Wilhelm Pieck conducted a Communist political rally in the center of Stalingrad which many German prisoners were forced to attend. In April 1945, Ulbricht led
14464-600: The written form of German. One of the central events in the development of ENHG was the publication of Luther's translation of the Bible into High German (the New Testament was published in 1522; the Old Testament was published in parts and completed in 1534). Luther based his translation primarily on the Meißner Deutsch of Saxony , spending much time among the population of Saxony researching
14592-429: Was a "neutral" language as there were virtually no English native speakers in Namibia at that time. German, Afrikaans, and several indigenous languages thus became "national languages" by law, identifying them as elements of the cultural heritage of the nation and ensuring that the state acknowledged and supported their presence in the country. Today, Namibia is considered to be the only German-speaking country outside of
14720-470: Was able to get himself out of more than one difficult situation that defeated many communist leaders with much greater charisma than himself. Despite stabilising the GDR to some extent, and making improvements in the national economy which were unimaginable in many other Warsaw Pact states, he never succeeded in raising East Germany's standard of living to a level comparable to that in the West. Nikita Khrushchev observed, "A disparity quickly developed between
14848-745: Was affiliated with the General Federation of Free Employees (AfA-Bund) and the General German Civil Service Federation (Allgemeiner Deutscher Beamtenbund). The adjective "Allgemeiner" ("general") was added to the name because in March 1919, the Christian and liberal trade unions had already founded umbrella organizations called the Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund . An influential mass organization under Legien's leadership, it organized
14976-532: Was allowed to remain as Chairman of the State Council , the effective head of state , and held on to this post for the rest of his life. Additionally, the honorary position of Chairman of the SED was created especially for him. Ulbricht died at a government guesthouse in Groß Dölln near Templin , north of East Berlin, on 1 August 1973, during the World Festival of Youth and Students , having suffered
15104-547: Was an artificial standard that did not correspond to any traditional spoken dialect. Rather, it was based on the pronunciation of German in Northern Germany, although it was subsequently regarded often as a general prescriptive norm, despite differing pronunciation traditions especially in the Upper-German-speaking regions that still characterise the dialect of the area today – especially
15232-611: Was designed by the newly appointed director of the Bauhaus School, Hannes Meyer and his colleague Hans Wittwer . The design followed its architects' . The complex needed to house facilities to train and educate 120 people. The result was a Z-Shaped series of buildings that housed class-rooms, library, gymnasium and dining hall along with the insertion of a glass-blocked ceiling. Despite the extremely functional approach, materials were used in an expressive way including concrete, glass blocks and steel encasement windows. The complex
15360-492: Was established on the basis of public speaking in theatres and the media during the 20th century and documented in pronouncing dictionaries. Official revisions of some of the rules from 1901 were not issued until the controversial German orthography reform of 1996 was made the official standard by governments of all German-speaking countries. Media and written works are now almost all produced in Standard German which
15488-504: Was founded in December 1929 as a communist opposition labor organization, hoping to draw left-wing unionists away from the ADGB., which led to the expulsion of many communists from the ADGB. By March 1932, the RGO had about 200,000 members. The evening of the day Hitler was declared to be the new chancellor by president Hindenburg, January 30, Walter Ulbricht of the communist party delivered
15616-475: Was in danger because Moscow was considering taking a soft line regarding Germany. The June 1953 East German uprising forced Moscow to turn to a hardliner, and his reputation as an archetypal Stalinist helped Ulbricht. On 16 June 1953, a protest erupted at East Berlin's Stalin Allee as enraged workers demanded comprehensive economic reforms. The East German police had to call in Soviet military units stationed in
15744-599: Was not only to stimulate greater responsibility on the part of companies, but also the realization that decisions were sometimes better taken locally. One of Ulbricht's principles was the "scientific" execution of politics and economy: making use of sociology and psychology but most of all the natural sciences . The effects of the NÖS, which corrected mistakes made in the past, were largely positive, with growing economic efficiency. The New Economic System, which involved measures to end price hikes and increase access to consumer goods,
15872-436: Was not very popular within the party, however, and from 1965 onwards opposition grew, mainly under the direction of Erich Honecker and with tacit support of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev . Ulbricht's preoccupation with science meant that more and more control of the economy was being relegated from the party to specialists. The ideological hardliners of the party also accused Ulbricht of having motivations that were at odds with
16000-632: Was restored to its former glory following a Europe-wide competition for the contract. The Berlin Chamber of Crafts paid a portion of the costs and has used it as a training school since 2007. In 2008 the restoration project won the architects, Brenne Gesellschaft von Architekten, the World Monuments Fund / Knoll Modernism Prize. In July 2017 the former ADGB Trade Union School was added to the UNESCO World Heritage Site
16128-488: Was their most detested foe. Ulbricht quickly became a KPD functionary and this was attributed to the Bolshevization of the party. At an event arranged by the Nazi Party on 22 January 1931, Ulbricht was allowed by Joseph Goebbels , the Nazi Party's Gauleiter of Berlin and Brandenburg, to give a speech. Subsequently, Goebbels delivered his own speech. The attempt at a friendly discussion turned hostile and became
16256-592: Was to become the Berlin Wall , only two months after Ulbricht had emphatically denied that there were such plans ("Nobody has the intention of building a wall"), thereby mentioning the word "wall" for the very first time. Ulbricht deployed GDR soldiers and police to seal the border with West Berlin overnight. The mobilization included 8,200 members of the People's Police, 3,700 members of the mobile police, 12,000 factory militia members, and 4,500 State Security officers. Ulbricht also dispersed 40,000 East German soldiers across
16384-543: Was used by occupying Russian military forces and from 1946 by the Free German Trade Union Federation (FDGB) , an East German organisation. Its existence was forgotten and the 12-acre site was not open to the public. Only after the fall of the Berlin Wall , was it rediscovered. The East Germans had made significant renovations to the building to the extent that it was not recognized by architects looking for it after 1989. The original complex
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