  Colossal magneto-resistance manganites are characterised by a complex
interplay of charge, spin, orbital and lattice degrees of freedom. Formulating
microscopic models for these compounds aims at meeting to conflicting
objectives: sufficient simplification without excessive restrictions on the
phase space. We give a detailed introduction to the electronic structure of
manganites and derive a microscopic model for their low energy physics.
Focussing on short range electron-lattice and spin-orbital correlations we
supplement the modelling with numerical simulations.
