Germany Quiz #1

How many states constitute Germany?

Germany in German?

Which state starts with a 'T'?

What is the capital of that state?

First two countries bordering Germany alphabetically?

Last two countries bordering Germany alphabetically?

What is the capital of the state of Brandenburg?

What was the Brandenburg Gate originally known as?

Painter, printmaker and theorist of the German Renaissance. Born - Nuremberg 1471. Died - Nuremberg I528. 'Knight, Death and the Devil' (1513). 'Saint Jerome in his Study' (1514). 'Melencolia I' (1514).

Philosopher. Born - Konigsberg, Prussia 1724. Died - Konigsberg, East Prussia 1804. Considered one of the Enlightenment's central thinkers. 'Critique of Pure Reason' (1781-1787).

Composer. Born - Hamburg 1833. Died - Vienna 1897. 'Hungarian Dances' (1869 and 1880).

Philosopher. Born - Rocken, Saxony 1844. Died - Weimar, Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach 1900. Worked at the University of Basel, Switzerland 1869-1879. 'Twilight of the Idols' (1888).

Highest point? (9,721 feet).

Lowest point? (11.6 feet below sea level). Name the administrative division (Amt).

Most of Germany has a ___________ climate?

In AD 9, an incident occurred between an alliance of Germanic tribes and three Roman legions, in the Teutoburg Forest. Which of the leaders of the two groups was left smiling at the party's closure?

Who was not so joyful?

Which river forms 116 miles of the border between Germany and Poland?

Physician, poet, playwright, writer, historian, philosopher. Born - Marbach am Neckar, Wurttemberg 1759. Died - Weimar, Saxe-Weimar 1805. Lyricist for Ludwig van Beethoven. His 'Ode to Joy' (1785), is Beethoven's 'Symphony No. 9' (1824).

Entrepreneur. Born - Russelsheim, Hesse 1837. Died - Russelsheim, Germany 1895. His company went from sewing machines to bicycles to cars to trucks to rocket science. Now, back to cars and trucks.

This car company was established in 1926.

Fairytale-spreading siblings.

Poet, essayist, journalist, literary critic. Born - Dusseldorf, Duchy of Berg 1797. Died - Paris 1856. 'Germany. A Winter's Tale' (1844).

Epistolary novel of 1774. Unrequited love. Suicide.

Schwarzwald. Source of the Danube and Neckar rivers.

River on which Frankfurt am Main is to be found.

City in North Rhine-Westphalia. Aix-la-Chapelle to the French.

A drink-up in Munich, Bavaria that has been held since 1810.

Scientific instrument maker, optician, businessman. Born - Weimar, Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach 1816. Died - Jena, Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach 1888. Microscopes, binoculars, cameras. It is all about the lenses.

This company was founded by Camillo Castiglioni, Franz Josef Popp and Karl Rapp in 1916.

What did it originally manufacture?

What is the company name in full?

This small valley of the Dussel River in North Rhine-Westphalia was and is of great interest to anthropologists.

City at the delta of the Trave River. The 'City of the Seven Towers'.

Capital of Saxony.

City sacked during the Thirty Years War in 1631 resulting in the deaths of 25,000 defenders and inhabitants. Worst massacre of the aforesaid conflict.

Gustavus Adolphus and Albrecht von Wallenstein clashed here in 1632 in the Thirty Years War. The former was victorious but was killed, gaining a pyrrhic victory for Sweden.

City on the Baltic Sea. Hosts the world's biggest sailing event, annually. Site of an Imperial German Navy mutiny that had Kaiser Wilhelm II packing it in, in 1918 and making for healthier climes.

Engineer, inventor, entrepreneur. Born - Paris 1858. Died - English Channel 1913. His death is still a mystery. Theories are suicide because of bankruptcy or murder because his most famous invention threatened to thin the wallets of competitors running a huge, global industrial empire.

The French mobilised their army on 15 July, 1870. The North German Confederation responded in kind later the same day. The result was this happy, little shindig.

The French know the above knees-up as?

Chief-of-Staff of the Prussian Army for thirty years, this field marshal pioneered the use of railways for military purposes.

'Aschenputtel' is the German version of which character?

Another horror story... oops... yarn... from the fairy-tale spreaders in an answer above. A girl is born of a root vegetable or a salad green. She is abducted by a nasty and locked up in a tall building. With not much to do up there, she spends a lot of time grooming her tresses. They elongate impressively. Anyway, banishment... some poor sod gets blinded. Ugh. I read Tintin books myself.

