German Culture
Germany's contributions to the world's cultural heritage are numerous, and the country is often known as das Land der Dichter und Denker (The Land of Poets and Thinkers).
Germany was the birthplace of composers such as Beethoven, Bach, Brahms, Schumann and Wagner; poets such as Goethe and Schiller as well as Heine; philosophers including Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Arthur Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger.
Famous theologians include Luther, authors including Hermann Hesse, Thomas Mann, Heinrich Böll and Grass; scientists including Johannes Kepler, Ernst Haeckel, Einstein, Born, Planck, Heisenberg, Hertz and Bunsen; and inventors and engineers such as Gutenberg, Otto, Werner von Siemens, Wernher von Braun, Daimler, Benz, Diesel and Linde.
The German language was once the lingua franca of central, eastern and northern Europe, and remains one of the most popular foreign languages taught worldwide, in Europe the second most popular after English. Many important historical figures, though not citizens of Germany in the modern sense, were nevertheless seen as Germans in the sense that they were immersed in the German culture, for example Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Franz Kafka and Stefan Zweig
Since about 1970 Germany has once again had a thriving popular culture, now increasingly being led by its new old capital Berlin and the city of Hamburg, and a self-confident music and art culture. Germany is also well known for its many opera houses.
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