Germany–United Kingdom relations

Shared heritage

English and German are both West Germanic languages. Modern English has diverged significantly after absorbing more French influence after 1066. English has its roots in the languages spoken by Germanic peoples from mainland Europe, more specifically various peoples came from what is now the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark, including a people called the Angles, after whom English is named. Many everyday words in English are of Germanic origin and are similar to their German counterparts, while more intellectual and formal words are of French, Latin or Greek origin while German tends to form calques of many of these. English has become a dominant world language, and is widely studied in Germany. German in the 19th and early 20th century was an important language of science and technology, but it has now largely lost that role. In English schools, German was a niche language much less important than French. German is no longer widely studied in Great Britain except at the A-level in secondary schools.

Trade and the Hanseatic League

There is a long history of trade relations between the Germans and the British. The Hanseatic League was a commercial and defensive confederation of merchant guilds and their market towns that dominated trade along the coast of Northern Europe. It stretched from the Baltic to the North Sea during the 13th–17th centuries, and included London. The main centre was Lübeck, Germany. The Hanseatic League facilitated trade between London and numerous cities, most of them controlled by German merchants. It also opened up trade with the Baltic.

Royal family

Until the late 17th century marriages between the English and German royal families were uncommon. Empress Matilda, the daughter of Henry I of England, was married between 1114 and 1125 to Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor, but they had no issue. In 1256, Richard, 1st Earl of Cornwall, was elected King of Germany and his sons were surnamed Almain. Throughout this period, the Steelyard of London was a typical German business settlement. German mercenaries were hired in the Wars of the Roses.

Anne of Cleves was the consort of Henry VIII. It was not until William III of England that a king of German origin came to reign, from the House of Nassau. The consort of his successor Queen Anne was Prince George of Denmark from the House of Oldenburg, who had no surviving children.

In 1714, succeeding Queen Anne, George I, a German-speaking Hanoverian prince of mixed British and German descent, ascended to the British throne, founding the House of Hanover. For over a century, Britain's monarchs were also rulers of Hanover (first as Prince Electors of the Holy Roman Empire, then as a separate Kingdom). This was a personal union rather than a political one, with the two countries remaining quite separate, but the king lived in London. British leaders often complained that kings George I and George II--who barely spoke English-- were heavily involved in Hanover and distorted British foreign policy for the benefit of Hanover, a small, poor rural country of little importance in Western Europe. In contrast King George III never visited Hanover in the 60 years (1760-1820) he ruled it. Hanover was occupied by France during the Napoleonic wars, but some Hanoverian troops fled to England to form the King's German Legion, a unit within the British army made up of ethnic Germans. The personal link with Hanover finally ended in 1837 with the accession of Queen Victoria to the British throne: under the Salic Law women were ineligible for the throne of Hanover.

Every British monarch from George I to George V in the 20th century took a Royal German consort. Queen Victoria (1837-1901) was raised under close supervision by her German-born mother Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. She married her first cousin Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (1819-1861) in 1840. Their daughter Princess Victoria (1840-1901) married Prince Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia in 1858. He became Crown Prince three years later. she and her husband were liberals who admired Britain and detested Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. but Bismarck had the ear of the elderly King, who died in 1888. The crown prince now became Kaiser, and Princess Victoria became Empress of Germany. But he died after only 99 days on the throne. Her son Wilhelm (1859-1941) became Kaiser forced Bismarck to retire.

