The oldest works of art known to mankind have been found in six caves in the Lone and Eight Valleys in the Swabian Alb near Ulm. They are between 35,000 and 43,000 years old.
They were created by modern man, who came to Central Europe along the Danube more than 40,000 years ago. It was a non-sessile hunter-gatherer society. Glaciers covered northern Europe, Berlin, Lake Constance and reached as far as the Danube, and Neanderthals lived alongside Homo Sapiens.
The whole series can be found here under Ice Age Caves.

The almost seven-metre-high Gollenstein is one of the largest “menhirs” in Central Europe. It has been standing in Blieskastel in the Saarland for about 5,000 years and is thus older than the famous English Stonehenge.

Of all the epochs in human history, the Stone Age was one of the longest. It began 2.5 million years ago and ended in Europe around 4,200 years ago, when a new material for making tools became established: bronze.

If you were to translate the duration of the Stone Age into a year, it would have lasted more than 364 days and the 4000 years after that about 15 hours. In the “Palaeolithic” (the Old Stone Age), humans spent their time as hunters and gatherers. In the “Neolithic” (the New Stone Age) 11,000 years ago, he learned to breed plants and animals and to make himself independent of hunting and gathering luck. This is where changes occurred that still shape our lives today: Religious rites and ideas emerged, the wheel was invented, man discovered his creativity and became an artist, agriculture and animal husbandry changed everyday life, man gradually became sedentary and began to change his environment.

This is what a Bronze Age settlement on the water probably looked like around 3000 years ago. Other finds and reconstructions from the Stone and Bronze Ages are presented in the archaeological open-air museum. The first reconstructions were opened to the public as early as 1922.

In the 8th century BC, the culture, rituals, crafts and art of several tribes in southern Germany and neighbouring regions changed. Many communities formed the first people known by name in Central Europe: the Celts.

Early Celtic burial mounds at Burrenhof between Grabenstetten, Hülben and Erkenbrechtsweiler on the plateau of the Swabian Alb. Not far from there is the Heidengraben, the largest Celtic settlement (oppidum) in Central Europe.
The rulers of the Celts built enormous mounds and settlements. When the mysterious civilisation merged with the Roman one at the turn of the century, almost nothing was left behind. For the tribes left behind hardly any inscriptions and no works of history. Only the soil preserved their heritage. Click here for the detailed work on the Celts.

The lake exerted a mystical attraction on the Germanic tribes. They used it as early as the 6th century BC as a place to meet the gods. Archaeologists found round altars made of hazel rods with wooden images of gods on the shore. Bone finds of animals but also humans testify to the sacrificial cult.

The route of the Roman Agrippa road in Rosenthal ran down the steep southern slope into the valley of the Urft – traces of the road can still be seen today.

The wooden houses of Haithabu near Schleswig are reminiscent of the Vikings. 1000 years ago, they made the town on the Schlei the most important trading centre in Northern Europe and the starting point for their conquests.

Charlemagne built Aachen into the centre of his vast empire, gathered scholars from all over Europe at the court school and was buried in what is now the cathedral.
From then on, all German kings in the Middle Ages had themselves crowned in the place of their father.
Because the city symbolises the Christian Occident that spans the nations as well as the reconciliation with neighbouring countries after the Second World War, it is considered the cradle of European integration.

Collegiate church on the Schlossberg. It belonged to the favourite palace of the Saxon Otto I. 150 years after Charlemagne, he laid the foundations for the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. Both emperors moved with their court like nomads from one palace to the next.

The place of execution has stood on a hill outside Beerfelden in the Odenwald since 1597. Before the modern state monopolised jurisdiction, each sovereign exercised his own jurisdiction.

From 1694 onwards, Augustus the Strong began to develop Dresden into a prime example of absolutist splendour. With success. Dresden rose to become a dazzling metropolis that attracted artists from all over Europe.

