Germany - 100 Interesting facts

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1. 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.

6. 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.

11. 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.

16. 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.

21. 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

26. There is a water bridge across the river Elbe in Germany. It is 1km long, 34m wide and allows cargo ships to cross the river.

27. In Germany, Father’s Day is celebrated by the group of men going hiking with one or more smaller wagons filled with wine or beer and traditional regional food. Many use this day to get drunk, and alcohol-related traffic accidents multiply by three on this day.

28. There is a water park (Therme Erding) in Germany that has banned women from using an extreme water slide because it has caused genital injury to 6 women.

29. The seal “made in Germany” was created by the British Parliament in 1887 to warn consumers that a product was of poor quality.

30. There is a suspended monorail (Wuppertal Suspension Railway) in Germany that was built in 1897 and still moves 25 million passengers annually.

31. Burma-Shave once offered a free trip to Mars in exchange for 900 empty Burma-Shave jars. One man (Arliss French) duly collected 900 jars and was sent to Moers, Germany (they pronounced "Mars" instead of Moers).

32. Franz Stigler, a German ace fighter pilot who risked his life to spare and then save the lives of 9 Americans by escorting their injured B-17 bomber out of Germany. The incident would later be called "the most incredible encounter between enemies in World War II."

33. A man named Timothy Ray Brown was cured of HIV in Germany via a bone marrow transplant from a donor whose gene mutation made him immune to HIV. That gene is relatively common in Northern Europe. Researchers have speculated that the gene is the result of natural selection during diseases similar to smallpox or Black Death.

34. The city of Hamburg, Germany banned K-Cups after deeming them "environmentally harmful"

35. Under NATO nuclear weapons sharing, the United States has provided nuclear weapons for Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey to deploy and store. Since all U.S. nuclear weapons are protected with Permissive Action Links, the host states cannot arm the bombs without authorization codes from the United States Air Force.

36. In 2003, PETA offered $15000 to the city of Hamburg, Germany to change its name to Veggieburg

37. The Pennsylvania Dutch aren’t actually Dutch, they are German. Upon arrival, they were saying “Deutsch” which is German for, well, German. Germany in their native language is “Deutschland.” English speaking Americans just assumed they were saying “Dutch.”

38. There is a population of radioactive wild boars in Germany, caused by Chernobyl disaster and their number is rising.

39. During a 2012 study done in eastern Germany, the researchers could not find a single person under the age of 28 who believed in God.

40. When a Russian man's family (Vitaly Kaloyev's family) died in a 2002 plane crash over Germany, he tracked down the air traffic controller (Peter Nielsen). He felt that he was responsible and murdered him in front of his family. For this, he spent 3 years in a Swiss prison, then returned home and was appointed as a deputy to a government ministry.

41. In Germany, when a kid becomes an adult at age 18, it can get rid of all its debt by offering its debtors everthing its owns at that point. The young adult is relieved from all other debts they can't pay back so that no young adult has to face a life in debt for things they did as teenager.

42. Actor Thomas Kretschmann, who appeared in King Kong and The Pianist, made a month-long trek from East to West Germany to escape communism when he was 19. He crossed 4 borders with only a passport and the equivalent of $100 and lost part of his finger to frostbite

43. Since Costa Rica was not at the Treaty of Versailles, they have been at war with Germany since WWI, and are technically still at war.

44. After WWII, the CIA recruited Nazi war criminals, who had worked on mind control/brainwashing techniques in Germany, to assist them with their own mind control experiments on unwitting US citizens.

45. In medieval Germany, married couples could legally settle their disputes by fighting a Marital Duel. To even the field, the man had to fight from inside a hole with one arm tied behind his back. The woman was free to move and was armed with a sack filled with rocks.

46. Throughout the 1930s, Hollywood allowed the German government to censor films in the U.S. and around the world that were unflattering towards Germany or the Nazis.

47. East and West Germany division can still be seen from space, each side using different types of light bulbs.

48. There is a mushroom (Gyromitra esculenta) that looks like a brain and so dangerous to eat that Switzerland and Germany prohibit it to be sold, while some others regard it as a delicacy.

49. In 2010, an elderly man named Cornelius Gurlitt in Germany was investigated for having large sums of cash and since he was unemployed and with no obvious means of income, in September 2011 the prosecutor obtained a warrant to investigate his small flat in Schwabing, Munich. In late February 2012, when checking the premises, they discovered more than a thousand pieces of art, with a present estimated value of up to €50 million. The artworks were suspected of being looted by the Nazis around World War II.