Kaiser Wilhelm II

Wilhelm, grandson of Queen Victoria, had a love-hate relationship with Britain. He visited often and was well-known in higher circles, but he recklessly promoted the great expansion of the German Navy, which was a potential threat that the British government could not overlook. The humiliating crisis came in the Daily Telegraph Affair of 1908. While on an extended visit to Britain, the Kaiser gave a long interview to the London Daily Telegraph which was full of bombast, exaggeration, and vehement protestations of love for Britain. He ridiculed the British populace as "mad, mad as March hares" for questioning the peaceful intentions of Germany and its sincere desire for peace with England, while admitting that the German populace was "not friendly" toward England. The interview caused a sensation around Europe, demonstrating the Kaiser was utterly incompetent in diplomatic affairs. The British leadership had already decided that Wilhelm was mentally somewhat disturbed, and saw this as further evidence of his unstable personality rather than an indication of official German hostility. It was a much more serious issue inside Germany, where there was near-unanimous ridicule of the Kaiser; thereafter he played only a nominal or symbolic role in major state affairs.

The British Royal family retained the German surname von Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha until 1917, when, in response to anti-German feelings during World War I, it was legally changed to the more British "Windsor". In the same year, members of the British Royal family members gave up any German titles they held, whilst their German relatives were stripped of any British titles they held by an Act of Parliament.

Intellectual influences

Ideas flowed back and forth between the two nations. Refugees from Germany's repressive regimes often settled in Britain, most notably Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Advances in technology were shared, as in chemistry. Over a hundred thousand German immigrants also came to Britain. Germany was perhaps one of the world's main centres for innovative social ideas in the late 19th and early 20th century. The British around 1910, led by the Liberals Asquith and Lloyd George, adopted Bismarck's system of social welfare. Ideas on town planning were exchanged.

Rapid German economic growth

Germany, united in 1871 after defeating Austria and France, now became the economic, military and diplomatic powerhouse under Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. Very rapid growth took place in heavy industry, coal, steel, chemicals and railways. Its domestic economy rivalled Britain by 1890, but its international trade and finance was on a lesser scale. The German overseas empire was a late development and was far behind Britain.

Diplomacy

The British Foreign Office had been poorly served by a series of ambassadors who provided only superficial reports on the dramatic developments of the 1860s. That changed with the appointment of Odo Russell (1871-1884), who developed a close rapport with Bismarck and who provided in depth coverage of German developments.

Britain gave passive support to the unification of Germany under Prussian auspices for strategic and ideological reasons as well as business advantages. In terms of strategy, the rise of the German Empire meant there was a counterbalance on the continent to both France and Russia, the two powers that troubled Britain the most. The threat from France and the Mediterranean, and from Russia and Central Asia, could be neutralised by judicious relationships with Germany. The new nation would be a stabilising force, and Bismarck especially emphasised his role in stabilising Europe and preventing any major war on the continent. Gladstone, however, was always suspicious of Germany, and disliked its authoritarianism; he feared that sooner or later Germany would make war on a weaker neighbour. The ideological gulf was stressed by Lord Arthur Russell in 1872:

Prussia now represents all that is most antagonistic to the liberal and democratic ideas of the age; military despotism, the rule of the sword, contempt for sentimental talk, indifference to human suffering, imprisonment of independent opinion, transfer by force of unwilling populations to a hateful yoke, disregard of European opinion, total want of greatness and generosity, etc., etc."

Britain was looking inward and avoided picking any disputes with Germany, although it did make clear in the "war in sight" crisis of 1875 that it would not tolerate a pre-emptive German war on France.

Colonies

Under the leadership of German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, a complex network of European alliances kept the peace in the 1870s and 1880s. The British were building up their empire, but Bismarck strongly opposed colonies as too expensive. When public demand forced him in the 1880s to grab colonies in Africa and the Pacific, conflicts with Britain were minimal.

