Germany

Germany is the industrial and political center of all of Europe, only recently coming to appreciate the true threat of France when it comes to its hold over Europe. The past 25 years of primacy has left its mark on Germany's physical exterior and national psyche. It's home to some of the largest and most power corporations in the world like EBM and IEC. German manufacturing is the most advanced in all of Europe, and it will soon be its most prosperous export valued primarily for its reliability and quality. The German people are proud and distinguished people as they should be due to all of the progress they have made in recent times, what with the ever-growing middle-class, a steadily climbing birthrate, and the general security of their country in these rather trying times not to mention their success in steering the EEC to prominence in not just Europe but the World.

History and Politics
In World War I (1914–18), Germany's aims were annexationist in nature and foresaw an enlarged Germany, with Belgium and Poland as vassal states and with colonies in Africa. However, Germany's military strategy, involving a two-front war in France and Belgium in the west and Russia in the east, ultimately failed. Germany's defeat in 1918 meant the end of the German Empire. The Treaty of Versailles, the peace settlement negotiated by the victors (Britain, France, and the United States) in 1919, imposed punitive conditions on Germany, including the loss of territory, financial reparations, and a diminished military. These conditions set the stage for World War II.

In the aftermath of World War II (1939–45) and following occupation by the victorious powers (the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, and France), Germany came to consist of two states. One, East Germany, never attained real legitimacy in the eyes of its citizens, fell farther and farther behind economically, and had to use force to prevent its population from fleeing to the West. The other, West Germany, was resoundingly successful. Within two decades of defeat, it had become one of the world's richest nations, with a prosperity that extended to all segments of the population. The economy performed so successfully that eventually several million foreigners came to West Germany to work as well. West German and foreign workers alike were protected from need arising from sickness, accidents, and old age by an extensive, mostly non-government welfare system.

With the reunification of Germany in 1990, the road to European dominance was clear and inevitable. For the last years of the century, the economic, political, and social dislocations caused by the marriage of two different systems had been overcome, and finally Unified Germany became an acknowledged regional superpower. Germany's place in the sun was assured for now at least..

The German public didn't have a grand plan for European domination. If anything they were conspicuously good citizens, publicly funding the short-lived "EuroBank Development Plan for Central Europe", they were very generous in the dawn of "1995 food riots in the East", forbearing in their response to the "fire nights crisis in the USSR". Just like in many other European countries, the Wasting Plague of 2000 proved a turning point. Germany was especially hard hit initially but the BioWare labs at Neustrelirz were the first to come up with a partial inoculation. As this was passed on to Germany's European partners it became a powerful symbol in the election campaign of Volker Mohr and his New Liberals whose slogan became "Saviours of Europe, Crucible of a New Millenia." Mohr's crudely nationalistic rhetoric struck the right note at a time when the ravages of the plague had stripped away much of the skepticism and sophisticated cosmopolitanism of the German people and left them searching for something to hope and believe in.

After few successes, the New Liberals shattered into a dozen feuding factions but Mohr's contribution had been to reestablish the "German identity" on the political agenda. Then every party had to proclaim its loyalty to traditional "German virtues" and present itself as the champion of "German rights" and this meant demanding a far greater political say in the European Economic Community potentially equal to Germany's economic strength and market value. Consider the European Court judgment against the zaibatsus which marked the beginning of "the 2015 Yen War", a German bid to limit the role of the external economic giants in Europe primarily those of the Pacific Rim, thus leaving the way open for the growth of an internal one.

France began to contest their hegemony and some Germans are beginning to wake up to this almost unconscionable self-assertion. Some are trying to get back to the old approach others though especially the political and industrial barons are beginning to fight back.

By 2077, Germany holds the record for most citizens employed by corporations, having 42% of the populace employed.

Government
Germany is a democratic federal parliamentary republic where federal legislative power is vested in the Bundestag (the parliament of Germany) and the Bundesrat. The multilateral system has existed since 1949 and has been dominated by the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). The judiciary of Germany is independent of the executive and the legislature, while it is common for leading members of the executive to be members of the legislature as well. The political system is laid out in the 1949 constitution "The Grundgesetz (Basic Law)" which remained in effect with minor amendments after German reunification in 1990.

The constitution emphasizes the protection of individual liberty in an extensive catalog of human and civil rights and divides powers both between the federal and state levels and between the legislative, executive and judicial branches.

