💡 Interesting Facts
the German R&B band Soultans signed on with the same record label which wrote some of Elvis Presley's songs.the German prisoners of war built part of the Stade de Gerland stadium in Lyon, France, after the First World War.the German late Romantic composer Richard Wetz (pictured), in 1928, was appointed foreign member of the Prussian Academy of the Arts, alongside Igor Stravinsky.the German socialist women's activist Lore Agnes was jailed in 1914 for having called on women to oppose the war during a March 8 rally.the German Seenotdienst (early aircraft pictured) was the first organized air-sea rescue service.the German KarstadtQuelle AG is the largest department store corporation in Europe with over 100,000 employees.the German football club Dansk Gymnastik Forening Flensborg, founded in 1923, is a club of the Danish minority of Southern Schleswig.the German-language socialist newspaper Volkswille in Katowice, Poland, went from daily to weekly publication after the 1933 Nazi takeover stopped the newspaper's financial subsidies from Germany.the Catholic Church denied the German-Nicaraguan Enrique Gottel burial in a Managua cemetery because he was a Freemason.the Allies broke through the largest German entrenched position in World War One at the Battle of the Hindenburg Line.the character actor Tom Greenway, shot down as a pilot in World War II, spent more than a year in Italian and German POW camps.the Dresden Elbe Valley in Germany is only the second delisted UNESCO World Heritage Site.the genera Bergerocactus and Bergeranthus are named after Alwin Berger, a German botanist best known for his contribution to the nomenclature of succulent plants, particularly agaves and cacti.the French light cruiser Marseillaise was sabotaged by her own crew on November 27, 1942, in order to prevent the Germans from capturing the ship.the German company Jako threatened to sue the Football Association of Ireland when referee Anthony Buttimer refused to allow Sligo Rovers to wear their kit in a League of Ireland match.the hamlet of Wigratzbad in Germany was home to Marian apparitions in the early 20th century, and today houses a shrine visited by approximately 500,000 pilgrims every year.the Franconian derby between 1. FC Nuremberg and SpVgg Greuther Fürth is the most played football match in Germany with over 250 games between the two sides.the Battle of Krasny Bor was a World War II battle in which neutral Spain assisted Germany with an all volunteer infantry division.the Bienwald is a large forested area in the southern Pfalz region of Germany, near the towns of Kandel and Wörth am Rhein.the Blauhöhle in Germany's Swabian Alb is a huge cave system with more than 50-meter (164-feet) high caverns that can be accessed by diving through the Blautopf (pictured).the Zentrale Stelle (Central Office) was established in 1958 by the West German government to investigate war crimes committed outside Germany by Nazi forces.the Bonn–Oberkassel train ferry was one of six train ferries that commenced operations across the Rhine in Germany in the late 19th century.the Alsace-Lorraine Regional Party, founded in 1903, was the first Catholic political organization in the German province of Alsace-Lorraine.the stained glass windows (pictured) of Alois Plum, found in many German churches in Germany, integrate the architecture of the church's space with the liturgy.the Luxembourgian football club FV Stadt Düdelingen won the German Gauliga Mittelrhein in 1942 and went on to the German championship finals, losing 0–2 to FC Schalke 04.the Jewish mother of former German Federal Minister of Justice Gerhard Jahn died at Auschwitz.the megalithic Altendorf tomb in Hesse, Germany contains bones from at least 235 individuals from the New Stone Age.the megalithic Niedertiefenbach tomb in Hesse, Germany has at least ten discernible layers of burials from the New Stone Age.the Russo-Japanese War vintage Japanese cruiser Yakumo (pictured) was the only warship in the Imperial Japanese Navy (aside from prizes-of-war) to have been built in Germany.the 200 km/h maximum speed of the Munich-Nuremberg Express (pictured) makes it the only regional train in Germany fast enough to not impede ICE traffic.the "van" in the name of German composer Ludwig van Beethoven is a remnant of his Flemish ancestry.following the revelation of the Secret Intelligence Service radio station Skylark B in Trondheim in September 1941, eleven of the group members were sent to German death camps.early 20th century German explorers mounted many expeditions to the Ramu river in German New Guinea in the hope of finding gold.in 1843 the German missionary Hermann Mögling published the first ever newspaper in the Kannada language.in 1918 the UK hospital ships HMHS Rewa and HMHS Glenart Castle were sunk by German U-boats within two months of each other.in 1935, the uniform of the national-conservative Bismarckjugend was banned in Germany.in 1933, the German Socialist