Wilhelm's "Weltpolitik"

Coming to power in 1888, the young Kaiser Wilhelm dismissed Chancellor Bismarck in 1890 and sought aggressively to increasing Germany's influence in the world through his Weltpolitik. Foreign policy was controlled by the erratic Kaiser, who played an increasingly reckless hand, and by the powerful foreign office under the leadership of Friedrich von Holstein. The foreign office in Berlin argued that: first, a long-term coalition between France and Russia had to fall apart; secondly, Russia and Britain would never get together; and, finally, Britain would eventually seek an alliance with Germany. Germany refused to renew its treaties with Russia. But Russia did form a closer relationship with France in the Dual Alliance of 1894, since both were worried about the possibilities of German aggression. London refused to agree to the formal alliance that Germany sought. Berlin's analysis proved mistaken on every point, leading to Germany's increasing isolation and its dependence on the Triple Alliance, which brought together Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy. The Triple Alliance was undermined by differences between Austria and Italy, and in 1915 Italy switched sides.

Naval race

The British Royal Navy dominated the globe in the 19th century, but after 1890 Germany worked to achieve parity. It never did catch up, but the resulting naval race heightened tensions between the two nations.

The German Navy under Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz had ambitions to rival the great British Navy, and dramatically expanded its fleet in the early 20th century to protect the colonies and exert power worldwide. Tirpitz started a programme of warship construction in 1898. In 1890, Germany traded the strategic island of Heligoland in the North Sea with Britain in exchange for the eastern African island of Zanzibar, and proceeded to construct a great naval base there. The British, however, kept well ahead in the naval race by the introduction of the highly advanced new Dreadnought battleship in 1907.

Moroccan crisis

In the First Moroccan Crisis of 1905, Germany nearly came to blows with Britain and France when the latter attempted to establish a protectorate over Morocco. The Germans were upset at having not been informed about French intentions, and declared their support for Moroccan independence. William II made a highly provocative speech regarding this. The following year, a conference was held in which all of the European powers except Austria-Hungary (by now little more than a German satellite) sided with France. A compromise was brokered by the United States where the French relinquished some, but not all, control over Morocco.

Coming of the World War

In British politics, the Liberal party was Antiwar always looked for peaceful solutions, while the Conservatives look for ways to aggressively protect the British Empire, especially from German interests. In 1907, the leading German expert in the Foreign Ministry Eyre Crowe warned vigorously against German intentions, Arguing that Berlin desired "hegemony" first "in Europe, and eventually in the world". Crowe argued that Germany presented a threat to the balance of power similar to the threat posed by Napoleon. Appeasement would only encourage the Germans To demand more and more. The solution Crowe recommended was to strengthen the Entente Cordiale upgrading it to a full military alliance.

In Germany left-wing parties, especially the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) made large gains in the 1912 German election. German historian Fritz Fischer famously argued that the Junkers who dominated Germany deliberately sought an external war to distract the population and whip up patriotic support for the government. Other scholars argue that German conservatives were ambivalent about a war, worrying that losing a war would have disastrous consequences, and even a successful war might alienate the population if it were lengthy or difficult.

In explaining why neutral Britain went to war with Germany, Paul Kennedy, in The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism, 1860-1914 (1980) argued that it was critical for war that Germany become economically more powerful than Britain. Kennedy downplayed the disputes over economic trade and imperialism. There had long been disputes over the Baghdad Railway which Germany proposed to build through the Ottoman Empire. An amicable compromise on the railway was reached in early 1914, so it played no role in starting in the summer crisis. Germany relied time and again on sheer military power, while Britain increasingly appealed to moral sensibilities. Germany saw its invasion of Belgium as a necessary military tactic and Britain saw it as a profound moral crime--that was a major cause of British entry into the war that had started a few days before. Kennedy argues that by far the main reason was London's fear that a repeat of 1870—when Prussia and the German states smashed France—would mean Germany, with a powerful army and navy, would control the English Channel, and north-west France. British policy makers insisted that would be a catastrophe for British security.

In 1839 Britain, Germany and other powers agreed on the Treaty of London to guarantee the neutrality of Belgium. Germany violated that treaty in 1914—calling it a "scrap of paper", so Britain declared war.

