Germanium, element #32, was discovered in 1886 by Clemens Winkler. Its first major application was in the form of point contact Schottky diodes for Radar reception during WWII. Karl Lark-Horovitz and his colleagues at Purdue University used Germanium to transform an unpredictable semiconductor material into crystals describable by rigorous science. Two closely spaced contacts placed on a suitably prepared Germanium surface led to the first all-solid-state electronic amplifier device, the transistor. The relatively low bandgap and the lack of a stable oxide relegated Germanium to the number 2 position behind Silicon. The discovery of the Lithium drift process, which made possible the formation of p-i-n diodes with fully depletable i-regions several centimeters thick, brought Germanium to new prominence as the premier gamma-ray detector. The development of ultra-pure Germanium led to highly stable detectors which have remained unsurpassed in their performance but also to new acceptor and donor physics and to the discovery of the electrically active role of hydrogen several years before similar findings in silicon. Lightly doped Germanium has found applications as far infrared detectors and heavily Neutron Transmutation Doped (NTD) Germanium is used in thermistor devices that can operate down to a few milliKelvin. Recently Germanium has been rediscovered by the Silicon device community because of its superior electron and hole mobilities. SiGe transistors working with strained layers have reached record frequencies of over 500 GHz. This talk will focus on the highlights of the 120-year history of this unique element.