Labour Party of Poland supported the Bundist call for boycott of goods produced in Germany, in protest of the Hitler regime.during the G-8 Summit in Germany on June 7-8, Russian president Vladimir Putin offered to deploy elements of an American anti-misssile shield in Qabala Radiolocation Station in Azerbaijan instead of Poland and the Czech Republic.during his lifetime, Radu Irimescu worked as a German naval officer, Romanian Air Force pilot, banker, businessman, government minister, and diplomat to the United States.both former German Federal Minister of Labor Norbert Blüm and former Secretary of State of France Alain Vivien have been recognized with the Leipzig Human Rights Award.because of Salvatore Pincherle, German mathematicians could attend the Third International Congress of Mathematicians despite a ban imposed during World War I.both the Irish Pine and Irish Oak, which were chartered from the United States by Irish Shipping Ltd during the Second World War, were sunk by German U-boats despite their neutral status.by the time he returned to England in 1878 after collecting plants in Colombia, German plant collector Guillermo Kalbreyer had lost more than half of his collection.during World War II, the United States developed Who me?, a top secret stench weapon designed to humiliate German officers.during World War I, a British propaganda claim that Germans converted the bodies of their dead soldiers into various products, was based on a mistranslation of the German word Kadaver.in 2003, German authorities foiled a plot by a neo-Nazi group to set off a bomb at the Ohel Jakob synagogue cornerstone ceremony.in 1943 British Overseas Airways Corporation Flight 777 was shot down by German Junkers Ju 88s, killing actor Leslie Howard and leading to speculation that it was an attempt to assassinate Winston Churchill.one of the first acts of the Second World War on the continent of North America was the seizure of the German cargo ship Christoph Van Doornum by the Sheriff of Botwood.one of the international polls on the 2008 U.S. presidential election found 22 percent of German women would have an affair with Barack Obama.several countries, including Sweden and Germany have started a nuclear power phase-out, with the goal of gradually shutting down all nuclear power plants.sibling alpine skiers Ornella and Manfred Oettl Reyes are members of Peru's first team at the Winter Olympics, despite being born and living their entire lives in Germany.stained glass in Marston Bigot church in Somerset, England is from the abbey of Altenberg in Germany and depicts a scene from the early life of St Bernard.since 1978, countries including Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, and the United States have compiled government reports on groups referred to as cults.none of the more than 1000 windows in the Waldspirale residential complex (pictured) in Darmstadt, Germany are identical.most of the skeletons found at Talheim Death Pit, a mass grave in Germany dating to 5000 BC, show signs of skull trauma, and scientists have concluded that those buried there were victims of genocide.in spite of hesitations due to the growing influence of Nazism in Germany, the International Federation of Trade Unions moved its headquarters to Berlin in 1931.in order to cut costs, Olau Line re-flagged their cruiseferry Olau Hollandia to Luxembourg in January 1993, but were forced to revert the ship to German flag only a month later.in the 2009–10 Rugby-Bundesliga season, with the Rugby Club Luxembourg, a team from Luxembourg competes in the German 2nd Rugby-Bundesliga.it took two German submarines, UB-6 and UB-16, to dispatch two World War I Royal Navy recruits.medieval Liubice, the capital of Prince Henry of the Obotrites, was the predecessor to Lübeck, Germany.the Frauenfriedenskirche (pictured) at Frankfurt am Main (Germany) is an unusual expressionist church, decorated with monumental mosaics.the Free Association of German Trade Unions was the only trade union in Germany to reject the Burgfrieden, a civil truce between the socialist movement and the German state during World War I.the importance of the acorn as fodder for locally raised pigs led the German town of Kirchardt to include one on the town crest.the historic Samson Pit silver mine in the Harz Mountains of Germany was, for a long time, the deepest mine in the world.the initials of John Hathorn and his wife carved into brick on their house in Warwick, New York show the influence of Germanic building traditions.the island of Schwanenwerder in Berlin, Germany, houses a column (pictured) from the former Tuileries Palace.the large number of Baroque buildings (Castle Mainau pictured) on the Upper Swabian Baroque Route are the result of immigration to depopulated areas of Upper Swabia, Germany and the following building boom at the end of the Thirty Years' War.the large reredos above the altar in St. Martin's Church in Brighton, England, includes 20 pictures and 69 