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Nibelungen

(Encyclopedia)Nibelungen –lētˌ [key] [song of the Nibelungen] is a long Middle High German epic by a south German poet of the early 13th cent. It includes pagan legends and traditions but is patently the produc...

Berg, Alban

(Encyclopedia)Berg, Alban älˈbän bĕrk [key], 1885–1935, Austrian composer. In his youth he taught himself music but in 1904 he became the pupil and close friend of Arnold Schoenberg. Later Berg himself taught...

Stuttgart, city, Germany

(Encyclopedia)Stuttgart shto͝otˈgärt [key], city (1994 pop. 594,406), capital of Baden-Württemberg, SW Germany, on the Neckar River. It is a major transportation point, with a large river port and an internatio...

Barth, Karl

(Encyclopedia)Barth, Karl bärt [key], 1886–1968, Swiss Protestant theologian, one of the leading thinkers of 20th-century Protestantism. He helped to found the Confessing Church and his thinking formed the theol...

dialectical materialism

(Encyclopedia)dialectical materialism, official philosophy of Communism, based on the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, as elaborated by G. V. Plekhanov, V. I. Lenin, and Joseph Stalin. In theory dialecti...

Zollverein

(Encyclopedia)Zollverein tsôlˈfərīnˈ [key] [Ger.,=customs union], in German history, a customs union established to eliminate tariff barriers. Friedrich List first popularized the idea of a combination to abol...

Schopenhauer, Arthur

(Encyclopedia)Schopenhauer, Arthur ärˈto͝or shōˈpənhouˌər [key], 1788–1860, German philosopher, b. Danzig (now Gdansk). The bias of his own temperament and experience was germinal to the development of hi...

Schumann, Robert Alexander

(Encyclopedia)Schumann, Robert Alexander sho͞oˈmän [key], 1810–56, German composer. Both as a composer and as a highly articulate music critic he was a leader of the romantic movement. He studied theory with H...

Marx, Karl

(Encyclopedia)Marx, Karl, 1818–83, German social philosopher, the chief theorist of modern socialism and communism. In 1847 Marx joined the Communist League and with Engels wrote for it the famous Communist M...

Bergman, Ingmar

(Encyclopedia)Bergman, Ingmar (Ernst Ingmar Bergman) ĕrnst ĭngˈmär bĕrˈyəmän [key], 1918–2007, Swedish film and stage writer, director, and producer. Acclaimed by many as the greatest director of the seco...

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