Germany Germany Germany ( ), officially the Federal Republic of Germany (, ), is a country in Central and Western Europe, lying between the Baltic and North seas to the north, and the Alps to the south. It borders Denmark to the north, Poland and the Czech Republic to the east, Austria and Switzerland to the south, and France, Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands to the west. Germany includes 16 constituent states, covers an area of , and has a largely temperate seasonal climate. With nearly 83 million inhabitants, it is the second most populous state of Europe after Russia, the
Catholic Church and Nazi Germany the Vatican that the Germans planned to invade France through the Netherlands and Belgium on May 10. On May 7, Alfred Jodl noted in his diary that the Germans knew the Belgian envoy to the Vatican had been tipped off, and the Fuehrer was greatly agitated by the danger of treachery. Following the Fall of France, peace overtures continued to emanate from the Vatican as well as Sweden and the United States, to which Churchill responded resolutely that Germany would first have to free its conquered territories. In Rome in 1942, US envoy Myron C. Taylor, thanked the Holy See