Germany and Hungary are both member states of the European Union, NATO, OECD, OSCE, Council of Europe and the World Trade Organization.

[3] Hungary set down an important marker for future bilateral relations in September 1989 when it opened up its border with Austria to refugees from East Germany, thus making a special contribution towards German reunification (1990) and the political transformation in Central and Eastern Europe.

[4] Three weeks prior, the Pan-European Picnic on the Austrian-Hungarian border near Sopron had taken place; about 660 citizens of East Germany had taken the opportunity to cross the Iron Curtain.

[10] Fearing a war of extermination, Géza of Hungary (972-997) assured Otto II that the Hungarians had ceased their raids and asked him to send missionaries.

[10] On the eve of World War I a Munich archaeologist discovered her grave in the church of the Niedernburg convent — which has since become a place of pilgrimage for the Hungarian faithful.

[10] Béla IV of Hungary repopulated the country with a wave of immigrants, transforming royal castles into towns and populating them with Germans, Italians, and Jews.

[10] Hungary's first peasant revolt was quickly checked, but it prompted Transylvania's Hungarian and German nobles to form the Union of Three Nations, which was an effort to defend their privileges against any power except that of the king.

Centuries of Ottoman occupation, rebellion, and war had reduced Hungary's population drastically, and large parts of the country's southern half were almost deserted.

Despite this, in the 1990s, Germany opposed Hungary and other Central European nations joining NATO, according to archived German Foreign Ministry files released in 2022.

In 2024, Hungary's Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó summoned the German ambassador Julia Gross to complain about a speech in which she urged Hungarian public figures to speak out against actions she said were eroding the trust of the country's NATO and EU allies.

[3] One of the most important business links is the German-Hungarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Budapest representing the interests of more than 900 member companies from both countries.

[3] The overwhelming majority (75 per cent) of German investors have been very happy with their involvement in Hungary and would invest there again today, shown by an economic survey conducted by the Chamber.

[20] Daimler-Benz invests €800 million ($1.2 billion) and creates up to 2,500 jobs at a new assembly plant in Kecskemét, Hungary[21] with capacity for producing 100,000 Mercedes-Benz compact cars a year.

[3] The Goethe Institute (GI) in Budapest[24] — that has celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2008 — offers a comprehensive range of courses and close cooperation with schools in Hungary.