statues, all of which were carved in Oberammergau, Germany.the founder of Byzantine studies in Germany is Hieronymus Wolf who, approximately 100 years after the fall of Byzantium, began to edit and translate Byzantine literature.the first shots by the United States in World War I were fired by the Porto Rico Regiment of Infantry from El Morro Castle at a German ship in San Juan Bay, Puerto Rico.the first German U-boat sunk by the United States Navy in World War II was U-656, sunk on 1 March 1942.the fighter pilot Aleksandr Kazakov destroyed 32 German and Austro-Hungarian planes during WWI, while his formal tally of 17 is explained by the fact that only planes crashed in the Russian-held territory were officially counted.the first post-war survey of sympathy for Nazism in Germany was conducted in 1947 by the Allensbach Institute.the first Volkswagen ever built outside Germany was assembled in Ireland.the first shot fired by British Empire forces in World War I was targeted at the German ship Pfalz which was departing Melbourne, Australia as Britain declared war on Germany.the first military plane mass-produced in Germany was the Rumpler Taube in 1910.the largest group of Asian residents in Germany are Vietnamese, totalling 83,526 people as of 2004.the long-running German TV show Aktenzeichen XY... ungelöst is the only German television format to have entered the United States, where it is produced by Fox as America's Most Wanted.the song "Zwei Kleine Italiener" references the homesickness experienced by guest workers in Germany during the Wirtschaftswunder.the reconstruction of the Saalburg, Germany's most completely reconstructed Roman fort, began under Kaiser Wilhelm II.the test for enrollment at Germany's Helmut Schmidt University involves not an intelligence test, but military training and troop procedures.the well-publicized defection of German agent Erich Vermehren in early 1944 led directly to the demise of the Abwehr.two steam trains were involved in a head-on collision on the Lößnitzgrundbahn heritage railway in Saxony, Germany, on 12 September 2009.thousands of toads in Hamburg, Germany recently became mysterious exploding toads.the public reaction after the death of Prince Wilhelm of Prussia caused Adolf Hitler to issue a decree barring all members of Germany's former royal houses from service in the military.the parents of Anna Seidel, a German Sinologist and expert on Taoism, risked the death penalty by hiding a Jewish friend during World War II.the medieval Slavic Milceni tribe, ancestors of the Sorbs of Germany, are mentioned in The Song of Roland.the longest river on the island of New Guinea, the Sepik (pictured), was named the Kaiserin Augusta by German explorers in 1884, after the German Empress of the day.the only action seen by the French ironclad Montcalm during the Franco-Prussian War was the capture of a German barque.the only countries to medal at all three Nordic skiing disciplines (cross-country skiing, Nordic combined, ski jumping) at the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships 2009 were Germany, Norway, and the United States.the only remnants of Mecklenburg Castle, a medieval castle located in present-day Germany, are parts of an earthen wall (pictured).the current German Federal Minister for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth Renate Schmidt was forced to quit school at the age of seventeen because of a pregnancy.the colonial ghost town of Brunswick, North Carolina was named after Braunschweig, Germany, the birthplace of Great Britain's King George I.the SS Assyrian started life as a German merchant ship in the First World War and ended it as British merchant in the Second World War.the Söflingen Abbey in Ulm, Baden-Württemberg is the oldest nunnery of the Order of Poor Ladies in Germany.the SS Empire Advocate was seized twice by Britain—from Germany after the First World War, and then from Italy during the Second World War.the Sanssouci Picture Gallery is the oldest extant museum built for a German ruler.the Scientology Task Force of Hamburg, Germany reported on what it called brainwashing in Scientology's Rehabilitation Project Force.the Sausage Valley of WWI-era France was so named because the Germans frequently flew a sausage-shaped observation balloon above it.the decision of Pope Pius XII to appoint German apostolic administrators to occupied Poland during World War II was labelled "one of his most controversial decisions".the Nuremberg Transport Museum originally opened as a royal Bavarian railway museum in 1899 and is now the oldest railway museum in Germany.the Kommissarische Reichsregierung is a label for multiple groups and individuals in Germany and elsewhere who assert that the German Empire continues to exist in its pre-World War II borders.the Göttingen Academy of Sciences (pictured), founded in 1751 by King George II of Great Britain, is the second oldest of seven academies of sciences in Germany.the Malmédy Massacre