We fabricate and characterize a germanium/thulium (Ge/Tm) co-doped silica fiber in order to enhance the gain at the short wavelength edge of the thulium emission band (i.e. 1620-1660 nm). The Ge/Tm doped fiber shows an intrinsic blue-shifted absorption/emission cross-section compared to aluminum/thulium (Al/Tm) co-doped fiber, which greatly improves the short wavelength amplification and has enabled us to further extend the shortest wavelength of emission towards 1600 nm. Using this glass fiber composition, we have demonstrated both a silica-based thulium doped fiber amplifier (TDFA) in the 1628-1655 nm waveband and a tunable thulium-doped fiber laser (TDFL) capable of accessing the telecom U-band wavelength region. These results represent by far the shortest amplifier/laser wavelengths reported to-date from TDFAs/TDFLs.