Allied victory

The great German spring offensive on the Western front of 1918 almost succeeded, but the British and French pulled back, opening up the battlefield, and frustrating the last-ditch German plan. By summer 1918, American soldiers were arriving on the Western front at 10,000 a day, while Germany was unable to replace its casualties and saw its army shrink every day. A series of very large battles in September and October produced sweeping Allied victories, and the German high command under Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg realized it was hopeless and told the Kaiser to go into exile. In November the new government negotiated an armistice that was based on the Fourteen Points of American president Woodrow Wilson. In effect, however, it was a surrender. Allied forces occupied and disarmed Germany, stripped it of its war gains and colonies, and seized its navy. By keeping the food blockade in place, the Allies were determined to starve Germany until it agreed to peace terms.

In the Khaki Election of 1918, coming days later, Prime Minister David Lloyd George promised to impose a harsh treaty on Germany. At the great Paris Peace Conference in early 1919, however, Lloyd George took a much more moderate approach. France and Italy however demanded and achieved harsh terms, including forcing Germany to admit starting the war, and a demand that Germany pay the entire Allied cost of the war, including veterans' benefits and interest.

Interwar period

In 1920–1933, Britain and Germany were on generally good terms, as shown by the Locarno Treaties and Kellogg–Briand Pact which helped reintegrate Germany into Europe.

At the Genoa conference in 1922, Britain clashed openly with France over the amount of reparations to be collected from Germany. In 1923 France occupied the Ruhr industrial area of Germany following German default in reparations. Britain condemned the French move, and largely supported Germany in the ensuring Ruhrkampf (Ruhr struggle) between the Germans and the French. In 1924 Britain forced France to make major concessions in regards to the amount of reparations Germany had to pay. It was the United States that resolved the reparations issue. The Dawes Plan (1924-29) and the Young Plan (1929-31), sponsored by the United States, provided financing for the sums Germany owed the Allies in reparations. Much of the money returned to Britain, which in turn paid off its American loans. Starting in 1931, German payments to Britain were suspended. Eventually in 1951 West Germany paid off the World War I reparations it owed Britain.

With the coming to power of Hitler and the Nazis in 1933, relations turned tense. In 1934 a secret report by the British Defence Requirements Committee identified Germany as the "ultimate potential enemy" and called for Continental expeditionary force of five mechanised divisions and fourteen infantry divisions. However, budget restraints prevented the formation of this large force. In 1935 the two nations agreed to the Anglo-German Naval Agreement, designed to avoid a repeat of the pre-1914 naval race.

By 1936 a policy of appeasement began under Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in an effort to prevent war, or at least postpone it until the British military was ready. Appeasement has been the subject of intense debate for seventy years among academics, politicians and diplomats. The historians' assessments have ranged from condemnation for allowing Hitler's Germany to grow too strong, to the judgement that he had no alternative and acted in Britain's best interests. At the time, these concessions were very popular and the Munich Agreement in 1938 among Germany, Britain, France and Italy prompted Chamberlain to announce that he had secured "peace for our time".

World War II

Nazi Germany and Britain fought each other From September 1939 to the German surrender of May 1945. This great confrontation continues to loom large in the British public memory. Germany quickly overran Poland, and in spring 1940 astonish the world by the conquest of the low countries and France, driving the British army off the continent and seizing most of its weapons, vehicles and supplies. War was brought to British skies in the Battle of Britain in late summer 1940, but their aerial assault was repulsed. The planned German invasion Operation Sealion became impossible, the Britain and its empire was standing alone against Germany, albeit with large scale funding and munitions supplied by the United States. In December 1941 United States entered the war against Germany and Japan, and Japan attacked and overwhelmed the British outposts in the Pacific, from Hong Kong to Singapore. Following the Allied invasion of France on D-Day in June 1944, British Strategic bombing forces, and land forces contributed substantially to the defeat of Germany.

