Deutsches Rotes Kreuz (DRK)

The Deutsches Rotes Kreuz is now made up of 19 Land associations with more than 600 district associations and nearly five million members and personnel. The Red Cross was created in 1863 in Geneva by a five-man committee of Swiss citizens, including Henry Dunant. The same year saw the founding of the first Red Cross community in a German region: the Württembergische Sanitätsverein in Stuttgart. The Deutsches Rotes Kreuz was established in the Federal Republic of Germany in 1950, and with German unification in 1991 the German Red Cross was joined by the five DRK Land associations on the territory of the former GDR.