Mr. Neubauer, a member of The Friedrich Ebert Foundation and a civil rights activist, is studying economy and development and has a BA in philosophy and Mr. David Gilbert the student of computer sciences.
Their presentation Started by a slide on what is Germany famous for, introducing different German famous products indicating both quality and efficiency of German industries. They underlined that that German people are well known for their discipline and neat way of dressing. They presented Germany in five categories including geography and population, culture, religion, political system, economy.
They noted that Germany as the capital of Europe is one of the most populated countries in the continent especially since the arrival of refugees. They assume that Germany has faced change of culture and the culture of change. Noting that Germany is a “cultural nation” and not a geographic nation, they said German culture has been influenced by different countries in Europe particularly its neighboring countries. They called Kant, Goethe, Schiller, Beethoven, Bach, and Wagner as traditional features of German culture. They also discussed distribution of religion in the country, naming Christianity as the dominated religion. They underlined that Germany is considered the nation of technology because of its powerful steel industry, mechanic engineering, precision engineering, civil engineering, pharmaceutical industry, chemistry and agricultural technology.
Germany and its economic and political system became the main topics of the discussion. Regarding the economy, Germany has the first place of GDP in EU and the fourth place in worldwide while holding the third place in import and export, however it lacks natural resources. Concerning the political system, they underlined that Germany has a federal system and the government is the part of parliament. There is the separation of power to executive, legislative and judicial branches. They also introduced main political parties of Germany as Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU), Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU), Social Democratic Party of Germany (SDP), The Left (Die Linke), Alliance ’90/The Greens (Grune), Alternative for Germany (AfD), Pirate Party Germany (PIRATEN) and Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU). They underlined that after refugee crisis in EU, a stream of extremism and Neo-Nazi thoughts has appeared and unfortunately was welcomed by certain groups of people.
Noting that there is no obligatory military service since 2011, they emphasized that there are concerns about country’s security, yet 3600 German are engaged in active operations in different alliances such as NATO. They believed that Germany is the peaceful country as it has objected nuclear weapons since 1957, however some of its weaponry in NATO bases have the capability of carrying nuclear warheads.