Occupation

As part of the Yalta and Potsdam agreements, Britain took control of its own sector in occupied Germany. It soon merged its sector with the American and French sectors, and that territory became the independent nation of West Germany in 1949. The British played a central role in the Nuremberg trials of major war criminals in 1946. In Berlin, the British, American, and French zones were joined into West Berlin, and the four occupying powers kept official control of the city until 1991.

Much of Germany's industrial plant fell within the British zone and there was trepidation that rebuilding the old enemy's industrial powerhouse would eventually prove a danger to British security and compete with the battered British economy. One solution was to build up a strong, free trade union movement in Germany. Another was to rely primarily on American money, through the Marshall Plan, that modernised both the British and German economies, and reduced traditional barriers to trade and efficiency. It was Washington, not London, that pushed Germany and France to reconcile and join together in the Schumann Plan of 1950 by which they agreed to pool their coal and steel industries.

Cold War

With the United States taking the lead, Britain with its Royal Air Force played a major supporting role in providing food and coal to Berlin in the Berlin airlift of 1948–1949. The airlift broke the Soviet blockade which was designed to force the Western Allies out of the city.

In 1955 West Germany joined NATO, while East Germany joined the Warsaw Pact. Britain at this point did not officially recognise East Germany. However the left wing of the Labour party, breaking with the anti-communism of the postwar years, called for its recognition. This call heightened tensions between the British Labour Party and the German Social Democratic Party (SPD).

After 1955, Britain decided to rely on relatively inexpensive nuclear weapons as a deterrent against the Soviet Union, and a way to reduce its very expensive troop commitments in West Germany. London gained support from Washington and went ahead with the reductions while insisting it was maintaining its commitment to the defence of Western Europe.

Britain made two applications for membership in the Common Market (European Community). It failed in the face of the French veto in 1961, but its reapplication in 1967 was eventually successful, with negotiations being concluded in 1972. The diplomatic support of West Germany proved decisive.

In 1962 Britain secretly assured Poland of its acceptance of the latter's western boundary. West Germany had been ambiguous about the matter. Britain had long been uneasy with West Germany's insistence on the provisional nature of the boundary. On the other hand, it was kept secret so as not to antagonise Britain's key ally in its quest to enter the European Community.

In 1970 the German government under Willy Brandt, the former mayor of West Berlin, signed a treaty with Poland recognizing and guaranteeing the borders of Poland.

Reunification

In 1990, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher at first opposed German reunification, but eventually accepted the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany.

Since 1945 Germany hosts several British military installations in Western part of the country as part of British Forces Germany. Both countries are members of the European Union and NATO, and share strong economic ties. David McAllister, the former minister-president of the German state of Lower Saxony, son of a Scottish father and a German mother, holds British and German citizenship. Similarly, the leader of the Scottish National Party in the British House of Commons, Angus Robertson is half German, as his mother was from Germany. Robertson speaks fluent German and English.

In 1996, Britain and Germany established a shared embassy building in Reykjavik. Celebrations to open the building were held on 2 June 1996 and attended by the British Foreign Minister at the time, Malcolm Rifkind, and the then Minister of State at the German Foreign Ministry, Werner Hoyer, and the Icelandic Foreign Minister Halldór Ásgrímsson. The commemorative plaque in the building records that it is "the first purpose built co-located British-German chancery building in Europe".