Bureaucracy
Bureaucracy has a long and wonderful tradition in Germany. For instances:

There was a middle-class pigeon breeder, Michael T., who wanted to build a birdhouse. He lived in the small village of Geinsheim, and was a good neighbor and husband. He knew he had to get a permit for the pigeon-house, so he went to the Board of Works. The Board of Works demanded a certificate of good conduct and the plans of his house as well as the pigeon- coop. So he took a day off and went to the police. After a lengthy background check, they gave him two stamped and signed copies of the certificate. After returning to the Board of Works, they told him he had to check with the local Bureau of Animal Care. They had the Bureau alerted because they wanted to make sure the pigeons were in good hands. So Michael ventured forth in the belief that this would be the last stage before he could begin work.

The Bureau of Animal Care demanded another copy of his certificate of good conduct to see if he was a known animal- abuser. The Bureau also made a background check and found out that Michael had been a member of the local pigeon-breeders club since he was twelve. After processing the data, they sent him a go-ahead and a note telling him he also needed a permit from the Board of Health. That was four weeks after he first contacted the Board of Works.

The Board of Health informed him they needed the pigeon- house plans as well as certificates of health from his family. Pigeons are transmitters of disease, so the Board check to see that the pigeon-house had sufficient fatalities. They also wanted to ensure that the birds wouldn't be infected by Michael's family. Michael called his doctor and got the documents passed to the Board of Health. After another three weeks, the Board sent an affirmative.

Culture and Society
The urban population is around 75.3% of the total population. 99 percent literacy rate in population over age fifteen. Education is compulsory until age eighteen. At age ten, after primary school (Grundschule), students attend one of five schools: short-course secondary school (Hauptschule); intermediate school (Realschule); high school (Gymnasium); comprehensive school (Gesamtschule); or a school for children with special educational needs (Sonderschule). At about age fifteen, students choose among a variety of vocational, technical, and academic schools. Higher education consists of many kinds of technical colleges, advanced vocational schools, and universities.

Modern German culture in 2045 is all about living for oneself and improving looks through fashion, Cyberware, and hairstyles. The cities of Germany are often plagued by dark skies and rainy days. This has made the German people very bitter and stay indoor types.

Music of Germany
Germany may be synonymous with Europa, that lowest denominator type of sound, study music for the masses. you hear it in lifts, on the radio or in infotainment shows. This trash is everywhere, and very popular, so my best advice is to get a Wearmannn as soon as possible. But Europa isn't the whole picture. German trends have again drifted towards synthetics at their best Tedlnoise and its various derivations dominate much of the German scene.

Technoise
Popular with the discerning young punk; it was popularized by Germany's own Netwerk. You've got your Overlay style from London, Jannetic from Rotterdam and Echo from Frankfurt In addition, there are people producing Frock (Fractal Rock) all over the place. The good thing is, Technoise is quite easy to produce. you only need a small computer, some software and you're ready to buzz. Those of you with a message might miss the political attitude, but you're missing the point Technoise is strictly for partying, tripping, and dancing. Maybe that a political statement in and of itself, der?

If a person wanted to get into political sounds, go to Chemnitz Aside from PostSlyle, you'll get to hear political poetry and see virtual demonstrations. German youths congregate yearly for the big Virtua-fests of Bogatynia, a town on the border between Germany and the Czech Republic. It is the mecca for free-minded vidiots and reality junkies from all over Eastern Europe.

German Economy
German economics work on two levels. First is the Megacorps, just like anywhere else. Second, are the thousands of small corporations that provide services and implement technological novelties.

There are several large megacorps with their headquarters in Germany. Names like EBM, IEC and Daimler-Benz ring in the ears of every Corp in the world. Nearly any civilized capital sports one of their skyscraper centers of corporate culture. It is these giants of architecture that truly mark a megacorporation outside of Germany, that is.

Megacorporations tend to scale down their regional headquarters within Germany for a simple reason. Germany has one of the best telecommunication networks in the world. And, thanks to Netwatch, net-space in Europa is virtually crime-free. This resulted in the wide implementation of telecommuting; the act of linking your home computer to your office mainframe, enabling you to work at home.