Trial is often used in extreme right-wing German propaganda.the Mandara kingdom of West Africa was conquered by Modibo Adama of the Fulani Empire, Muhammad Ahmad of Sudan, and Germany within a single hundred year span.the Master of the Playing Cards (3 of Birds pictured) was a 15th century German engraver and the first major master in the history of printmaking.the Creeping Groundsel (pictured), a climbing succulent perennial native of South Africa, is a problem weed in New Zealand, but cultivated in parks in Spain and Germany.the St. Philomena's Church (pictured) in the city of Mysore in India was built in Neo-Gothic style drawing inspiration from the Cologne Cathedral in Germany.the Altdeutsche Tracht (example pictured), a Renaissance-influenced fashion, was popular in Germany during the last years of the Napoleonic wars as a sign of resistance against "French fashion foolishness".the Züschen tomb (pictured) and the Lohra tomb in Hesse, Germany, are prehistoric gallery graves belonging to the Late Neolithic Wartberg culture.the Jugendweihe is a secular alternative to confirmation in Germany and became a Socialist pledge in the atheist GDR.the British No. 10 (Inter-Allied) Commando unit included soldiers from different countries including Germany.the city of Swakopmund, Namibia has some of the world's best examples of German Art Deco architecture.the actions of Australian soldiers at the Battle of Epehy during World War I led to German officers in the area saying that they would not fight Australian troops.the Wild Rugby Academy, formed in 2007, aims to enable Germany to participate in the 2015 Rugby World Cup.the National Assembly, Germany's legislature from 1919 to 1920, convened in Weimar to remind the World War I Allies of Germany's cultural history such as the Weimar residents Goethe and Schiller.the Trow Ghyll skeleton, found near Clapham in the West Riding of Yorkshire in August 1947, was claimed to have been the decomposed remains of a German spy who died during the war.the Tierpark Hagenbeck zoo of Hamburg, Germany (pictured) was the first to use moats instead of cages to separate the animals from the public.the Trygg class was a class of three torpedo boats built for the Royal Norwegian Navy and that they were all sunk during World War II, two after having been captured by the German Kriegsmarine.the Wawelberg Group was a Polish special-forces unit which began the 1921 Third Silesian Uprising by blowing up seven rail bridges linking Upper Silesia with the rest of Germany.the Way of Human Rights in Nuremberg, Germany has a sculpture and engraving dedicated to each article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.athlete Gretel Bergmann left Germany for America because she was discriminated against for being Jewish, and that she refused to return to attend festivities when the Berlin-Wilmersdorf sports complex was named in her honour.at 42 meters tall, the Schlitz Christmas Candle in Schlitz, Germany, is believed to be the tallest non-wax candle in the world.cyclist Gerald Ciolek became the youngest ever German National Cycling Champion, aged just 18 in 2005.St. Clement's Church in Büsum, Germany (pictured) is furnished with items looted from Pellworm by the pirate Cord Widderich.Russian historian and scientist Vladimir N. Beneshevich was arrested on charges of spying for Germany and executed because one of his books was translated into German in 1937.Soviet fighter pilot Mikhail Devyataev and nine other POWs took over a German He 111 H22 bomber and escaped from the concentration camp on Usedom island.Anglo-German novelist Elizabeth von Arnim was a cousin to New Zealand short story writer Katherine Mansfield.Tsar Alexander II of Russia signed the Ems Ukaz, a decree banning official use of the "non-existent" Ukrainian language, whilst enjoying a spa at Bad Ems, Germany.Russian right-wing politician Nikolai Markov tried to convince Germany to contribute to a conspiracy to re-instate the House of Romanov after the post-World War I revolutions.Polish general Józef Zając held military decorations from Poland, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Austro-Hungary, and the short-lived state of Central Lithuania.Germany built two merchant submarines (pictured) in World War I to trade for valuable raw materials with the United States.Germans consume up to 300 tonnes of döner kebab each day.Germany is the European leader in Christmas tree production.Germany's lowest recorded temperature of −45.9°C (−50.6°F) was recorded at the Funtensee.pilot Victor Chapman died after being attacked by German enemies while on flight to carry oranges to a wounded friend.Heinrich Schliemann claimed to have found Priam's Treasure in the ruin of Troy and that the treasure disappeared from Germany after World War II and has never been seen again.British-American philanthropist Rhoda Pritzker reportedly wore a life preserver on her entire trans-Atlantic voyage to the United States in 1939 due