In 1832, tens of thousands marched to Hambach Castle with black-red-gold flags and demanded a “united fatherland” and a “constitution” with freedom of the press, freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. Forty years later, small-scale statehood was overcome. However, the new system emerged from “above” and under warlike auspices.

From the former east of the city, visitors look through the cracks in the Hinterland Wall at the death strip: a sandy area consisting of a signal fence, the Kolonnenweg (column path) illuminated by lanterns, and the actual Wall, a concrete wall made of industrially manufactured L-shaped elements, and behind it the Documentation Centre in the former west.

The protests against the construction of Runway West at Frankfurt Airport symbolise the emergence of the West German environmental movement.
The Hessian state government promoted the large-scale project with jobs and economic growth. However, 350 hectares of forest had to be cleared for the construction and many citizens across all parties and social classes did not agree. A new culture of protest emerged. Not only revolting students, but also conservatives, workers and employees took to the streets and demonstrated against the government, which was unprecedented.

Even today, the brick buildings of many northern German cities bear witness to the influence and wealth of the Hanseatic merchants who dominated long-distance trade from Novgorod to London between the 13th and 16th centuries. Around 200 cities belonged to their confederation at times, and even kings feared the strength of this economic superpower. Lübeck was the most powerful of all the Hanseatic cities. They protected their prosperity with fortifications like the Holsten Gate.

The city of the three rivers was a hub on the Golden Trail. The trade route connected the Danube with Bohemia in the early Middle Ages.

Medieval Landwehr (border) on the Kahler Buckel in the Odenwald. The border fortification consisted of an earthen wall with hedges, thorn bushes and trees that grew together to form an impenetrable thicket. In addition to protection against raids, the Landwehr also served to control trade flows and prevented customs posts from being surrounded.

The free imperial city of Dinkelsbühl lay at the crossroads of two important trade routes from the Baltic Sea to Italy and from Worms to Prague and Krakow.
Clothiers, scythe and sickle smiths also fuelled an upswing from the 14th century onwards, to which Dinkelsbühl owes its old town, which is still completely preserved today.

Between 1883 and 1927, the most modern warehouse district of all time was built on a group of islands in the Elbe. With its neo-Gothic brick buildings, bridges and canals, it is considered the largest uniformly built warehouse ensemble in the world.
The warehouses were built on oak piles and each had access from the water (Fleet) and on land to the street. The interior of the warehouse could be adapted to the merchandise on each of its five floors. General cargo, coffee, tea and spices were stored.

Containers brought about a revolution in international transport. As the gateway to the oceans, Hamburg also reinvented itself in the age of globalisation. The business made Hamburg the second largest port in Europe.

The eastern towers of Speyer Cathedral rise more than 71 metres into the sky. Construction work on the monumental place of worship began in 1030. To this day, it is the largest Romanesque church in the world.

In the midst of a wildly romantic park, the remains of walls and columns bear witness to Hildegard von Bingen’s place of work. In 1112, at the age of eight, she moved with her mentor Jutta von Sponheim into the women’s hermitage of the Augustinian monastery on the Disibodenberg. When Jutta died 24 years later, the highly educated Hildegard was chosen as the convent’s new teacher. Her career as a papally recognised theologian and doctor began.

A typical medieval monastery complex has been preserved in the middle of the Schönbuch Nature Park near Tübingen. Until 1952, the state parliament of Baden-Württemberg met in the former Cistercian monastery.

A former vineyard in the Hohenlohe district served as the final resting place of the Jewish community of Hohebach from 1852. At that time, it had around 180 members. After their synagogue was destroyed in 1938 and the last persecuted members were deported by the Nazis in 1940, only the gravestones remain as reminders of the once large Jewish community, even in the countryside.

Today, cyclists are on a country lane near Telgte on the Peace Route. Back then, riders galloped back and forth here between Münster and Osnabrück with important information. The Emperor had set up a special imperial postal line between the two negotiating locations for the reliable exchange of news.