Augustinian friar. Born - Eisleben 1483. Died - Eisleben 1546. He lived on a diet of worms.

Red clothing. A smart, little girl takes the piss out of a Canis lupus before dispatching it in grand style.

One more from the Teutonic tale terrorists. Two siblings kidnapped and locked up in a candy store by yet another nasty. Justifiable homicide and the Big Bad Wolf gets a stay of execution in this little, literary gem.

Holy Roman emperor (1122-1190). Reigned 1155-1190. Drowned in the Saleph River, Turkey on his way to the Third Crusade. Apparently they made a meal out of his burial. His flesh went to Antioch, his bones went to Tyre and his heart and inner organs went to Tarsus.

Poet. Born - Frankfurt am Main 1749. Died - Weimar 1832.

Soldiers who greatly helped the British keep going for as long as they did in the American Revolution. Considered 'mercenaries' by the revolutionaries, the British preferred to think of them as 'auxiliaries'.

Decisive battle of the Austro-Prussian War, 1866. Prussian victory. Needle gun. Eclipse of Austrian hegemony in Germany. Beginning of German unification under Prussian leadership.

King of Prussia. Born - Berlin 1712. Died - Potsdam 1786. Reigned 1740-1786. This 'great' leader jumped on his horse and fled the field when he first encountered the nasty Austrians, in numbers, dressed to kill in 1741. A seasoned, old field marshal saved the day and saved this man's reputation in history. Name the battle where this king got cold feet.

Born - Kruszewnia, Prussia 1865. Died - Munich 1937. Soldier. Considered by the people to be the brains of the German army during WWI. His spring offensive in 1918 had the French biting their nails to the quick and Field Marshal Douglas Haig knocking back his family's most famous product and composing suicide notes.

French marshal under Napoleon. His earlier service with the Prussian Army made him 'the bravest of the brave.' Looked for Arthur Wellesley at Waterloo in 1815 with the intention of cutting his head off... with only half a sword.

Explorer. Born - Sabrodt, Prussia 1813. Died - c. 1848. Last seen at Mount Abundance, Queensland. A river that passes through Mount Isa, Queensland on its way to the Gulf of Carpentaria and a suburb of Sydney are named for him.

Suburb in Melbourne, Australia named for a German city in Baden-Wurttemberg. A name change was proposed due to anti-German sentiment during WWI but it persevered.

Valley. 37 miles north-west of Adelaide, South Australia. Town of Tanunda heavily German. Angaston watches cricket and they greet each other thus 'Tally-ho.' Nuriootpa, the largest town, is even money on racial dominance by either of the aforesaid. In Nuriootpa, harmony reared its ugly head due to the fact that there is a pickelhaube or a copy of 'Lady Chatterley's Lover' in every closet. Also... they DON'T mention the war (WWI).

South Australian author and educator (1920-2006). His grandparents emigrated from Germany and spoke a dialect of German named for the valley above. 'Sun on the Stubble' (1961). 'Storm Boy' (1964). 'Blue Fin' (1969).

Dresden class light cruiser. Engagement with Chatham class light cruiser HMAS Sydney on November 9,1914 off the Cocos Islands (Battle of Cocos) saw her receive serious damage and her captain ran her aground to prevent her sinking. Crew - 376. KIA - 133. HMAS Sydney - 3 KIA. 13 WIA.

Auxiliary cruiser. Largest merchant raider operated by the Kriegsmarine. Engagement with Leander class light cruiser HMAS Sydney on November 19, 1941 off the coast of Western Australia saw her receive battle damage so severe her captain ordered her scuttling. 399 aboard. 318 rescued and made POWs. HMAS Sydney damaged severely and left helpless to wander off and sink hours later. No survivors. The raider's and the Sydney's final resting places were not identified until 2008.

Dense, slightly sweet rye bread. Westphalia.

This side-dish is erroneously thought to be of German origin but evidence points to it having been around in ancient Rome.

Finely chopped meat sausage.

Served as a side for meat dishes with gravy. Swabia.

Errotendes Madchen? A dessert.

There are claims that it is the oldest continuously operating brewery in the world. Bavaria.

'Strongest' beer in the world. Smokey, nutty, 57% alcohol. $275 for a 330 ml bottle. Only 36 bottles produced. Yeah, yeah. Ho hum.

Traditional type of schnaps made by fermenting macerated fruit and distilling. 'Schnaps' is correct. Danke schon, kameraden.

"May it advantage you."