to the threat of German U-boat attacks.United States Navy Rear Admiral Charles A. Curtze qualified for the 1936 Summer Olympics as a gymnast, but the State Department prohibited him from traveling to Nazi-ruled Germany.Birger Dahlerus was a Swedish businessman and friend of Hermann Göring, who made numerous trips between Germany and England in 1939 in a attempt to avert the Second World War.Bernhard Cossmann was a renowned German cellist who taught at the Moscow Conservatory and that many of his cello etudes are still used today.Charles Atangana was the first Ewondo to be baptised Catholic in German Cameroon.Corona Schröter, an 18th century German singer, composed musical settings for several works by Friedrich Schiller, as well as two dramas, hundreds of arias and duets, and an autobiography given to Johann Wolfgang Goethe, but that all of these works are now lost.David Bergelson was a Yiddish language writer, who believed that the future of Yiddish literature lay in the Soviet Union and that he moved there from Berlin when Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany, but was ultimately executed during Josef Stalin's anti-semitic campaign against "rootless cosmopolitans".DSV 78/08 Ricklingen, the oldest rugby union club in Germany, was formed under the leadership of 15 year old Ferdinand-Wilhelm Fricke in 1878.Böttcherstrasse in Bremen, Germany, is an unusual ensemble of expressionist architecture.Augustiner Bräu is Munich's only German-owned brewery.Andreas Joseph Hofmann proclaimed the first republican state in Germany on March 18, 1793."Teewurst" is a German sausage made from two parts of raw pork (and sometimes beef) and one part bacon.Anton Graf von Arco auf Valley was a German monarchist who murdered Bavarian socialist leader Kurt Eisner on a sidewalk in Munich in 1919.Antoni Szylling was captured by the Germans as a Major in the Russian Army during World War I, and was captured again by the Germans in World War II as a General of the Polish Army.Arthur Segal was prevented from exhibiting his art in Germany because of his Jewish background.Germans consume up to 300 tonnes of Döner kebab each day.Germans consume up to 300 metric tons of döner kebab each day.German bryologist Franz Stephani was the author of "one of the most notorious publications in bryology".German bass Hans Herbert Fiedler sang the role of Moses in the original 1954 production of Arnold Schoenberg's Moses und Aron.German chemist Albert Niemann became the first person to isolate cocaine in 1859.German CDU politician Karl-Josef Laumann was appointed Minister of Labor, Health and Social Affairs for North Rhine-Westphalia in 2005.German naturalist Amalie Dietrich, who spent 10 years working in Australia, was the first person to collect the highly venomous snakes known as taipans.German mathematician Friedrich Heinrich Albert Wangerin wrote an important two-volume treatise on potential theory and spherical functions in 1909 and 1921.German painter Ludwig Thiersch influenced the debate over Byzantine and Western influences in modern Greek art, and painted church frescoes in Greece, Austria, Germany, England, and Russia.Gauleiter of Tyrol and Vorarlberg Franz Hofer arranged the surrender of the troops under his command with an American sergeant, and a Jewish emigrant from Germany, Fred Mayer.the author of the term Third Reich predicted that "Germany might perish because of the Third Reich dream".U.S. Ambassador Charles E. Bohlen received the secret protocol to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which contained an understanding between Hitler and Stalin to split Central Europe, from German diplomat Hans von Herwarth.Church of Scientology International official Leisa Goodman went on a six-month mission to investigate the treatment of Scientologists in Germany.communist activist Franz Jacob organized one of the largest resistance groups in Germany during World War II.French protests caused the Russians to award the contract for the Gangut-class battleship to a Russian firm rather than the German winner of the 1908 international design contest.French Major General René Cogny, who later commanded French forces during the First Indochina War, was captured in June 1940 by the German army, and had to escape by crawling naked through a drainpipe.German physical chemist Max Volmer became head of a design bureau for the production of heavy water in the Soviet Union after the Second World War.German physicist Walter Gerlach helped prove the fact that electrons spin.German toymaker Richard Steiff's invention of a toy bear received highest honors at the 1904 Saint Louis World's Fair.German seamen forced a lesbian to go down during the First World War, and the French did the same during the Second World War.German-American inventor Philip Diehl invented the ceiling fan in 1887 using a sewing machine motor.German-born Jewish Egyptologist Käte Bosse-Griffiths published a novel in the Welsh language.German-born Henry