100 Interesting Facts About Germany

There is a sausage restaurant in Regensburg, Germany which is in business since 900 years. That means they were selling sausages well before the Inca Empire existed and are still serving 6,000 sausages a day.

2. There was a plan to escape Nazi Germany's "inescapable" prison via a homemade glider. The runway was made of tables and it was to be launched by a falling metal bathtub filled with concrete.

3. German Chocolate Cake is named after its creator, Sam German, and in fact, has nothing to do with Germany.

4. Schaffhausen is located in a finger of Swiss territory surrounded on three sides by Germany. On 1 April 1944 Schaffhausen suffered a bombing raid by United States Army Air Forces aircraft which strayed from German airspace into neutral Switzerland due to navigation errors. About a hundred civilians were killed. The United States quickly offered four million dollars in reparations.

5. Germany installs traffic lights in sidewalks so that smartphone users don’t have to look up.

The Amber Room in the Catherine Palace of Tsarskoye Selo near Saint Petersburg is a complete chamber decoration of amber panels backed with gold leaf and mirrors. Created in the 18th century, it disappeared during World War II and was recreated in 2003. Before it was lost, the Amber Room was sometimes dubbed the "Eighth Wonder of the World" due to its singular beauty. It covered more than 55 square meters and contained over six tons of amber. The Amber Room was looted during World War II by Nazi Germany and knowledge of its whereabouts was lost in the chaos at the end of the war.

7. In 2013, unknown perpetrators stole the gilded cookie hanging in front of the Bahlsen Company in Hannover, Germany. The thieves demanded the company to send 52,000 cookies to 52 charities, but only "the ones with milk chocolate". Bahlsen agreed to the terms and the cookie was retrieved.

8. During the Christmas of 1914 (World War 1), a truce was held between Germany and the UK. They decorated their shelters, exchanged gifts across no man’s land and played a game of football between themselves.

9. Deer in the Czech Republic don't cross into Germany, following the example of parents who learned to avoid the electrified fence there during the Cold War.

10. Germany has a program targeted at pedophiles, who have yet to commit crimes. The goal is to help them find treatment because many don't want to harm others.

Engineers builded a bridge (High Rhine Bridge) between Germany and Switzerland found that when the two halves met their elevations differed by 54 cm. Germany bases sea level on the North Sea, and Switzerland by the Mediterranean; someone messed up the correction, doubling it instead of canceling it out.

12. The population of Germany is in decline. It has fallen by 2 million in the last decade.

13. Germany doesn’t recognize Scientology as a religion.

14. There is a building project (House of One) in Berlin where they want to build a Christian church, a mosque and a synagogue all in one.

15. First aid training is required to get a driver’s license in Germany, in order to ensure that in the event of an accident other drivers will be able to help.

Germany aims to abandon fossil fuels by 2050 and generate 100% of its electricity from renewable energy sources.

17. In Germany, your baby's name must be the one on a pre-approved list.

18. In 1561, there was a celestial phenomenon over Nuremberg. There was a reported incidence of a great space battle over Germany in the middle ages. It is said that there was even a crash landing outside the town.

19. Bars in the Veltins-Arena, a major football ground in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, are interconnected by a 5-kilometre (3.1 mi) long beer pipeline.

20. Hosting the 2006 World Cup caused Germany to experience a baby boom. Nine months after the football competition, the birthrate in Germany was up to 30% higher compared with the same period in the year before.

In Germany, there are fake bus stops outside many nursing homes to prevent confused senior citizens from wandering off.

22. Germany has one of the most progressive waste disposal systems in the world, in which nearly 70% of waste is recycled and most of the remainder is clearly incinerated to generate power.

23. Every autumn you can exchange chestnuts and acorns against gummy bears at the HARIBO factory in Germany because the founder was a passionate hunter and wanted to give even poor children the opportunity for some free sweets

24. In 2009, archaeologists unearthed the oldest musical instruments ever found, flutes that inhabitants of southwestern Germany laboriously carved from bone and ivory at least 35,000 years ago.

25. Germany is the only country in which the McRib is available all year round