1. German Contributions to the World
Past and Present
Prof. Albrecht Classen
University of Arizona

2. Germany – a small country
With some of the greatest contributions to world culture, literature, the arts, technology, medicine, philosophy, and religion

3. Charlemagne and the Rise of Europe
First Germanic Empire north of the Alps, after the fall of the Roman Empire (8th century)

4. German and English English is a Germanic language!
Anglo-Saxon as the basis of modern English (with strong Anglo-Norman superstructure since 1066)

5. Gun Powder 14th century: Berthold Schwartz (perhaps a legend)
Radical transformation of all military operations
Brought an end to medieval knighthood
(ok, the first were the Chinese, then the Arabs, in late antiquity the Byzantines with their Greek Fire, and in the 13th c. Roger Bacon)

6. Printing Press: Johann Gutenberg
Gutenberg invented the movable type in Mainz ca. 1450

7. Computer
Konrad Zuse: first construction in 1936, 1941 the first functioning computer

8. Protestant Reformation: Martin Luther
99 theses, Wittenberg, 1517
September Testament, 1522
Old Testament, 1532

9. Albrecht Dürer
Greatest sixteenth-century artist, at least north of the Alps

10. Vacuum
Otto von Guericke 1663 (Mayor of Magdeburg), discovers the principle of vacuum

11. Classical and Romantic Literature
Goethe and Schiller
Heine
Hölderlin
Heinrich von Kleist
Eichendorff
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm

12. 19th-21st Century German literature
Theodor Storm
Conrad Ferdinand Meyer
Theodor von Fontane
Thomas Mann
Bertolt Brecht
Hermann Hesse
Nelly Sachs
Heinrich Böll
Günter Grass
Herta Müller

13. Marxism
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

14. German Music Bach Händel Telemann Pachelbel Mozart Haydn van Beethoven
Hindemith
Stockhausen

15. Chemistry: Justus von Liebig
Agricultural and biological chemistry

16. Telephone
Philipp Reis 1859

17. Dynamo
Werner von Siemens, 1866

18. The automobile
Daimler Benz
Porsche
Audi VW
Opel

19. Blue Jeans
Levi Straus, 1873

20. Diesel engine
1890 Rudolf Diesel

21. Street Car
Werner von Siemens 1881

22. Tea bag
Adolf Rambold, 1929

23. Nuclear Physics
Otto Hahn 1938

24. Relativity Theory
Albert Einstein 1905

25. X-ray Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen 1895
In modern German we use the verb “röntgen” for ‘to x-ray’

26. Aspirin
FELIX HOFFMANN (working for the company Bayer)
1897

27. Bacteriology and Virology
Robert Koch, 1882: discovery of the tuberculosis bacillus
Foundation of modern medical and biological research

28. Spark Plug
Robert Bosch 1902

29. Beer
Purity Law issued by the Bavarian Dukes on April 23, 1516

30. Orthopedic leg
1997 Otto Bock introduces the C-Leg

31. Tooth paste
OTTOMAR HEINSIUS VON MAYENBURG 1907

32. Chip card
Jürgen Dethloff and Helmut Gröttrup: 1968 patent, 1977 micro processing card
Since then the world of credit cards and all other kinds of cards based on chip memory

33. Screw Anchor, or raw plug/dowel
1958 Artur Fischer

34. Jet engine
Hans von Ohain 1936

35. Television
Manfred von Ardenne, 1930
1935 first regular tv program

36. Gliding plane Otto von Lilienthal 1894
This inspired the Brothers Wright to experiment with their first motorized planes

37. Light bulb
Heinrich Göbel 1854

38. Homeopathic medicine
Samuel von Hahnemann, 1797

39. Helicopter
Heinrich Focke, 1936

40. Coffee filter Melitta Benz, 1908
She was just tired of handling all the waste coffee in her drink and used, as a stop-gap measure, her son’s ink-pad paper from school. Voila, the coffee filter was invented.

41. Air bag
1971 Mercedes Benz develops the first effective air bag

42. Modern refrigerator Company Foron 1993: Freon free refrigeration
This has revolutionized the global battle against the depletion of the ozone layer

43. Motorcycle
Wilhelm Maybach and Gottlieb Daimler 1885

44. MP3 player
1993; Fraunhofer-Institute

45. Mouth Organ, or chromatic harmonica
Christian Friedrich Burschmann, 1821

46. Wood based paper
Friedrich Gottlieb Keller 1843

47. Birth control pill
Schering company, 1961

48. Record player
Emil Berliner 1887

49. Scanner
Rudolf Hell 1951

50. Let’s not forget all the other countries in the world
Let’s not forget the countless other inventions from all over the world.

51. Nevertheless, Germany
has been and continues to be an amazing country and people!
It has contributed to a disproportionate degree to the cultural and technological development of this world!

52. Thank you very much! For further information, contact me at: