Germany and its people

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Germany and its people

• Today The most important German people of all
  time.

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Ostendorf-Gymnasium, Lippstadt

• According to the results of a survey among our
  10th grade students, these are the most important
  German people ever

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10. Karl der Große
Charlemagne, as hes known in French and English,
was born in Rhineland in 747. He was King of the
Franks from 768 to his death. He expanded
Frankish kingdoms into a Frankish Empire that
incorporated much of Central and Western Europe.
He also conquered Italy and was crowned Imperator
Augustus by Pope Leo III. During his reign, there
was a revival of art, religion and culture under
the support of the Catholic Church, known as the
Carolingian Renaissance. Today he is regarded not
only as the founding father of both French and
German monarchies, but also as the founder of a
European identity.
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09. Ludwig van Beethoven

• Ludwig van Beethoven was born in Bonn in 1770 and
  died in Vienna in 1827. He was an important
  figure in the transitional period between the
  Classical and Romantic eras in Western classical
  music, and remains one of the most famous and
  influential composers of all time. He moved to
  Vienna, Austria, in his early twenties and
  settled there, studying with Joseph Haydn and
  quickly gaining a reputation as a virtuoso
  pianist. Beethoven's hearing gradually
  deteriorated beginning in his twenties, yet he
  continued to compose masterpieces, and to conduct
  and perform, even after he was completely deaf.

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08. Jürgen Klinsmann

• Born in Göppingen, 1964, Klinsmann, also known
  as Klinsi, was a very successful football
  player. He played as a striker for Stuttgart,
  Inter Milan, Monaco, Tottenham Hotspur and Bayern
  München, among other European teams. He also
  played for the German National Team, with whom he
  won the World Cup of 1990 and the Euro Cup of
  1996. After retiring, he became a trainer and his
  biggest success so far has been coaching the
  German Team during the last World Cup, which took
  place in 2006 in Germany. Against all
  predictions, Germany ended up in the third
  position and Klinsmann gained recognition among
  his fellow countrymen. He will probably coach
  Bayern München in the next season.

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07. Rudi Völler

• Rudi Völler was born in 1960 in Hanau. Known as
  Tante Käthe (Aunt Kate) because of his haircut,
  he was the striker of Werder Bremen, AS Rome,
  Olympique Marseille (with whom he won the
  European Cup of 1993) and Bayer Leverkusen. He
  also played 90 games with the German National
  Team, with whom he became World Champion in 1990.
  Later on, he became the coach of the National
  Team, achieving the second position in the 2002
  World Championship celebrated in Korea and Japan.
  Nowadays, he works as Bayer Leverkusens manager.

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06. Wolfgang Petry

• Wolfgang Petry was born in 1951 in Cologne. He
  is a famous German Schlager singer. Schlager is a
  style of popular music which consists of highly
  sentimental ballads with a simple and catchy
  melody. It was in vogue in the 70s but nowadays
  there has been a revival of this kind of music in
  Germany. Petry has recorded more than 40 albums
  from the seventies to the present and he has been
  awarded several national prizes for his work.

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05. Pope Benedict XVI

• Josef Ratzinger was born in 1927 in Marktl,
  Bavaria. He is a well-known Roman Catholic
  theologian and a prolific author, a defender of
  traditional Catholic doctrine and values.
• He became the 265th Pope on 19th April 2005, at
  the age of 78, after a lifelong distinguished and
  successful career. He chose the name of Benedict,
  which in Latin means the blessed in honour of
  both Benedict XV and Saint Benedict of Nursia

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04. Konrad Adenauer

• Konrad Hermann Josef Adenauer was born in
  Cologne in 1876. His political career spanned
  sixty years, from 1906 to 1966. As a politician,
  he lived the two big wars, the German economic
  miracle and the Cold War. After the 2nd World
  War, he founded the CDU (Christian Democratic
  Union), helped to draft the constitution of West
  Germany in 1949 and was elected the first
  Chancellor of the new Federal Republic of
  Germany. He held this position from 1949 to 1963.
  
• His main achievements were the establishment of
  a stable democracy in Germany, the reconciliation
  with France and the integration of Germany in the
  Euro-Atlantic community (NATO and the
  Organisation for European Economic Cooperation).
  He laid the groundwork for the Western world to
  trust Germany again.

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03. Heidi Klum

• Heidi Klum was born in Bergisch Gladbach in
  1973. She is a supermodel, an actress, a TV
  presenter, a fashion designer, a television
  producer and a singer. She has been on the cover
  of all the well-known fashion magazines (Elle,
  Vogue, Marie Claire) she has appeared in at
  least 5 movies (for example 54) and several TV
  shows (including Sex and the City) she has
  designed her own clothing lines she has released
  a single singing alone and a duet singing with
  her husband Seal. Nowadays she hostesses the
  German reality show Germanys next Top Model
  and she also produces it.

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02. Angela Merkel

• Angela Merkel was born in Hamburg in 1954.
  Merkel has been the chairwoman of the Christian
  Democratic Union CDU since 9 April 2000, and
  Chairwoman of the CDU-CSU parliamentary party
  group from 2002 to 2005. In the elections of
  2005, she was elected as Chancellor of Germany.
  She leads a Grand coalition with the Social
  Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), as the CDU
  didnt get enough votes to govern on its own.
  Merkel is the first woman to assume the
  chancellery of reunited Germany and the first
  woman to lead Germany since it became a modern
  nation-state in 1871. In these two years of
  Government she has developed some economic
  reforms and her rates of popularity are quite
  high her job as chancellor has been approved by
  most Germans.

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01. Albert Einstein

• Considered to be the greatest scientist of the
  twentieth century and one of the supreme
  intellects of all time, Albert Einstein was born
  in Ulm in 1879. He was a theoretical physicist.
  He is best known for his theory of relativity. He
  also discovered the law of the photoelectric
  effect, for which he received the 1921 Nobel
  Prize in Physics. His many contributions to
  science, with more than fifty scientific papers
  published, gained him the admiration and
  recognition of all the physics community.
  Nowadays Einstein has become synonymous for
  genius, in popular culture.