German inventions and discoveries are ideas, objects, processes or techniques invented, innovated or discovered, partially or entirely, by Germans. Often, things discovered for the first time are also called inventions and in many cases, there is no clear line between the two.
Germany has been the home of many famous inventors, discoverers and engineers. Ottomar Anschütz and the Skladanowsky brothers were early pioneers of film technology, while Paul Nipkow and Karl Ferdinand Braun laid the foundation of television with their Nipkow disk and cathode ray tube respectively. Hans Geiger was the creator of the Geiger counter, while Carl von Linde developed the modern refrigerator. Konrad Zuse built the first fully automatic digital computer (Z3) and the first commercial computer (Z4).