Schwarzschild—after emigrating in 1939—was a Freedom Rider and helped found the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.German-born Guenther Podola was the last man to be hanged in Britain for killing a police officer.German sailor Max Reichpietsch, who served on the battleship SMS Friedrich der Große, was executed by firing squad in 1917 for anti-war agitation in the German Navy.German politician Käte Strobel broke a taboo in 1967 by promoting sex education with a school book and the government-sponsored film Helga.German textile artist Gunta Stölzl was the only female "master" of the Bauhaus.German record producer and journalist Uwe Nettelbeck changed the face of German rock music in the early 1970s.German traffic psychologist Karl Peglau designed the iconic East German Ampelmännchen traffic lights (pictured), one of the few GDR symbols to remain popular after reunification.German physicist Max von Laue wrote an article for Acta Crystallographica, which dealt with the absorption of x-rays under interference conditions, while in French military incarceration in 1945.German poet and playwright Klabund (pictured) was charged with treason for calling for the abdication of William II in an open letter.delay certificates issued by railway companies in Japan and Germany to passengers for tardy trains are considered valid reasons by superiors for reporting late to school or work.Deutsche Evangelische Oberschule, Cairo's oldest German school, has been running since 1873.Moorhuhn, a series of German computer games that has spawned much merchandise, a comic book series, and a TV series, began in 1999 as a whisky advertisement.Lactarius helvus, a mushroom whose smell has been likened to Maggi instant soup or fenugreek, was implicated in the poisoning of 418 people near Leipzig, Germany.The Big Blowdown, a crime novel by American author George Pelecanos, was the recipient of the International Crime Novel of the Year award in France, Germany and Japan.The Face on the Cutting-Room Floor is a whodunit written in English by German-born sexologist Ernest Borneman when he was not yet 20 years of age.Olympic pair skating champions Andrée Brunet and Pierre Brunet refused to defend their title at the 1936 Winter Olympics because Nazi Germany was hosting the Games.American Judge Herbert Jay Stern, who served on the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, presided over a jury trial in the U.S. court for Berlin, Germany, which was the subject of the book and movie Judgment in Berlin.Histria Perla was the 500th ship to receive Emergency Response Service classification from the German company Germanischer Lloyd.Das Königsprojekt was the first of three science fiction novels written by the German author Carl Amery.St. Elizabeth's Church (pictured), constructed in memory of a Russian princess, is the only Russian Orthodox church in Wiesbaden, Germany.Sparrenberg Castle in Bielefeld, Germany, was built before 1250 by the counts of Ravensberg.St. Maria ad Gradus, a former church in Cologne, Germany, was the burial site of Richeza of Lotharingia in 1063.Theo Osterkamp was the first German reconnaissance pilot to fly a land-based aircraft to England during World War I.Weingarten Abbey, a Benedictine monastery near Ravensburg, Germany, which was founded in 1056, was once one of the richest monasteries in Southern Germany.Vladimir Sukhomlinov, who was the Russian Minister of War at the outbreak of WWI, was relieved of duty amid accusations of espionage on behalf of Germany.a "witch's egg" (pictured), the immature form of the carrion-odoured common stinkhorn, is eaten in parts of France and Germany.a shrew's fiddle was used to punish women who were caught fighting or arguing in Germany and Austria, often until both women agreed to stop bickering.amateur footballer Jürgen Wilhelm scored Germany's 1983 Goal of the Year while playing for BFV Hassia Bingen in the third division Oberliga Südwest.although he was a German national, Ken Adam fought in the Royal Air Force during World War II.antique china dolls were predominantly made in Germany in the 1800s.approximately 10,000 young Germans known as the Ritchie Boys served in the United States Army in World War II helping conduct psychological warfare against Nazi Germany.as a Seattle School Board member during World War I, German-born Nathan Eckstein bowed to pressure to drop German language classes in Seattle Public Schools.archaeological finds from the German Glauberg plateau include a life-sized statue of a warrior (pictured) dating from around 500 BC.after winning a bronze medal at the 1997 World Championships in Athletics, German shot putter Stephanie Storp began playing basketball.after competing for many years on a world-class level in the 400 metres hurdles, German athlete Heike Meißner tried competing in the 800 metres.a new "dwarf" dinosaur, a sauropod named Europasaurus (pictured), was recently discovered in Northern Germany.a cousin of curling, ice