The quiet Franconian town near Ansbach is the birthplace of Wolfram von Eschenbach. The medieval minnesinger and great poet created Parzival by 1210. The epic verse novel about the search for the Holy Grail inspired Richard Wagner to write an opera.

Places of poetry can be so beautiful. On the Schillerhöhe in Marbach, a large area is dedicated to it. From the monument, Friedrich Schiller, the town’s great son, looks down on the Schiller National Museum. It towers over the Neckar like a castle.
To the left, David Chipperfield’s Museum of Modern Literature with its reduced forms seems downright modest – in contrast to its magnificent content. Visitors can view original manuscripts of 20th and 21st century literature, such as Döblin’s Berlin Alexanderplatz or Kafka’s The Trial.
The German Literature Archive Marbach on the right side of the park, on the other hand, attracts scholars from all over the world with its 1400 writers’ estates and is involved in international research projects.

The steep rock at the bend in the Rhine near St. Goar has been the undoing of many sailors. The site of the accident has always inspired the imagination of storytellers. In 1801, Clemens von Brentano was the first poet to sing of the mountain and the beautiful enchantress who dwells on it in a ballad. Heinrich Heine, however, made the Loreley famous with his song set to music by Friedrich Silcher.

The documenta started in 1955 to rehabilitate the previously ostracised artists and soon became the most important exhibition for contemporary art worldwide. Parthenon of Books by Marta Minujin and the exhibition hall Fridericianum at documenta 14.

The church tower of St. Michael stands high above the half-timbered houses of Zeil am Main. In the 17th century, over 400 people were burned as witches and devil worshippers in this tranquil wine town. The town tower on the left served as a dungeon and torture site. Today, a documentation centre in the witch tower recalls the excesses.

The Monument to the Battle of the Nations shines in the distance like a graveyard light. Between 15 and 18 October 1813, Emperor Napoleon and his troops fought at the gates of the city against a coalition of Prussia, Russia, Austria, England and Sweden.
At the end of the battle, Napoleon lost control of Europe. Of the 600,000 soldiers, more than 90,000 died in the fighting and several thousand more in the days and weeks that followed.
Napoleon’s troops included Frenchmen as well as many soldiers from his satellite states consisting of Saxons, Poles, Badeners, Württembergers, Hessians, Bavarians, Westphalians and Italians.
The Battle of Leipzig was the largest and bloodiest battle in world history to date.

Groups of pupils stand on the highest point of the roll call square of Buchenwald concentration camp, just as the SS commanders once did. 20,000 prisoners had to line up here for roll call every morning and every evening after hours of forced labour.

Nuremberg has converted the north wing of the monstrous Nazi complex into a documentation centre – one of the best contemporary history museums in the country. Nowhere is the construction megalomania of the National Socialists still as evident today as on the former Nazi party conference grounds in Nuremberg. The Congress Hall was deliberately intended to be reminiscent of the Colosseum in Rome and to provide space for 50,000 people. However, the building was never completed and is only half as high as planned.

A blasted bunker on the Ochsenkopfweg near Raffelsbrand in the northern Eifel is a reminder of the battle in the Hürtgenwald between the Wehrmacht and the US Army.
From October 1944 to February 1945, a bitter war of position took place in the forests – one of the most costly and cruel battles in the history of the US Army. It was the longest battle in the Second World War on German territory.
Ernest Hemingway was there as a war correspondent and processed the horror of the fighting in the novel “Across the River and into the Woods”.

Battle for the Seelow Heights. Two rainbows end in the Oderbruch, where tens of thousands of Russians and Germans shed their blood in the battle for Berlin. The advance of the Red Army led to fierce battles with the Wehrmacht from 16 to 19 April 1945. The result was the largest battlefield on German soil at the end of the Second World War. Even today, traces and relics of the fighting can be found in many places in the Oderbruch.

