125-722: The Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany ( German : Vertrag über die abschließende Regelung in Bezug auf Deutschland ), more commonly referred to as the Two Plus Four Agreement ( Zwei-plus-Vier-Vertrag ), is an international agreement that allowed the reunification of Germany in October 1990. It was negotiated in 1990 between the 'two', the Federal Republic of Germany and
250-465: 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
375-402: 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
500-612: 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
625-622: A German foreign minister at the time would never make a binding statement on behalf of NATO. Russian claims of the alleged 1990 assurances on a non-expansion of NATO to Gorbachev were again raised on the occasions of the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation in 2014 and the 2021–2022 Russo-Ukrainian crisis , during which the Russian President Vladimir Putin demanded a legal ban on Ukraine joining NATO, which both Ukraine and NATO refused, and
750-619: A contracting party to the treaty. On 1 April 2014, NATO unanimously decided to suspend all practical co-operation with the Russian Federation in response to the annexation of Crimea , but the NATO-Russia Council (NRC) was not suspended. In 2015, Russia entirely terminated its participation in the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe. On 18 February 2017, Russia's Minister of Foreign Affairs , Sergey Lavrov , said he supported
875-793: A final settlement. The Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany was signed in Moscow on 12 September 1990, and paved the way for German reunification on 3 October 1990. Under the terms of the treaty, the Four Powers renounced all rights they formerly held in Germany, including those regarding the city of Berlin . Upon deposit of the last instrument of ratification, united Germany became fully sovereign on 15 March 1991. The treaty allows Germany to make and belong to alliances, without any foreign influence in its politics. However, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl , who became chancellor of
1000-559: 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
1125-674: A key role in most major events in U.S. foreign policy , from the Korean War to the War on Terror. The NSC has counterparts in the national security councils of many other nations. The immediate predecessor to the National Security Council was the National Intelligence Authority (NIA), which was established by President Harry S. Truman 's Executive Letter of January 22, 1946, to oversee
1250-458: 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
1375-696: 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
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#17327571603721500-603: A purely conventional role. Germany also agreed to use military force only in accordance with the United Nations Charter . Another of the treaty's important provisions was Germany's confirmation of the by now internationally recognised border with Poland, and other territorial changes in Germany that had taken place since 1945, preventing any future claims to lost territory east of the Oder–Neisse line (see former eastern territories of Germany ). The treaty defined
1625-483: 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
1750-454: A sovereign right to seek alliances. NATO ended up expanding to sixteen Eastern countries (apart from the GDR in 1990): Czech Republic , Hungary , and Poland in 1999; Bulgaria , Estonia , Latvia , Lithuania , Romania , Slovakia , and Slovenia in 2004; Albania and Croatia in 2009; Montenegro in 2017; North Macedonia in 2020; Finland in 2023; and Sweden in 2024, five of them on
1875-601: 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
2000-559: 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
2125-558: 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
2250-478: 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
2375-430: 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
2500-535: 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
2625-611: 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
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#17327571603722750-517: Is inadmissible to conclude that assurances concerning the expansion of NATO command structures and the stationing of NATO forces on the territory of the former GDR had anything to do with promises concerning the enlargement of the Alliance east of a unified Germany. Additionally, he stated that, a distinction must be drawn between informal or exploratory talks of this nature on the one hand and negotiations, promises, commitments or indeed guarantees on
2875-565: 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
3000-435: 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
3125-597: 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
3250-401: 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
3375-525: 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
3500-776: Is the most spoken native language within the European Union . It 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 ),
3625-578: 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
3750-485: 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
3875-689: 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
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4000-639: 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
4125-1124: The Attorney General , the Secretary of Energy , the Secretary of Homeland Security , the White House Chief of Staff , the Director of National Intelligence , the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff , the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency , the Homeland Security Advisor , and the United States Ambassador to the United Nations . The White House Counsel , the Deputy Counsel to