50. In 2005, a TV show piloted in Germany called Sperm Race. Twelve male competitors donated their sperm to be sent to a lab in Cologne. At the lab, three doctors then observed the sperm as they “raced” toward an egg with a bit of chemical encouragement. The man with the fastest sperm won a new red Porsche, but the race never aired on TV.

51. 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.

56. 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.

61. 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.”

66. 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.

71. 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

76. There are hundreds of thousands of unexploded Allied bombs in Germany. An average of 15 bombs is discovered daily.

77. In 1981, a tenant was evicted in Germany after spreading Surströmming (fermented Baltic Sea herring) brine in the stairway. The landlord was taken to court, where he brought a can of Surströmming as evidence. After being opened, the court unanimously ruled in his favor because of the smell.

78. In Germany (and other parts of Europe) there are brass plaques set on the sidewalks in front of the former homes of people who fell victim to German Nazism.

79. Albert Einstein was among 5,000 plus individuals who signed a petition to overturn Germany’s ban on Homosexuality.

80. During World War II, USA sent former major league baseball catcher and OSS agent Moe Berg to attend a lecture from Dr. Heisenberg. Berg was armed with a pistol and had orders to shoot Dr. Heisenberg if his lecture indicated that Germany was close to completing an atomic bomb.

81. In the 1960s, Germany decided to retroactively pay pensions to African soldiers that served in the imperial colonial army. Claimants were handed a broom and ordered in German to perform the manual of arms. Not one of them failed the test.

82. The streets in Northeast Minneapolis were named after the U.S. presidents in order of their election to help new residents from Poland, Ukraine, Lebanon, and Germany prepare for citizenship exams.

83. In Hamburg, Germany, there is a Food Additives Museum dedicated to the emulsifiers, stabilizers, dyes, thickeners, preservatives, and flavorings in our everyday foods. The exhibit explains the history and current landscape of food additives in an informational rather than political way.

84. Many of the actors who played the Nazis in Casablanca (1942) were, in fact, German Jews who had escaped from Nazi Germany.

85. There is a 500-year-old Beer Purity Law still in effect in Germany. It was decreed on April 23, 1516, by Munich’s Duke Wilhelm, protecting the country’s beer drinkers from contaminants, chemicals and any other additives that unsavory merchants might have thought of adding.

87. Nazi Germany stockpiled huge quantities of nerve gas during World War II. It was ultimately never used since Hitler was told (incorrectly) that the Allies had their own supply of nerve agents.

87. East Germany created its own cola drink. Vita-Cola’s sales almost disappeared after the fall of the Berlin Wall brought Coke and Pepsi into the East. It is still the most popular cola in Thuringia, making the German state one of the few places in the world where Coca-Cola is not the leader.

88. Germany passed a legislation in 1985 that made it illegal to deny the existence of the Holocaust

89. Syphilis had been called the "French disease" in Italy, Poland and Germany, the "Italian disease" in France, the "Spanish disease" by the Dutch, the "Polish disease" by Russians, and the Turks called it the "Christian disease."

90. In 1953, Johnny Cash, while working as an Air Force radio operator in Germany intercepting Soviet broadcasts, was the first American to report the death of Joseph Stalin.

91. In 1913, Argentina was the world's 10th wealthiest nation per capita, the country's income per head was on a par with that of France and Germany, and far ahead of Italy or Spain.

92. Many European zoologists believed that birds hibernated under the sea or flew to the moon in winter until 1822, when a stork was found in Germany with an arrow from Central Africa embedded in its neck, providing the first clear evidence of migration.

93. In 2013, a bank worker in Germany fell asleep on his keyboard, with the number ‘2’ key pressed, causing him to transfer 222,222,222 euros on a transfer that should've been worth only 62 euros. A co-worker was later sacked for not spotting the error.

94. Charlie Chaplin put up the 2013 equivalent of 25million USD of his own money to finance his anti-Nazi film The Great Dictator while the US was still at peace with Nazi Germany.

95. When faced with long-range rockets from Nazi Germany, the British used their double agents to make the Nazis think the missiles were falling short. The Nazis then hit areas miles over their targets for much of 1944.

96. George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany and the family was later sued by Auschwitz survivors.

97. Germany builds about twice as much cars as the U.S. while paying its workers twice as much

98. A woman named Veronica Seider from Germany, had vision 20 times better than an average person. She is able to identify people from more than a mile away.

99. In 1140, when the Weibertreu Castle of Germany was defeated by King Konrad III, the women of the castle were granted free departure and allowed to take what they could carry. Thinking quickly, the women carried the men on their backs. The king kept his word and let the men live

100. Fanta21 was invented in Nazi Germany because of the difficulty faced by the company in importing Coca-Cola syrup during the war.

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