The Georg Elser sculpture by the artist Friedrich Frankowitsch commemorates the failed Hitler assassin of 8 November 1939 at Königsbronn railway station.
In autumn 1938, Elser decided to eliminate the National Socialist leadership by a bomb attack in the Bürgerbräukeller in Munich in order to prevent the impending war. The bomb detonated as planned, but Hitler and his entourage had left the place earlier than planned. Only thirteen minutes were missing.
Georg Elser himself was arrested in Constance on the night of 8 November 1939 as he tried to leave for Switzerland. He was first held in Sachsenhausen concentration camp and then in Dachau concentration camp as a “special prisoner of the Führer” and was murdered shortly before the end of the war. In post-war Germany, his foresight and courage were concealed for decades and remained unappreciated for a long time.

An open-air museum with the Wall and watchtowers in Mödlareuth recalls the history of the divided village until German reunification. The border ran right through the middle of their “little Berlin”.

The Kaiserstuhl is mainly covered by a layer of loess, formed by drifts of Rhine mud during the last ice age. Viticulture shapes the landscape of the Kaiserstuhl and has been repeatedly altered by man since its settlement. Since the 1960s, deep and, if possible, rectangular terraced areas with high slopes have been created on the slopes.

Weltenburg Abbey is located at the Danube breakthrough, an imposing narrows of the Danube in Bavaria. The Benedictines have been producing barley juice at the abbey since 1050, making it the oldest monastery brewery in the world. In the Middle Ages, the nutritious drink was an important supplement to the often meagre meals. Boiling the beer wort also killed germs. This made it a supposedly healthy drink for children, especially since the alcohol content was lower compared to today’s beer.

In the 14th century, beer was the most important export of the Hanseatic town of Einbeck. The brewers lived in richly decorated half-timbered houses with large gates for the brewing pots. They sold their beer as far away as Amsterdam, Riga and Venice. The beer was brewed to a particularly high percentage so that it could be kept for a long time. Because the Munich brewers searched in vain for a recipe for the strong beer, they hired a brewer from Einbeck in the 17th century. This is how Einbeck-style beer came to Bavaria: Bock beer.

On 2 July 1753, the Oder flowed into its new artificial bed here at Güstebieser Loose in Brandenburg. The 19 km long canalisation was the prerequisite for draining the Oderbruch. Frederick II had the swamp turned into fertile farmland. With this mammoth project, the enlightened monarch brought thousands of immigrants to underpopulated Prussia and reshaped a landscape. Neulietzegöricke was the first village Frederick II had built for the new immigrants.

The sky is wide in the Dithmarscher Land and so are the cabbage fields like here near Meldorf. The vitamin-rich vegetables ripen particularly well in the fertile and rainy marshland on the North Sea coast. Since industrialisation caused more and more rural residents to give up their vegetable gardens and move to the cities, the area has risen to become Germany’s largest cabbage-growing region.

The water tower or Alte Wasserkunst supplied the city of Bauten with drinking water from the Spree River flowing below the city walls. In order for the water to be piped to the highest point of the city at the Fleischmarkt square, the water tower’s elevated tank had to be higher.

With 98 arches, it spans the Göltzsch valley in Saxony between Reichenbach and Netzschkau. The material for the world’s largest brick bridge presented itself to the builders in the middle of the 19th century. Bricks were fired by numerous distilleries due to large clay deposits in the region and were easy to procure. To this day, trains on the Saxony-Franconia Main Line between Dresden and Nuremberg cross the 78-metre-high and 574-metre-long structure.

In August 1888, Bertha Benz and her two sons undertook the first long-distance journey in the automobile developed by her husband Carl Benz (Benz Patent Motor Car No. 3) from Mannheim via Heidelberg, Bruchsal and Weingarten to Pforzheim. On the return journey three days later, she drove a different route from Pforzheim via Bretten, Forst, Hockenheim and Schwetzingen back to Mannheim due to the steep gradients. Her average speed was between 15 and 18 km/h. Today, motorists can retrace the route themselves.

With its concave forms, the observatory on Telegrafenberg was a revolutionary building in 1920. The architect Erich Mendelsohn had built it for a new type of solar telescope.