4250-644: The British National Archives in which Joshua Shifrinson ( Boston University ) discovered a memo classified as "secret" dated 6 March 1991 (approximately five months after the 2+4 negotiations). The memo is about a meeting of the directors of the US, UK, French and West German foreign ministries in Bonn. According to the memo, Jürgen Chrobog , the Western German representative, stated that "during
4375-568: 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
4500-1321: The Deputy Secretary of Energy , the Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security , the Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget , the Deputy Director of National Intelligence , the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff , the National Security Advisor to the Vice President, the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development , and the Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency . Invitations to participate in or attend specific meetings are extended to Deputy or Under Secretary level of executive departments and agencies and to other senior officials when relevant issues are discussed. The Executive Secretary and
4625-542: The Disposition Matrix database, has described the Obama Administration targeted killing policy by stating that "in order to ensure that our counterterrorism operations involving the use of lethal force are legal, ethical, and wise, President Obama has demanded that we hold ourselves to the highest possible standards and processes". Reuters reported that Anwar al-Awlaki , an American citizen,
4750-537: 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
4875-417: 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
5000-730: The German Democratic Republic , in addition to the Four Powers which had occupied Germany at the end of World War II in Europe : France , the Soviet Union , the United Kingdom , and the United States . The treaty supplanted the 1945 Potsdam Agreement : in it, the Four Powers renounced all rights they had held with regard to Germany, allowing for its reunification as a fully sovereign state
5125-522: 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
Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany - Misplaced Pages Continue
5250-548: The German–Polish Border Treaty . Furthermore, the Federal Republic was required by the treaty to amend its Basic Law so as to be constitutionally prohibited from accepting any application for incorporation into Germany from territories outside of East Germany, West Germany, and Berlin. Although the treaty was signed by West and East Germany as separate sovereign states, it was subsequently ratified by
5375-554: 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
5500-498: The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty would continue to apply in full to the unified Germany (the Federal Republic of Germany). No foreign armed forces, nuclear weapons, or the carriers for nuclear weapons would be stationed or deployed in six states (the area of Berlin and the former East Germany), making them a permanent Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone . The German Army could deploy conventional weapons systems with nonconventional capabilities, provided that they were equipped and designed for
5625-439: 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
5750-409: The Peaceful Revolution , led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the SED party in East Germany (GDR). In a 9 February 1990 conversation with Mikhail Gorbachev held in Moscow, US Secretary of State James Baker argued in favor of holding the Two-Plus-Four talks. According to Moscow as well as Baker's notes, the famous "not one inch eastward" promise about NATO's eastward expansion
5875-433: The Secretary of Commerce , the United States Trade Representative , and the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy. The National Security Council Deputies Committee is the senior sub-Cabinet interagency forum for consideration of national security policy issues. The Deputies Committee is also responsible for reviewing and monitoring the interagency national security process including for establishing and directing
6000-408: The Soviet Union in light of the tension between the Soviet Union and the United States. The intent was to ensure coordination and concurrence among the Army , Marine Corps , Navy , Air Force and other instruments of national security policy such as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), also created in the National Security Act. In 2004, the position of Director of National Intelligence (DNI)
6125-495: The Soviet Union . The German populations of these areas either fled or were expelled . Although the German Democratic Republic formally accepted the border in the 1950 Treaty of Zgorzelec with Poland, West Germany initially entirely rejected it, declaring the treaty "null and void" in line with the Hallstein Doctrine , and later reluctantly recognised the border in the 1970 Treaty of Warsaw as provisional only, to be finalised by "a peace settlement for Germany to be accepted by
6250-427: 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
6375-422: 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
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#17327571603726500-400: 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
6625-557: The Warsaw Pact at the time and hosted large Soviet garrisons. Gorbachev and his successor, Boris Yeltsin , felt that NATO's later acceptance of countries like Poland violated the spirit of the earlier agreements. In December 2017, researchers Tom Blanton and Svetlana Savranskaya argued that declassified documents challenged this narrative. They commented: The documents show that multiple national leaders were considering and rejecting Central and Eastern European membership in NATO as of early 1990 and through 1991, that discussions of NATO in
