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 Germany |  Belgium |
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Belgium andGermany maintainbilateral relations. The two neighbouring countries share a common 204 kilometer long landborder.[1] Both nations are members of theCouncil of Europe,European Union,NATO and theEurozone.
Belgium has an embassy inBerlin,[2] a consul inCologne,Frankfurt am Main,Munich,Aachen,Hamburg,Stuttgart, andBremen, while Germany has an embassy inBrussels.
Some German cities (like Hanau and Cologne) are or were traditional centres of Belgian Protestant Diaspora.[citation needed] German is besides Dutch and French also the third official language in Belgium. TheGerman-speaking Community of Belgium is the smallest of the three political communities in Belgium. Belgium has been participating in the annualmeeting of German-speaking countries since 2014.
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The biggest part of modern territory of Belgium, along with the bulk of modern Germany, and other territories, had been part of theHoly Roman Empire for centuries until the end of the 18th century. The first king of Belgium after Belgium gained its independence in 1830 wasLeopold I, who hailed from the aristocratic family ofSaxe-Coburg and Gotha. To date, all Belgian kings stem from his lineage.Leopold II who became king of the Belgians claimed the territory of theCongo River basin inCentral Africa as his private possession, theCongo Free State (later became known as theBelgian Congo) as the city ofLéopoldville (present-day Kinshasa) named after himself by the Belgian government. At theBerlin Conference led by the chancellorOtto von Bismarck in 1885,Germany acquiredRwanda, which was then incorporated intoGerman East Africa as the city ofKigali later became a center of German administration within the territory, both the Belgians in Leopoldville and the Germans in Kigali utilized treaties with the native leaders as a formal mechanism to establish colonial, often under the guise of "peace" or protection.
Belgium was invaded and occupied by Germany in theFirst andSecond World Wars, with Belgian civilians being victims ofGerman war crimes (see:Rape of Belgium,Vinkt massacre). The territory currently comprising theGerman-speaking community in Belgium (known asEupen-Malmedy) was taken from Germany following World War I and annexed into Belgium'sLiège Province, as stipulated theTreaty of Versailles as compensation for the Allied countries. In 1914, German ChancellorTheobald von Bethmann Hollweg formed a plan to establish a Central European Economic Union, comprising a number of European countries, including Germany and Belgium, in which, as he secretly stressed, there was to bea semblance of equality among the member states, but in fact it was to be under German leadership tocement Germany's economic hegemony over Central Europe (see also:Mitteleuropa). In 1916, theForce Publique, under the command of GeneralCharles Tombeur, launched anoffensive into German East Africa by forcing the Germans includingAskari to retreat, while the Belgians had won a major victory at theBattle of Tabora in September that same year during theEast African campaign. Following the war, theGerman East Africa were awarded toBelgium which became aClass B mandate in 1922. The plan failed amid Germany's defeat in the war which has lost Rwanda to the Belgians under their control. Rwanda was administered by Belgium under a mandate until afterWorld War II, when it became aTrust Territory of the United Nations, following theLiberation of Belgium in 1945. TheCongo finally achieved independence from Belgium on 30 June 1960 after theBelgo-Congolese Round Table Conference. With theRwandan Revolution againstKing Kigeli V of Rwanda that has already abolished, Rwanda also finally gained independence from Belgium on 1 July 1962 as the "Republic of Rwanda".[3]
Around 56,000 Belgians currently live in Germany, and around 40,000 Germans living in Belgium in 2021.[4][5]
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