East and West Germany are united in a new Federal Republic of Germany

German racing driver Michael Schumacher wins his first world championship title in Formula One

Ken Saro-Wiwa, playwright and pro-democracy campaigner in Nigeria, is among a group hanged by the ruling junta

Nigerian forces expel Johnny Koroma from Freetown and reinstate Sierra Leone's elected civilian president, Ahmad Kabbah

SPD leader Gerhard Schröder replaces Helmut Kohl as German chancellor, in a coalition with the Green party

Buena Vista Social Club, a nostalgic documentary by Wim Wenders, triggers a cult for Cuban music

Mao Zedong inspires German artist Anselm Kiefer's Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom

InAusterlitz W.G. Sebald follows the painful quest of a Czech Jew, brought to England in 1939 on a Kindertransport, to discover the history of his immediate family

Angela Merkel, leader of the CDU, replaces Gerhard Schröder and becomes Germany's first woman chancellor

Severe austerity measures in Greece persuade Germany to back an increased EU and IMF bail-out package of 110 billion euros

Relations between the USA and Germany are severely strained by the revelation in leaked documents that NSA has for years tapped Angela Merkel's cellphone

Automaker Volkswagen is alleged to have been involved in worldwide rigging of diesel emissions tests, affecting an estimated 11 million vehicles globally