6750-497: The White House , it is part of the Executive Office of the President of the United States , and composed of senior national security advisors and Cabinet officials. Since its inception in 1947 by President Harry S. Truman , the function of the Council has been to advise and assist the president on national security and foreign policies. It also serves as the president's principal arm for coordinating these policies among various government agencies. The Council has subsequently played
6875-408: 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
7000-405: The secretary of homeland security (non-statutory), and the representative of the United States to the United Nations (non-statutory). The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the military advisor to the Council, the director of national intelligence is the intelligence advisor, and the director of national drug control policy is the drug control policy advisor. The chief of staff to
7125-425: The vice president (statutory), the secretary of state (statutory), the secretary of the treasury (statutory), the secretary of defense (statutory), the secretary of energy (statutory), the assistant to the president for national security affairs (non-statutory), the assistant to the president and director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (non-statutory), the attorney general (non-statutory),
7250-431: The 2+4 negotiations we made it clear that we [Germany] would not expand NATO beyond the Elbe [ sic ]. We cannot therefore offer Poland and the others NATO membership." Klaus Wiegrefe says that Chrobog may have confused the Elbe for the Oder , to which NATO was supposed to extend upon German unification, that Bonn had never made it clear that NATO would not expand beyond the Elbe. According to Die Welt ,
7375-448: The CDC. In January 2021, the directorate was reinstated by President Joe Biden , who appointed Elizabeth Cameron as Senior Director for Global Health Security and Biodefense, a position she had previously held under the Obama administration and briefly under the Trump administration. During his presidential transition , President-elect Joe Biden announced the creation of the position of U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate ,
7500-411: The Central Intelligence Group, the CIA's predecessor. The NIA was composed of the secretary of state , the secretary of war , the secretary of the navy , and the chief of staff to the commander in chief . The National Security Council was created in 1947 by the National Security Act . It was created because policymakers felt that the diplomacy of the State Department was no longer adequate to contain
7625-448: The Deputy White House Counsel also attend. The relevant Senior Director on the National Security Council staff is also invited to attend when relevant. The Policy Coordination Committees of the National Security Council, established and directed by the Deputies Committee, are responsible for the management of the development and implementation of national security policies through interagency coordination. Policy Coordination Committees are
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#17327571603727750-614: 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
7875-414: 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
8000-459: The GDR, leading to an alliance of parties that favored German reunification winning a plurality. To achieve unity and full sovereignty, both German states were willing to accept the terms of the Potsdam Agreement that affected Germany. On 31 August 1990, the FRG and GDR signed the Unification Treaty, which describes the manner and specifics of the GDR's accession to the Federal Republic. It was then possible for all international parties to negotiate
8125-417: 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
8250-399: 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
8375-623: 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
8500-604: The Government of Germany when a government adequate for the purpose is established" (Potsdam Agreement 1.3.1). The overall "German Question" became one of the salient and crucial issues of the long-running Cold War , and until it ended in the late 1980s, little progress had been made in the establishment of a single government of Germany adequate for the purpose of agreeing to a final settlement. This meant that in some respects (largely, but not entirely, technical), Germany did not have full national sovereignty . Several developments in 1989 and 1990, collectively termed Die Wende and
8625-547: 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
8750-408: 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
8875-410: The NSC when appropriate. The Principals Committee of the National Security Council is the Cabinet-level senior interagency forum for consideration of national security policy issues. The Principals Committee is convened and chaired by the National Security Advisor. The regular attendees of the Principals Committee are the Secretary of State , the Secretary of the Treasury , the Secretary of Defense ,
9000-949: The Policy Coordination Committees. The Deputies Committee is convened and chaired by the Deputy National Security Advisor or the Deputy Homeland Security Advisor. Regular members of the Deputies Committee are the Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategy, the Deputy Secretary of State , Deputy Secretary of the Treasury , the Deputy Secretary of Defense , the Deputy Attorney General ,
9125-697: The President for National Security Affairs, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget , the Deputy National Security Advisor , the Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategy, the National Security Advisor to the Vice President, and the NSC Executive Secretary may also attend all meetings of the Principals Committee. When considering international economic issues, the Principals Committee's regular attendees will include
