Today, Germany is a liberal democracy. Its economy is the fourth largest in the world, and is one of the world’s leading export economies. Germany is the most powerful country in Europe west of Russia. It established its own stable currency (the Deutsche Mark); then it played a leading role in establishing a common European currency (the euro), and in establishing the European Union that now joins it peacefully with the countries that it had so recently attacked. Germany has largely dealt with its Nazi past. German society is much less authoritarian than it once was.