Twinnings

Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire and Regensburg, Bavaria

Aberystwyth, Ceredigion and Kronberg im Taunus, Hesse

Abingdon, Oxfordshire and Schongau, Bavaria

Amersham, Buckinghamshire and Bensheim, Hesse

Ashford, Kent and Bad Münstereifel, North Rhine-Westphalia

Barking and Dagenham, London and Witten, North Rhine-Westphalia

Barnet, London and Tempelhof-Schöneberg, Berlin

Barnsley, South Yorkshire and Schwäbisch Gmünd, Baden-Württemberg

Basingstoke, Hampshire and Euskirchen, North Rhine-Westphalia

Bath, Somerset and Braunschweig, Lower Saxony

Bedford, Bedfordshire and Bamberg, Bavaria

Belfast and Bonn, North Rhine Westphalia

Beverley, East Riding of Yorkshire and Lemgo, North Rhine Westphalia

Biggleswade, Bedfordshire and , Erlensee, Main-Kinzig-Kreis

Birmingham and Frankfurt, Hesse

Blackpool and Bottrop, North Rhine-Westphalia

Bolton, Greater Manchester and Paderborn, North Rhine-Westphalia

Bracknell, Berkshire and Leverkusen, North Rhine-Westphalia

Brentwood, Essex and Roth bei Nürnberg, Bavaria

Bristol and Hanover, Lower Saxony

Bromley, London and Neuwied, Rhineland-Palatinate

Cambridge, Cambridgeshire and Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg

Cardiff, South Glamorgan and Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg

Carlisle, Cumbria and Flensburg, Schleswig-Holstein

Chelmsford, Essex and Backnang, Baden-Württemberg

Chester, Cheshire and Lörrach, Baden-Württemberg

Chesterfield, Derbyshire and Darmstadt, Hesse

Christchurch, Dorset and Aalen, Baden-Württemberg

Cirencester, Gloucestershire and Itzehoe, Schleswig-Holstein

Cleethorpes, North East Lincolnshire and Königswinter, North Rhine-Westphalia

Colchester, Essex and Wetzlar, Hesse

Coventry, West Midlands and Dresden, Saxony, and Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein

Crawley, West Sussex and Dorsten, North Rhine-Westphalia

Darlington, County Durham and Mülheim an der Ruhr, North Rhine-Westphalia

Derby, Derbyshire and Osnabrück, Lower Saxony

Dronfield, Derbyshire and Sindelfingen, Baden-Württemberg

Dundee and Würzburg, Bavaria

Ealing, London and Steinfurt, North Rhine-Westphalia

Edinburgh and Munich, Bavaria

Elgin, Moray and Landshut, Bavaria

Ellesmere Port, Cheshire and Reutlingen, Baden-Württemberg

Enniskillen, County Fermanagh and Brackwede, Bielefeld, North Rhine-Westphalia

Epping, Essex and Eppingen, Baden-Württemberg

Exeter, Devon and Bad Homburg vor der Höhe, Hesse

Felixstowe, Suffolk and Wesel, North Rhine-Westphalia

Glasgow and Nuremberg, Bavaria

Glossop, Derbyshire and Bad Vilbel, Hesse

Gloucester, Gloucestershire and Trier, Rhineland-Palatinate

Greenwich, London and Reinickendorf, Berlin

Guildford, Surrey and Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württemberg

Halifax, West Yorkshire and Aachen, North Rhine-Westphalia

Hammersmith and Fulham, London and Neukölln, Berlin

Hartlepool, County Durham and Hückelhoven, North Rhine-Westphalia

Havering, London and Ludwigshafen am Rhein, Rhineland-Palatinate

Hemel Hempstead and Dacorum, Hertfordshire and Neu Isenburg, Hesse

High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire and Kelkheim, Hesse

Hillingdon, London and Schleswig, Schleswig-Holstein

Inverness, Scotland and Augsburg, Bavaria

Kendal, Cumbria and Rinteln, Lower Saxony

Kettering, Northamptonshire and Lahnstein, Rhineland-Palatinate

Kidderminster, Worcestershire and Husum, Schleswig-Holstein

Kilmarnock, Ayrshire and Kulmbach, Bavaria

King's Lynn, Norfolk and Emmerich am Rhein, North Rhine-Westphalia

Kirkcaldy, Fife and Ingolstadt, Bavaria

Knaresborough, North Yorkshire and Bebra, Hesse

Lancaster, Lancashire and Rendsburg, Schleswig-Holstein

Leeds, West Yorkshire and Dortmund, North Rhine-Westphalia

Leicester, Leicestershire and Krefeld, North Rhine-Westphalia

Leven, Fife and Holzminden, Lower Saxony

Lewisham, London and Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, Berlin