9250-471: The Principals Committee (a subset of the full National Security Council), while at the same time altering the attendance of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and director of national intelligence . According to "National Security Presidential Memorandum 2", the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and director of national intelligence were to only sit on the Principals Committee as and when matters pertaining to them arise, but will remain part of
9375-682: The Reorganization Plan, the Council was placed in the Executive Office of the President. The High Value Detainee Interrogation Group also reports to the NSC. One of the tasks of the National Security Council is to determine and identify people, including United States citizens who are deemed to be threats to national security and add them to a "kill list". In this case, no public record of this decision or any operation to kill
9500-747: The Soviets withdrew, the Germans could freely deploy troops in those areas, with the exception of nuclear weapons. For the duration of the Soviet presence, Allied troops would remain stationed in Berlin upon Germany's request. Germany undertook efforts to reduce its armed forces to no more than 370,000 personnel, no more than 345,000 of whom were to be in the Army and the Air Force . These limits would commence at
9625-526: The Treaty. The last Russian troops left Germany at the end of August 1994, four months before the treaty deadline. In the first decade of the 21st century, the Bundeswehr underwent a gradual transformation to a fully professional force. By 1 July 2011, the date on which Germany voluntarily suspended conscription , the Bundeswehr retained fewer than 250,000 active duty personnel – barely two thirds of
9750-517: The agenda, because it was not in the interest of the U.S. to organize 'an anti-Soviet coalition' that extended to the Soviet borders, not least because it might reverse the positive trends in the Soviet Union. (See Document 26) The Bush administration took the latter view. And that's what the Soviets heard. In 2018, Hannes Adomeit disputed the conclusions by Blanton and Savranskaya, saying that those documents were already known, and that, it
9875-474: The assurance only pertained to East Germany, and that the resulting agreement was upheld by NATO. His main aide in these negotiations, Eduard Shevardnadze , likewise agreed that NATO never made any such commitment regarding other countries in Eastern Europe, and that "the question never came up" in the talks on German reunification. That is presumably because all of the countries in question were still in
10000-571: The border with Russia. Russia–NATO relations started to deteriorate rapidly following the Ukrainian Orange Revolution in 2004–2005. In December 2006, Russia indicated that the ratification of the Energy Charter Treaty was unlikely due to the provisions requiring third-party access to Russia's pipelines. In 2007 Russia suspended its participation in the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe. In 2008,
10125-466: The context of German unification negotiations in 1990 were not at all narrowly limited to the status of East German territory, and that subsequent Soviet and Russian complaints about being misled about NATO expansion were founded in written contemporaneous memcons and telcons at the highest levels. They further said that, the view of the State Department was that NATO expansion was not on
10250-637: The country's treaty limit. The defence minister at the time, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg , said that a cut to 185,000 persons was on the horizon. Russia and the Western countries signed in 1990 the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe and in 1991 the Energy Charter Treaty , establishing a multilateral framework for cross-border cooperation in the energy industry , principally the fossil fuel industry ; Russia postponed ratification of
10375-535: 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
10500-456: 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
10625-630: The eastern parts of Brandenburg and Pomerania . On 1 August 1945, the Potsdam Agreement , promulgated in the Potsdam Conference , among other things agreed on the initial terms under which the Allies of World War II would govern Germany. A provisional German–Polish border known as the Oder–Neisse line awarded, in theory within the context of that "provisional border", most of Germany's former eastern provinces to Poland and
10750-519: 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
10875-510: The elimination of the office. The responsibilities that formerly belonged to the directorate, along with those of arms control and nonproliferation, and of weapons of mass destruction terrorism, were absorbed into a single new directorate, counterproliferation and biodefense, and assigned to Tim Morrison in July 2018 as director. Morrison characterized the consolidation as part of an overall NSC "reduction of force" and called it "specious" to say
11000-424: The following year. Additionally, the two German states agreed to reconfirm the existing border with Poland in the German–Polish Border Treaty , accepting that German territory post-reunification would consist only of what was presently administered by West and East Germany—renouncing explicitly any possible claims to the former eastern territories of Germany including East Prussia , most of Silesia , as well as
11125-454: The full National Security Council. However, Chief of Staff Reince Priebus clarified the next day that they still are invited to attend meetings. With "National Security Presidential Memorandum 4" in April 2017, the director of national intelligence and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff "shall" attend Principals Committee meetings and the director of the Central Intelligence Agency