Whilst the Bismarck Archipelago retained its name even after the dissolution of German New Guinea, the two main islands did not. What were the German names for New Britain and New Ireland, respectively?

What island north-west of New Ireland and part of New Ireland Province kept its German name?

Name one of the capitals of German New Guinea during its thirty year existence (1884-1914).

What was the mainland part of German New Guinea called?

Polymath. Theologian, organist, musicologist, writer, humanitarian, philosopher, physician. Born - Kaysersberg, Alsace-Lorraine, German Empire 1875. Died - Lambarene, Gabon 1965. Founded and sustained a hospital in French Equatorial Africa (Gabon) that specialised in tropical diseases that is still operating. Won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952.

Mechanical engineer, physicist. Born - Lennep, Prussia 1845. Died - Munich 1923. Received the inaugural Nobel Prize for physics in 1901. Donated the prize money to be spent on scientific research. Refused to take out patents because his inventions were for all mankind, he believed.

Historian, economist, sociologist. Born - Trier, Prussia 1818. Died - London 1883. Habitue of the British Museum Reading Room. Described as one of the most influential figures in human history.

Playwright, poet. Born - Augsburg, Bavaria 1898. Died - East Berlin, East Germany. Play 'The Threepenny Opera' premiered Berlin, 1928.

Poet, novelist, painter. Born - Calw, Wurttemberg 1877. Died - Ticino, Switzerland 1962. 'The Glass Bead Game' (1943).

Architect. Born - Berlin 1883. Died - Boston, Massachusetts 1969. Co-designed (with a fellow architect and later partner) the Fagus Factory in Alfeld-an-der-Leine, Lower Saxony. Founded the Bauhaus (art school) in Dessau, Saxony-Anhalt in 1919. Conscripted WWI and served on the Western front. Seriously wounded. Awarded the Iron Cross Second Class/Iron Cross First Class.

Generalleutnant. Born - Bordenau, Hanover 1755. Died - Prague, Bohemia 1813. Fought Napoleon's forces at Jena-Auerstadt (1806), Eylau (1807) and Lutzen (1813). This last little skirmish saw him take a wound in the foot. Not serious but the ordeal of the the subsequent retreat worsened it and he succumbed to it.

Generalfeldmarschall. Born - Rostock, Mecklenburg-Schwerin 1742. Died - Krieblowitz, Prussia 1819. This fiery warhorse started out as a hussar in the Swedish Army. The 'great' king dismissed him from the Prussian Army for insubordination. When the 'great' king died he was reinstated and made a colonel. His actions saved the day in a little field in Belgium in 1815 and made an Englishman's name a household word and got the fellow a peerage. Ironic.

Chief-of-Staff to the above. Born - Schildau, Saxony 1760. Died - Posen, Prussia 1831. He too was in a little field in Belgium in 1815 and helped his side to victory and make a living legend out of an Englishman. Probably more so than the above.

Generalmajor and military theorist. Born - Burg bei Magdeburg, Prussia 1780. Died - Breslau, Prussia 1631. He would have been in the little field in Belgium if he had not had his arms full in Ligny two days previously tying up the reinforcements the Corsican needed a little urgently.

Grand admiral. Born - Kustrin, Prussia 1849. Died - Ebenhausen, Bavaria 1930. Built up the Imperial Navy (Kaiserliche Marine) into a world-class force. After the High Seas Fleet of the Imperial Navy won a tactical victory but suffered a strategical defeat in its one great engagement with the enemy, the grand admiral became an outspoken advocate of unlimited submarine warefare.

Two largest cities in the Pomeranian part of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern? (Two birds with one stone here).

Second largest city in Thuringia. The writer of 'Faust' first met the writer of 'William Tell' and 'Mary Stuart' at the university here in 1794. Napoleon kicked the Errotendes Madchen out of the Prussian Army here in 1806. Germany's first high-rise building was established here in 1915. History pouring out of nearly every cobblestone in this quaint, little hamlet.

Third largest city in Bavaria. It was the leading centre in Germany of sculpture, painting and, especially, of fine work in gold and silver from the late Middle Ages until the modern period. The Maximilian Museum houses a notable collection of decorative art. The city was founded in 15 BC on the orders of the first Roman emperor and named in his honour.

Name one of the five largest islands in the East Frisian Islands.

Richard Adolf Zsigmondy in 1925, Heinrich Wieland in 1927, Adolf Butenandt in 1939 and Gerhard Herzberg in 1971.

Physical trainer, writer, inventor. Born - Monchengladbach, North Rhine-Westphalia 1883. Died - New York City 1967.