The geographic term Western Germany (German: Westdeutschland) is used to describe a region in the west of Germany. The exact area defined by the term is not constant, but it usually includes, but does not have the borders of, North Rhine-Westphalia and Hesse. The Saarland and Rhineland-Palatinate are also sometimes included, but usually considered South-Western.
In contrast, from 1949 to 1990, when two German states existed, West Germany was used in English as a common informal name for the Federal Republic of Germany. The states in East Germany, properly called German Democratic Republic (GDR), acceded in 1990. The enlarged Federal Republic is simply called Germany again since.
Today, Western Germany is the Western part of Germany, and the term should not be identified with certain states. That said,
- Northrhine-Westphalia,
- Western Lower Saxony,
- Saar,
- Rhineland-Palatinate,
- Hesse and
- Baden-Wurttemberg are a major part of Western Germany. West of the Harz in Central Germany, or the line Hamburg-Munich, is the Western part, though again these distinctions can only be assigned very loosely, and never in a political sense.
Politically, Germans often still identify the term Westdeutschland with the Bonner Republik, the Cold War West Germany. Therefore, the English-language distinction between "West Germany" and "western Germany", is often not made in German. However, the latter can be specified as der Westen Deutschlands "the West of Germany".
Famous quotes containing the words western and/or germany:
“There has never been in history another such culture as the Western civilization M a culture which has practiced the belief that the physical and social environment of man is subject to rational manipulation and that history is subject to the will and action of man; whereas central to the traditional cultures of the rivals of Western civilization, those of Africa and Asia, is a belief that it is environment that dominates man.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“We are fighting in the quarrel of civilization against barbarism, of liberty against tyranny. Germany has become a menace to the whole world. She is the most dangerous enemy of liberty now existing.”
—Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919)