ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a brief historical background and a description of major events in Germany. It also provides basic political, economic, and social data arranged in the following categories: polity, economy, population, purchasing power parities, life expectancy, ethnic groups, capital, political rights, civil liberties, and status. The chapter discusses the progress and decline of political rights and civil liberties in Germany. Germans can change their government democratically; the next federal elections are scheduled for the fall of 2002. The German press and broadcast media are free and independent, offering pluralistic views. The Basic Law gives ethnic Germans entering the country unrestricted citizenship immediately upon application. Parliament passed a law in 1999 granting automatic citizenship to the children born in Germany to foreign immigrants. Germany has no antidiscrimination law to protect immigrants, and even ethnic German immigrants face hostility from citizens, particularly in the east, who attribute the country's social and economic woes to immigration.