11250-435: 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,
11375-481: 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
11500-429: The interpretation of a comment allegedly made by US Secretary of State, James Baker , to the effect that NATO would expand "not one inch eastward" in a unified Germany, as applying instead to Eastern Europe; neither has such a provision been included in the treaty, nor any of the parties has proposed or demanded its inclusion, and neither a recording nor written minutes of Baker's comment exist. In 2014, Gorbachev said that
11625-451: The largest concentrations of German speakers are in the states of Rio Grande do Sul (where Riograndenser Hunsrückisch developed), Santa Catarina , and Espírito Santo . United States National Security Council The United States National Security Council ( NSC ) is the national security council used by the president of the United States for consideration of national security , military, and foreign policy matters. Based in
11750-687: The latter treaty, linking it to the adoption of the Energy Charter Treaty Transit Protocol. In 1994, the Budapest Memorandum was signed where Russia, the United Kingdom , and the United States made security assurances to Belarus , Kazakhstan , and Ukraine , in return for handing over by these three countries of their post-Soviet nuclear arsenal. In 1997, NATO and Russia signed the Russia–NATO Founding Act , which stated that each country had
11875-503: The main day-to-day for interagency coordination of national security policy development, implementation and analysis in aide of the Deputies Committee and the Principals Committee. Policy Coordination Committees are chaired by Senior Directors on the National Security Council staff, or sometimes National Economic Council staff, with Assistant Secretary-level officials from the relevant executive department or agency acting as co-chairs. The Directorate of Global Health Security and Biodefense
12000-402: 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
12125-653: 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
12250-585: The occupant of which will be a member of the National Security Council. [REDACTED] This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Archives and Records Administration . [REDACTED] This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the White House . [REDACTED] This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of
12375-502: The office was "dissolved," describing the previous size of the organization as "bloat," and stating "That is why Trump began streamlining the NSC staff in 2017." Trump defended the 2018 cuts, describing the financial motivation, when questioned in a February 2020 press conference, suggesting that people on a pandemic response team are unnecessary between pandemics, saying "Some of the people we cut, they haven't been used for many, many years." No source of information could be found to support
12500-690: The other. An analysis by Marc Trachtenberg in 2021 concluded that "the Russian allegations are by no means baseless ... But the Soviets were not deliberately misled." In her 2021 book Not One Inch: America, Russia, and the Making of the Cold War Stalemate , Mary Elise Sarotte balanced out these different interpretations, concluding that Russian claims of betrayal are in fact untrue in law but have psychological truth. On 18 February 2022, German magazine Der Spiegel published an investigation of
12625-467: The president , White House counsel , and the assistant to the president for economic policy are also regularly invited to attend NSC meetings. The attorney general, the director of the Office of Management and Budget and the director of the Central Intelligence Agency are invited to attend meetings pertaining to their responsibilities. The heads of other executive departments and agencies, as well as other senior officials, are invited to attend meetings of
12750-402: The president's statement, likely because the team was created in 2016 and disbanded in 2018. He continued: "And rather than spending the money—and I'm a business person—I don't like having thousands of people around when you don't need them." The size of the team before cuts was estimated at 430 people, but the "thousands" referenced by the president also included reduction in the staff numbers of
12875-583: The president. The name of the staff organization was changed back to National Security Council Staff in 2014. The Directorate of Global Health Security and Biodefense was formed in 2016 under the Obama administration , disbanded in 2018 under the Trump Administration , and reinstated in January 2021 during the presidency of Joe Biden . On January 29, 2017, President Donald Trump restructured
13000-462: 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
13125-660: The relations deteriorated further and became almost openly hostile, following the 2008 Kosovo declaration of independence from Russia's ally Serbia and its partial recognition by the West, to which Russia responded in August 2008 with launching the Russo-Georgian War . On 20 August 2009, Russia officially informed the depository of the Energy Charter Treaty (the Government of Portugal ) that it did not intend to become
13250-630: The resumption of military cooperation with the NATO alliance. In late March 2017, the Council met in advance of a NATO Foreign Ministers conference in Brussels, Belgium. After the subsequent 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine , the Founding Act has been considered by the NATO member states as definitively abrogated in its entirety by Russia, while the latter has been declared at the 2022 NATO Madrid summit "a direct threat" to Euro-Atlantic security. In