Lichfield, Staffordshire and Limburg an der Lahn, Hesse

Lincoln, Lincolnshire and Neustadt an der Weinstraße, Rhineland-Palatinate

Littlehampton, West Sussex and Durmersheim, Baden-Württemberg

Liverpool and Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia

London and Berlin

Luton, Bedfordshire and Bergisch Gladbach, North Rhine-Westphalia

Manchester and Chemnitz, Saxony

Margate, Kent and Idar-Oberstein, Rhineland-Palatinate

Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire and Oberhausen, North Rhine-Westphalia

Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire and Bernkastel-Kues, Rhineland-Palatinate

Motherwell, Lanarkshire and Schweinfurt, Bavaria

Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear and Gelsenkirchen, North Rhine-Westphalia

Northampton, Northamptonshire and Marburg, Hesse

Norwich, Norfolk and Koblenz, Rhineland-Palatinate

Nottingham, Nottinghamshire and Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg

Nuneaton and Bedworth, Warwickshire and Cottbus, Brandenburg

Oakham, Rutland and Barmstedt, Schleswig-Holstein

Oxford, Oxfordshire and Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia

Paisley, Renfrewshire and Fürth, Bavaria

Perth, Perth and Kinross and Aschaffenburg, Bavaria

Peterlee, County Durham and Nordenham, Lower Saxony

Portsmouth, Hampshire and Duisburg, North Rhine-Westphalia

Potton, Bedfordshire and Langenlonsheim, Rhineland-Palatinate

Reading, Berkshire and Düsseldorf, North Rhine-Westphalia

Richmond upon Thames, London and Konstanz, Baden-Württemberg

Rossendale, Lancashire and Bocholt, North Rhine-Westphalia

Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent and Wiesbaden, Hesse

Sheffield, South Yorkshire and Bochum, North Rhine-Westphalia

Skipton, North Yorkshire and Simbach am Inn, Bavaria

Solihull, West Midlands and Main-Taunus-Kreis, Hesse

South Tyneside, Tyne and Wear and Wuppertal, North Rhine-Westphalia

Spalding, Lincolnshire and Speyer, Rhineland-Palatinate

St. Helens, Merseyside and Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg

Stafford, Staffordshire and Dreieich, Hesse

Stevenage, Hertfordshire and Ingelheim am Rhein, Bielefeld, Rhineland-Palatinate

Stockport, Greater Manchester and Heilbronn, Baden-Württemberg

Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire and Erlangen, Bavaria

Sunderland, Tyne and Wear and Essen, North Rhine-Westphalia

Sutton, London and Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, Berlin, and Minden, North Rhine-Westphalia

Swansea, West Glamorgan and Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg

Todmorden, West Yorkshire and Bramsche, Lower Saxony

Torbay, Devon and Hamelin, Lower Saxony

Thurso, Caithness and Brilon, North Rhine-Westphalia

Truro, Cornwall and Boppard, North Rhine-Westphalia

Uckfield, East Sussex and Quickborn, Pinneberg, Schleswig-Holstein

Waltham Forest, London and Wandsbek, Hamburg

Ware, Hertfordshire and Wülfrath, North Rhine-Westphalia

Waterlooville, Hampshire and Henstedt-Ulzburg, Schleswig-Holstein

Wellingborough, Northamptonshire and Wittlich, Rhineland-Palatinate

Weston-super-Mare, North Somerset and Hildesheim, Lower Saxony

Weymouth, Dorset and Holzwickede, North Rhine-Westphalia

Wokingham,Berkshire and Erftstadt, North Rhine-Westphalia

Workington, Cumbria and Selm, North Rhine-Westphalia

York, North Yorkshire and Münster, North Rhine-Westphalia