Nordhausen
Template:Infobox CapitalNordhausen is the capital city of Großgermania. Located at the southern edge of the Harz Mountains on the River Zorge, the city is also capital of the Province of Thuringia. With a population of over seventy thousand, Nordhausen also has Stadtrecht (city rights), and is designated Unter-Zorge-Tal (Lower Zorge Valley) by the Committee for the Oversight of Imperial Cities.
A relatively small city by German standards, Nordhausen nearly doubled in size in the first six month of the Empire's existence. It was chosen as the capital largely due to concerns that maintaining the capital at Berlin or another larger German city would unfairly marginalize minority interests in the new Empire. Margrethe II, Queen of Denmark, said, at a meeting of the heads of state of the Association of Germanic States (the supranational precursor to Großgermania), that '[Berlin] is the capital of hedonism, prostitution, and lederhosen.'
The city is the center of imperial politics. Both the Reichstag and the Witenagemot meet in the city, and the Imperial Palace, the Emperor's summer residence and office, is located on the river a short ways outside city limits.
Originally founded in 785 by the Carolingians, Nordhausen became a Free Imperial City of the Holy Roman Empire in 1220. Embracing the Protestant Reformation during the Thirty Years War, the city was part of the Confederation of the Rhine under Napoleonic domination. Serving as a concentration camp under the Großdeutsches Reich, it was captured by Soviet forces on 2 July 1945. Becoming part of the German Democratic Republic following World War II, it became part of the historic state of Thuringia in 1990 upon German reunification.
The staging point for much of the political campaigns of the German National Unionist Party (DNUP), Michael von Preußen got ninety-one percent of the popular vote in the city in his bid for Chancellor in the 2007 emergency election.
Nordhausen has a large textile and bicycle industry, as well as producing large quantities of ale. It is also home to the headquarters of Großgermania's Imperial Military.
Sister cities
Nordhausen is twinned with the following cities:
- File:ImperialFrance.svg Charleville-Mézières, Empire of the French (since 1978)
- File:Flag of the Kingdom of Germany.svg Bochum, Kingdom of Germany, Großgermania (since 1990)
- File:Flag of the Kingdom of Germany.svg Ostrovia, Kingdom of Germany, Großgermania (since 1995)
Bet Shemesh, State of Israel (since 1992, suspended 2009)