But Germany's economy could not rely solely on megacorporations to be as powerful as it is. There are thousands of middle-class operations that provide services and fill development niches, not covered by the megacorporations. They specialize in producing solutions for your individual problems. Rather than eliminating your competitors, they give you the technological edge needed to survive. All in all, Germany still has a viable middle class. Many mayors of German villages have invited high tech industries with incentives like tax reductions, low land prices, etc. The idea is that individual businesses can profit from cooperation. Combining their specialized technological solutions into new unorthodox products, they create an environment that is extremely fertile for rapid development. The jointly designed products are then produced under a brand name owned by all participants.

This is not the only advantage of "village" industries. In modern times, it has become necessary to cooperate in security matters as well. Unifying their assets, the companies can field as much security as their big brothers, another advantage comes from sharing resources; they might rent programming time on a central mainframe, or share a vehicle pool, thus reducing operating costs. Of course, there is the paranoia that one of the business partners might be subverted by the Megacorps. To defend against this, "village" industries sometimes exchange shares. In the end, this creates a medium-sized corp with several full-fledged profit centers.

International Electric Corporation
IEC (International Electric Corporation) is a corporation in the Cyberpunk Universe. Many of the corporations in the Cyberpunk world can trace their power and influence to some particular specialty; some product or service at which they are better than all the rest. International Electric is a little different. Its main strength lies not in any specialty, or the monopolization of some service, but in its sheer diversity.

IEC boasts holdings and markets in consumer products, defense industry, heavy industry and durable goods, raw materials, computers, and in media. Ultimately, there can be no doubt that manufacturing is the principal milieu of IEC, but so many different products come out of IEC plants and so many different markets are reached that it is difficult to simply say that it is a manufacturing conglomerate and leave it at that. IEC's non-manufacturing holdings include a media company, a bank, and various diverse retailing and service subsidiaries, but these assets amount to little when compared to the enormous bulk of the IE manufacturing empire.

Euro Business Machines
Euro Business Machines is a Mega Corporation that generalizes in the manufacture of computer products, information technology, and electronics. They have a very influential presence in the market, along with some of the largest employee and troop counts.

Daimler-Benz
Daimler-Benz is a large a car manufacturing business.

Geography
One of Europe's largest countries, United Germany is divided into sixteen regions, as well as the Greater Berlin Metroplex. More Germans live outside the urban centers than one might expect, due both to the excellent transport system and sizable investment in telecommuting and small scale, high tech village industries.

Greater Berlin is a sprawling beast, a national capital seemingly beyond even the German's ability to tame. The center is the historical and administrative heart of the country, a beautifully landscaped place of parks, museums and dark-glassed office blocks. The suburbs, however, are relatively disordered and violent places, the focus for all sorts of corporate rivalries and private enterprise.

The other major cities are Dresden, the Koln-Dortmund Conrub (KDC), Frankfurt, Leipzig-Halle, Munich and Hamburg. Munich is both Germany's second city and the capital of Bavaria, while the KDC is the key heavy industrial center. The Danzig Corridor, a coastal strip reaching the formerly Polish city of Gdansk/Danzig was annexed in 2006 and is still subject to sporadic unrest. The presence of a major army live-fire training area in the corridor does nothing to endear the Germans to their new citizens there.

Greater Berlin - 5 million
Berlin Germany's capital dates to the 13th century. Reminders of the city's turbulent 20th-century history include its Holocaust memorial and the Berlin Wall's graffitied remains. Divided during the Cold War, its 18th-century Brandenburg Gate has become a symbol of reunification. The city's also known for its art scene and modern landmarks like the gold-colored, swoop-roofed Berliner Philharmonie, built-in 1963.

Munich - 3.67 million
Munich, Bavaria's capital, is home to centuries-old buildings and numerous museums. The city is known for its annual Oktoberfest celebration and its beer halls, including the famed Hofbräuhaus, founded in 1589. In the Altstadt (Old Town), central Marienplatz square contains landmarks such as Neo-Gothic Neues Rathaus (town hall), with a popular glockenspiel show that chimes and reenacts stories from the 16th century.

Hamburg - 3.1 million
Hamburg, a major port city in northern Germany, is connected to the North Sea by the Elbe River. It's crossed by hundreds of canals, and also contains large areas of parkland. Near its core, Inner Alster lake is dotted with boats and surrounded by cafes. The city's central Jungfernstieg boulevard connects the Neustadt (new town) with the Altstadt (old town), home to landmarks like 18th-century St. Michael's Church.