100 Interesting Facts About Germany

Other countries that celebrate Thanksgiving include: Germany - they celebrate the Harvest Thanksgiving Festival in early October; Grenada - they celebrate Thanksgiving Day on October 25th; Korea - they celebrate Korean Thanksgiving Day in late September or early October; Japan - they celebrate Labor Thanksgiving on November 23rd; Liberia - they celebrate Thanksgiving on the first Thursday of November; and Norfolk Island celebrates Thanksgiving on the last Wednesday of November.

52. In 1989, a Soviet pilot ejected a perfectly working MIG 23 thinking the plane's engine had failed. It flew over 560 miles, crossing Germany before running out of fuel and crashing into a house in Belgium killing one teenager

53. Volkswagen was sued by Czechoslovakian car maker Tatra before WWII because the original Beetle was so similar to the Tatra T97. After Germany invaded Czechoslovakia in 1938, the lawsuit was canceled by the Nazis.

54. The Leica Camera Company smuggled hundreds of Jews out of Nazi Germany before the Holocaust, masquerading the Jews as employees being assigned overseas. The company helped each refugee find a job, gave each of them a Leica camera, and a monthly stipend till they found work.

55. Martin Luther King Jr. was born Michael King Jr. on January 15, 1929. In 1934, however, his father, a pastor at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, traveled to Germany and became inspired by the Protestant Reformation leader Martin Luther. As a result, King Sr. changed his own name as well as that of his 5-year-old son.

In 2011, an anti-Nazi organization called Exit distributed free t-shirts at a neo-Nazi rock concert in Germany. These shirts appeared to be neo-Nazi-themed, but after they were washed, an anti-Nazi message was revealed.

57. In 1994, a US Soldier (Sgt. Stephen Schap) in Germany decapitated his friend and brought the decapitated head (Gregory Glover) to his wife in the hospital who was pregnant with the dead man’s baby.

58. In the 13th century, in order to discover which language humans would speak naturally, Frederick II, emperor of Germany, placed 50 newborns in the care of nurses who would only feed and bathe the babies but not speak or hold them. The emperor never got an answer because all of the infants died.

59. Before the FIFA World Cup 2014 Semi-Final Match in which they lost 7-1 from Germany, Brazil hadn’t lost a single match at a home stadium in competitive matches since 1975.

60. Between 73% and 100% of all individuals with schizophrenia living in Germany between 1939 and 1945 were sterilized or killed. Today Germany does not show deviation from first world levels of schizophrenia.

Andorra declared war on Germany during WW1 but didn’t send any soldiers because they didn’t have an army. At the Treaty of Versailles, Andorra was forgotten and technically remained at war with Germany, until the two countries declared peace in 1958.

62. Germany has 15 skyscrapers, 14 of which are located in Frankfurt.

63. During WW1, Britain ran out of binoculars, so they turned to the leading manufacturer of optics to buy them: Germany. In turn, Germany bought from Britain what they most needed: rubber.

64. A 14 karat gold LEGO brick was given out in the early 1980s to employees who had worked at the Germany LEGO factory for over twenty-five years. They are valued at nearly $15,000.

65. In 1888, Friedrich Engels wrote that Germany’s next war will be a world war, “eight to ten million soldiers will massacre one another” and “the devastations of the Thirty Years’ War” will be “compressed into three or four years, and spread over the whole Continent.”

When the Romans returned from France and Germany with blonde slaves, some Roman women tried copying their look by dying their hair blond, only for it to fall out. Instead, the women cut off the slave’s hair to use them as wigs.

67. In Cologne, Germany it is common to donate your used Christmas trees to the local zoo. An elephant can eat up to 3 of these trees a day and can also use them to clean their teeth.

68. In 1921, workers at an ammonium nitrate factory in Germany tried clearing a clogged silo with dynamite. The resulting explosion killed 500 people and left 6500 homeless.

69. Pumpernickel means “devil's fart.” Originating in Germany, the bread was called that due to the digestive problems that many people experience from eating it.

70. Americans spend more money on pets yearly than Germany spends on its entire defense budget.

Hebrew essentially died between 200 and 400 CE, and was revived in 19th century Germany, now having about 9 million speakers.

72. Some Syrian rebels are now using the Sturmgwehr 44, an assault rifle produced in Nazi Germany in late WW2 and which can be worth up to $30,000 in the USA.

73. Africans in Nazi Germany had a better chance of surviving than Germans since they were excluded from the military due to their non-Aryan status but also were not segregated/incarcerated.

74. 3 men whom broke into a luxury store in Germany and ran off with $6.8M worth of jewelry. They left behind a piece of evidence, sweat. DNA analysis led to not one but two suspects- identical twins. They couldn't determine from which one. They went free.

75. In 2010, a Polish man living in Germany asked doctors to remove what he thought was a several-year-old cyst at the back of his head. However, doctors found that the “cyst” was actually a .22-caliber round lodged in his scalp. He didn’t notice it because he was drunk