Germany's contributions to the world's cultural heritage are numerous, and the country is often known as das Land der Dichter und Denker (the land of poets and thinkers). German literature can be traced back to the Middle Ages, in particular to such authors as Walther von der Vogelweide and Wolfram von Eschenbach, considered some of the most important poets of medieval Europe. The Nibelungenlied, whose author is not known, is also a major contribution to German literature. Theologian Luther, who translated the Bible into German, is widely credited for having set the basis for modern "High German" language. The mostly admired German poets and authors are without doubt Goethe and Schiller. Other poets include Heine, and authors of the 20th century includes Nobel prize winners Thomas Mann, Hermann Hesse, Heinrich Böll, and Günter Grass. Other authors include Brecht and Enzensberger. Germany's influence on world philosophy was major as well, as exemplified by Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Engels, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Heidegger.

In the field of music, Germany's influence is noted through the works of, among others, Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Schumann, Schoenberg, Webern, Lachenmann, Orff and Wagner.

In Art, there are several fine German painters such as the Renaissance artist Dürer, the romanticist Friedrich, the surrealist Ernst, the expressionist Marc, the conceptual artist Beuys or the neo expressionist Baselitz. Architecture also flourished in Germany. Several UNESCO World Heritage Sites are scattered throughout Germany (including, for instance, the cathedral of Cologne and the Museum Island in Berlin). Famous architects include neoclassicist Schinkel and Gropius, the founder of the Bauhaus. A significant part of the architectural heritage of Germany, however, has been irrevocably destroyed by air raids on city centers during World War II.

Germany was also the homeland of scientists like Albert Einstein, Helmholtz, Fraunhofer, Fahrenheit, Kepler, Haeckel, Humboldt, Einstein, Born, Planck, Heisenberg, Creuzfeldt, Hertz, Koch, Hahn, Leibniz, Liebig, Mayr and Bunsen; and inventors and engineers such as Gutenberg, Otto, Bosch, Siemens, von Braun, Daimler, Benz and Diesel.

Albert Einstein, a famous German physicist

Important mathematicians were born in Germany such as Ries, Dedekind, Bessel, Gauß, Hilbert, Jacobi, Riemann, Klein and Weierstraß.

Many historical figures, though not citizens of Germany in the modern sense, were important and influential figures in German culture, such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Franz Kafka and Stefan Zweig.

The German language was once the lingua franca of central, eastern and northern Europe. Within the European Union, German is the language with most native speakers before English, French, Spanish and Italian. As a foreign language, German is the third most taught worldwide. It is also the second most used language on the Internet. The language has its origin in Old High German. There are numerous dialects of German, many of which are not intellegible to speakers of standard German. Some consider Low German to be a different language from German; Low German has been given the status of a minority language by the European Union, although it is less used today in the traditionally Low German-speaking areas of northern Germany.

Since about 1970 Germany has once again had a thriving popular culture, now increasingly being led by its new old capital Berlin, and a self-confident music and art culture. Germany is also well known for its many opera houses, the most famous of which being located in Bayreuth.