Germany–United Kingdom relations

Germany-United Kingdom relations are the bilateral relations between the Federal Republic of Germany and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Relations between the countries span hundreds of years.

During Classical antiquity and the Migration Period, the progenitors of the populations of the United Kingdom and Germany consisted of the same Ingvaeonic and Elbe Germanic peoples.

Relations were strong in the Late Middle Ages when the German cities of the Hanseatic League traded with England and Scotland.

Before the Unification of Germany in 1871, Britain was often allied in wartime with German states, including Prussia. The royal families often intermarried. The House of Hanover (1714–1837) ruled the small Electorate of Hanover, later the Kingdom of Hanover, as well as Britain. Queen Victoria, known as the grandmother of Europe, married Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and further diplomatic marriages would result in their grandchildren occupying both the British and German thrones.

Historians have long focused on the diplomatic and naval rivalries between Germany and Britain after 1871 to search for the root causes of the growing antagonism that led to World War I. In recent years, historians have paid greater attention to the mutual cultural, ideological and technological influences.

Germany, as the German Empire, fought against the United Kingdom and its allies in World War I between 1914 and 1918; and, as Nazi Germany, against the United Kingdom and allied forces in World War II between 1939 and 1945.