The concept of Germany as a distinct region can be traced to Julius Caesar, who referred to the area east of the Rhine as Germania, meaning the land where the Germani live. Germanic tribes prevented annexation by the Roman Empire, although the Roman provinces of Germania Superior and Germania Inferior were established along the Rhine. Following the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Franks conquered the other West Germanic peoples. When the Frankish Empire was divided in 843, the eastern part became East Francia, and later Kingdom of Germany. In 962, Otto I became the first emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.

During the High Middle Ages, the Hanseatic League, dominated by German ports, established itself along the Baltic and North Seas. The State of the Teutonic Order was created in what would become Prussia. In the Late Middle Ages, dukes, princes, and bishops gained power at the expense of the emperors. Martin Luther led the Reformation against the Catholic Church after 1517, as northern and eastern states became Protestant, while others remained Catholic. The Thirty Years' War between 1618-48 brought destruction to the Holy Roman Empire, and the Imperial Estates attained autonomy in the Peace of Westphalia, including Austria, Prussia, Bavaria and Saxony. With the Napoleonic Wars, feudalism fell and the Holy Roman Empire dissolved in 1806. Napoleon established the Confederation of the Rhine as a puppet state, and after France's defeat, the German Confederation was established. The German revolutions of 1848–1849 failed but the Industrial Revolution modernized the economy, leading to urban growth and the socialist movement. Prussia, with its capital Berlin, grew in power. German universities became world-class centers for science, while music and art flourished. The first unification of Germany was achieved under Otto von Bismarck with the formation of the German Empire in 1871. Germany joined other powers in colonial expansion.

By 1900, Germany was the dominant power on the European continent, its industry surpassed Britain's while provoking it in a naval arms race. Germany led the Central Powers in World War I, was defeated, forced to pay war reparations, and stripped of territory. The German revolution of 1918–1919 ended the empire and established the democratic Weimar Republic. In 1933, Adolf Hitler, leader of the Nazi Party, used the hardship of the Great Depression, and resentment over the terms imposed after World War I, to establish a totalitarian regime. This Nazi Germany made antisemitism central to its policies, annexed German-speaking neighbors and invaded Poland, triggering World War II. The Nazis committed a genocide, the Holocaust, which killed 11 million people, including 6 million Jews. Germany was defeated in 1945, and occupied by the Allies. German territories were split up and annexed by Poland and the Soviet Union.

Germany spent the Cold War divided into the NATO-aligned West Germany and Warsaw Pact-aligned East Germany. Germans fled from Communist areas into West Germany, which experienced economic expansion, and became the dominant economy in Europe. In 1989, the Berlin Wall was opened, and East and West Germany were reunited. Franco-German friendship became the basis for the political integration of Europe in the European Union. In 1999 Germany was a founding member of the eurozone. In the 21st century, Angela Merkel served as its first female chancellor between 2005-21. The country steered the response to the euro area crisis, transitioned to sustainable energy, and took in a million people during the 2015 European migrant crisis — which fuelled the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany.

Prehistory

Paleolithic and Neolithic ages

The discovery of the Homo heidelbergensis mandible in 1907 affirms archaic human presence in Germany 600,000 years ago. The first non-modern human fossil, the Neanderthal, was discovered in the Neander Valley in 1856. The oldest complete set of hunting weapons ever found was excavated from a mine in Schöningen: ten 200,000-year-old wooden spears. The oldest traces of modern humans in Germany were found in the cave, where 45,000-year-old remains were discovered. The remains of Paleolithic early modern human occupation uncovered in caves in the Swabian Jura, include sculptures. The 40,000-year-old Löwenmensch figurine and Venus of Hohle Fels represent the oldest uncontested human figurative art found.

Between 13,000 and 11,700 years ago, north-central Germany was part of the Ahrensburg culture. The first farmers, different from the indigenous hunter-gatherers, to migrate into Europe came from Anatolia, in the Neolithic period 10,000-8,000 years ago. Central Germany was a primary area of the Linear Pottery culture (), contemporary with the Ertebølle culture () of north Germany. Construction of Neolithic circular enclosures in Central Europe occurred in this period. The oldest traces for use of the wheel and wagon are located at a Funnelbeaker culture site dated to 3400 BC.

Bronze Age

The settlers of the Corded Ware culture (), that spread over the fertile plains of Central Europe during the Late Neolithic were of Indo-European ancestry. By the late Bronze Age, the Urnfield culture () had replaced the Bell Beaker, Unetice and Tumulus cultures, whilst the Nordic Bronze Age had developed in Scandinavia and northern Germany. The Urnfield culture was succeeded by the Hallstatt culture.

Iron Age

The Hallstatt culture was the predominant Western and Central European culture from the 12th to 8th centuries BC and during the early Iron Age (8th to 6th centuries BC). It was followed by the La Tène culture (5th to 1st centuries BC). The people who adopted these cultural characteristics in central and southern Germany are regarded as Celts. Celtic cultural centres developed during the late Bronze Age ( until 700 BC). Some, like the Heuneburg, the oldest city north of the Alps, became important cultural centres, that maintained trade routes to the Mediterranean. Beginning around 700 BC, Germanic peoples from southern Scandinavia and northern Germany expanded south and replaced the Celts.