stock sport, is played primarily in Germany and Austria.a real-life German alchemist named Johann Georg Faust was the inspiration for Marlowe-Goethe Faust of fictional fame.according to legend, the Teufelstritt (Devil's Footstep), in the Munich Frauenkirche in Munich, Germany, marks the spot where the devil stood when he thought that the builder had constructed a cathedral with no windows.after World War II, only 168 of 444 trams in Munich, Germany, were in operational condition.Song Du-yul, a professor of philosophy and sociology at the University of Münster in Germany, was the only South Korean to attend the 1994 funeral of North Korean leader Kim Il-sung.Sausenburg Castle (pictured) in Germany was destroyed in 1678 by the army of French Marshall Creque during the Franco-Dutch War.Helen Bright Clark was one of the first British women to sign the Open Christmas Letter which sought to extend the hand of peace "To the Women of Germany and Austria" during World War I.Hans Thomsen, the German Chargé d'Affaires in Washington, D.C. immediately prior to World War II, directed an effort to influence the foreign policy platform of the 1940 Republican National Convention.Helmut Dähne has held the official motorcycle lap record on the 20.8 km (12.9 mi) long Nordschleife track in Germany since 1988.Hema Sardesai is the only Indian singer to have won the Grand Prix award at the International Pop Song Festival in Germany.Henry Bohlen, an American Civil War Union Brigadier General who was born in Germany in 1810, was the first foreign-born Union general in the Civil War.Henri Joseph Fenet, a soldier in World War II, was awarded both the Croix de Guerre by France and the Knight's Cross by Germany.Gustav Adolf von Götzen, a German explorer and Governor of German East Africa, was the first European to set foot in Rwanda.Fortified Area Silesia were Polish fortifications constructed along the interbellum border of Poland and Germany in the area of Upper Silesia.Edward Kossoy represented about sixty thousand Jews, Roma and Poles in cases for reparations from Germany for Nazi terror.Edward Fokczyński knew that Poland had solved Germany's Enigma ciphers, but kept the secret even while being worked to death at Sachsenhausen.Erich Walter Sternberg was the first of a wave of professional musicians to flee Germany for Palestine prior to World War II.Ernst Kitzinger, a historian of Byzantine art, was forced to leave Germany in 1934 and England in 1940 because he was Jewish and German respectively.Archduke Felix of Austria was once barred from entering Austria, and he held a news conference to announce his illegal arrival the day after sneaking in from Germany in 1996.Ignace Michiels of St. Salvator's Cathedral has been the organist for the German-Flemish Reger-Chor in works such as Reger's Requiem.Joseph Wallace Oman, a future Governor of the United States Virgin Islands, was awarded a Navy Cross during World War I for commanding the seized German SS Vaterland (renamed the USS Leviathan), and delivering almost 120,000 troops to the war effort in Europe.Polar 3, the first German airplane to reach the South Pole in December 1984, was shot down by Polisario Front rebels over Western Sahara on its way home in February 1985.Philip De Witt Ginder won the Distinguished Service Cross for actions in Germany during World War II and became the youngest American general to command a combat division in the Korean War.Richard Stücklen was the longest serving member of the German Bundestag, winning election 11 times between 1949 and 1990.SMS Blücher was the last armored cruiser built by the German Imperial Navy.Hannah Böge was the first German merchant ship captured at sea by Britain in the Second World War.SM U-10 and SM U-11, which were U-10-class submarines constructed in Germany and shipped to Austria-Hungary by rail, were both commissioned into the German Imperial Navy and the Austro-Hungarian Navy during World War I.twenty out of the thirty five merchant ships of convoy SC-7 were sunk by German U-boats.Nokian Tyres, a Finnish company that designed the first winter tyre, must test its summer tyres in South Africa, Spain, and Germany because of the short summers in Finland.Madonna of the Trail is a series of monuments dedicated to the spirit of the pioneer woman in the United States? Created by German immigrant sculptor August Leimbach, 12 were placed from Maryland to California in 1928 and 1929.Ludwig Fahrenkrog was a German artist who founded one of the first neopagan religious groups, the Germanic Faith-Community, in 1907.ministeriales formed the core of the knightly class in the 15th-century Germany.Monique Serf was only ten years old when she had to go into hiding during the German occupation of France in World War II.NV Ingenieurskantoor voor Scheepsbouw was a firm created by Germany in 1922 to illegally manufacture submarines.19th century Polish general Ludwik Mierosławski led revolutionaries in Poland, Germany and Italy.