13375-586: The reunified Germany, made no secret that the enlarged Federal Republic would inherit the West German seats in NATO and the European Communities . All Soviet forces in Germany were to leave the country by the end of 1994. Before the Soviets withdrew, Germany would only deploy territorial defense units not integrated into the alliance structures. German forces in the rest of Germany were assigned to areas where Soviet troops were stationed. After
13500-521: The same year, Russia withdrew from the European Convention on Human Rights and was expelled from the Council of Europe . The treaty does not mention NATO membership prospects of any other countries, as none of them has been a party to the treaty, while only 4 out of the 15 NATO member states at the time have been parties to it. Some commentators, such as Stephen F. Cohen , as well as Mikhail Gorbachev in 2008, have advanced in later years
13625-546: 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,
13750-495: The subsequent invasion of Ukraine by Russia. The invocation of this alleged non-expansion pledge was used by Russia to justify its open breach of the Budapest Memorandum but has been rebuffed by NATO. 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
13875-442: The suspect will be made available. The panel's actions are justified by "two principal legal theories": They "were permitted by Congress when it authorized the use of military forces against militants in the wake of the attacks of September 11, 2001 ; and they are permitted under international law if a country is defending itself." Homeland Security Advisor John O. Brennan , who helped codify targeted killing criteria by creating
14000-404: The territory of a 'united Germany' as being the territory of East Germany, West Germany, and Berlin, prohibiting Germany from making any future territorial claims. Germany also agreed to sign a separate treaty with Poland reaffirming the present common border, binding under international law, effectively relinquishing these territories to Poland. This was done on 14 November 1990, with the signing of
14125-500: 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
14250-478: The time that the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe would enter into force, and the treaty also took note that it was expected that the other participants in the negotiations would "render their contribution to enhancing security and stability in Europe, including measures to limit personnel strengths". Germany also reaffirmed its renunciation of the manufacture, possession of, and control over nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, and in particular, that
14375-789: The united Federal Republic of Germany. After the Soviet Union dissolved itself in December 1991, the command unit of the Soviet Group of Soviet Forces in Germany devolved to the Russian Federation . The German government subsequently recognized the Russian Federation's claim to be the successor state of the Soviet Union, including the right to maintain troops in Germany until the end of 1994. However, with post-Soviet Russia facing severe economic hardship, President Boris Yeltsin ordered Russian troop deployment in Germany to be reduced to levels significantly below those permitted in
14500-555: 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
14625-600: 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
14750-429: 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
14875-547: 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
15000-600: Was created by Barack Obama in 2016 in response to the 2014 Ebola outbreak . Its goal was "to prepare for the next disease outbreak and prevent it from becoming an epidemic or pandemic." The directorate was disbanded when a May 2018 change in organizational structure by John Bolton, Trump's recently appointed head of the National Security Council, resulted in the effective elimination of the office then led by Rear Admiral Tim Ziemer , Sr. Director for Global Health Security and Biothreats. Remaining staff were moved to other NSC departments, prompting Ziemer's resignation, thus completing
15125-760: Was created, taking over the responsibilities previously held by the head of the CIA, the director of central intelligence , as a cabinet-level position to oversee and coordinate activities of the Intelligence Community On May 26, 2009, President Barack Obama merged the White House staff supporting the Homeland Security Council (HSC) and the National Security Council into one National Security Staff (NSS). The HSC and NSC each continue to exist by statute as bodies supporting
15250-492: 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
15375-654: Was included as a regular attendee. The reorganization also placed the administrator of the United States Agency for International Development as a permanent member of the Deputies Committee, while the White House chief strategist was removed. The National Security Council was established by the National Security Act of 1947 (PL 235 – 61 Stat. 496; U.S.C. 402), amended by the National Security Act Amendments of 1949 (63 Stat. 579; 50 U.S.C. 401 et seq.). Later in 1949, as part of
15500-460: Was made during this conversation. The concession essentially meant that the western half of the unified Germany would be part of NATO but the eastern half would not. The US National Security Council pointed out that it would be unworkable, and the concession was later amended to state that NATO troops would not be stationed in East Germany. On 18 March 1990, a national election was held in
15625-431: Was on such a kill list and was killed accordingly. On February 4, 2013, NBC published a leaked Department of Justice memo providing a summary of the rationale used to justify targeted killing of US citizens who are senior operational leaders of Al-Qa'ida or associated forces. The National Security Council, as of 2021 and as per statute and National Security Memorandum–2, is chaired by the president . Its members are
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