Germanic tribes, Roman conquests, and the Migration Period Early migrations, the Suebi and the Roman Republic

The ethnogenesis of the Germanic peoples remains debated. For Averil Cameron "a steady process" occurred during the Nordic Bronze Age or Pre-Roman Iron Age. From Scandinavia and northern Germany the tribes expanded south, east and west during the 1st century BC, and encountered the Celts of Gaul, as well as Iranic, Baltic, and Slavic cultures in Central/Eastern Europe.

Evidence about the Germanic tribes comes from their encounters with the Romans, linguistic conclusions, as well as archaeological and archaeogenetic discoveries. In the 1st century BC, Roman statesman Julius Caesar erected the first known bridges across the Rhine and led a military contingent into the tribes' territories. Caesar had no contact with them as they retreated inland. By 60 BC, the Suebi tribe had conquered lands of the Gallic Aedui tribe to the west of the Rhine. Plans to populate the region with Germanic settlers from the east were opposed by Caesar, who had launched his campaign to subjugate Gaul. Caesar defeated the Suebi forces in 58 BC in the Battle of Vosges and forced them to retreat.Julius Caesar, Commentarii de Bello Gallico 1.31–53

Roman settlement of the Rhine

Augustus considered conquest beyond the Rhine and Danube not only regular foreign policy, but necessary to counter Germanic incursions into a rebellious Gaul. Forts and commercial centres were established along the rivers. Some tribes, such as the Ubii, allied with Rome and adopted Roman culture.

During the 1st century CE Roman legions conducted campaigns into Germania, north of the Upper Danube and east of the Rhine, attempting to subdue the tribes. Roman ideas of administration, taxes and a legal framework were frustrated by the absence of infrastructure. A coalition of tribes under Arminius, who was familiar with Roman tactics, defeated a large Roman force at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. Consequently, Rome resolved to permanently establish the border and refrain from advance into Germania. By AD 100 the frontier along the Rhine, Danube and Limes Germanicus was established. Several Germanic tribes lived under Roman rule south and west of the border.As described in Tacitus's Germania The provinces Germania Inferior and Germania Superior were established in 85 AD, after long campaigns as lasting military control was confined to the lands surrounding the rivers. Christianity was introduced to Roman-controlled west Germania before the Middle Ages, with Christian religious structures such as the Aula Palatina built during the reign of Constantine the Great ().

Migration Period and decline of the Western Roman Empire

Rome's Third Century Crisis coincided with the emergence of large West Germanic tribes: the Alemanni, Franks, Baiuvarii, Chatti, Saxons, Frisii, Sicambri, and Thuringi. By the 3rd century the Germanic speaking peoples began to migrate beyond the limes and the Danube frontier. Large tribes such as the Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Vandals, Burgundians, Lombards, Saxons and Franks, migrated and played their part in the fall of the Roman Empire and transformation of the old Western Roman Empire.

By the end of the 4th century the Huns invaded eastern and central Europe, establishing the Hunnic Empire. The event triggered the Migration Period. Hunnic hegemony over a vast territory in central and eastern Europe lasted until the death of Attila's son Dengizich in 469. Another pivotal moment was the Crossing of the Rhine in 406 by tribes including Vandals, Alans and Suebi who settled within the declining Western Roman Empire.

Stem duchies and marches

Stem duchies refer to the traditional territories of the Germanic tribes. The concept of such duchies survived, especially in areas which by the 9th century constituted East Francia, which included the Duchy of Bavaria, Duchy of Swabia, Duchy of Saxony. Compare:

The Salian emperors (1027–1125) retained the stem duchies. They became less relevant during the medieval period under the Hohenstaufen. Frederick Barbarossa abolished them in 1180 in favour of more numerous territorial duchies. Successive kings founded border counties or marches in the east and north.

Middle Ages Frankish Empire

The Western Roman Empire fell in 476 with the deposition of Romulus Augustus by Germanic leader Odoacer.Clover, Frank M. (1999), "A Game of Bluff: The Fate of Sicily after A.D. 476", Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, 48 (1): 235–244, JSTOR 4436542, p. 237. The Franks emerged as a tribal confederacy in the territory called Austrasia, the northeast portion of the future Kingdom of the Merovingian Franks. Austrasia comprised parts of present-day France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. The Franks absorbed former Roman territory as they spread into Gaul, beginning in 250. Clovis I of the Merovingian dynasty conquered northern Gaul in 486 and, in the Battle of Tolbiac in 496, the Alemanni tribe in Swabia, which became the Duchy of Swabia.

By 500, Clovis had united the Frankish tribes, and was proclaimed King of the Franks around 510. Clovis, unlike most Germanic rulers, was baptized Catholic instead of Arian. After Clovis' death in 511, his four sons partitioned his kingdom. During the 5th and 6th centuries the Merovingian kings expanded Frankish control over much of what is now Germany, subjugating the Thuringi and Burgundians. The Merovingians placed Francia regions under dukes, and followed imperial Roman methods to integrate conquered territories. While allowed to preserve their legal systems, the tribes were pressured to abandon Arianism.