Product – Page 7 – understand-culture

German homes

Deutsche Welle – What sets German homes apart? That’s what Rachel want to find out for this week’s Meet the Germans. From cake forks to tiny homes and BYO kitchens – join her for a snoop around a typical German home.

Rachel moved from the UK to Germany in 2016. As a relative newcomer she casts a fresh eye over German clichés and shares her experiences of settling into German life. Every two weeks she explores a new topic – from unusual bans to meaty cuisine or haunted castles. This week: come on in and make yourself at home with the Germans.

At 0:24 unfortunately a small error has crept in. This house is the famous Rietveld Schröder House and is located in Utrecht in the Netherlands and not in Germany. Sorry for that.

Germany the world’s most innovative economy

October 2018. Germany is currently in the driving seat when it comes to innovation – thanks in part to the speed it’s developing new technologies like driverless cars.

In the World Economic Forum’s latest Global Competitiveness Report, Germany came top as the world’s most innovative economy, with a score of 87.5 out of 100 in the Innovation capability pillar – one of the 12 drivers of a country’s productivity.

A Critique of Dieter Rams

“Dieter Rams is one of the most influential industrial designers to ever live. Even if you don’t know who he is, you probably use products that were inspired by his thinking everyday. He wrote the Ten Principles for Good Design, and they’re basically like the design bible. Designers must never question them. So that’s exactly what we’re going to do now.”

Dem Ingenieur ist nichts zu schwör!

Qualität. Quality. Latin qualitas, how something has been made, a characteristic; how crafted; the sum or totality of characteristics; the level of workmanship.

Beschaffenheit. The outer, inner, material, make-up of something.

Tüftler. Tinkerer. Someone who with patience and stamina can work on a complex problem; a kind of inventor; a person who finds new ways to solve a difficult problem.

Ingenieur. Latin ingenium, an ingenious person, inventive, complex thinker; to create, produce; one trained at a university.

Dem Ingenieur ist nichts zu schwör! For the engineer is nothing too difficult, with Ingenieur and schwör rhyming, from the Engineer‘s Song by Hinrich Seidel, a German engineer and novelist of the 19th Century.

The text of the song contiues: Dem Ingenieur ist nichts zu schwere – Er lacht und spricht, geht dieses nicht, so geht doch das! For the engineer is nothing is too difficult. He laughs and claims: It this doesn‘t work, then that will!

Wo man ihm ein Rätsel schenkt, steht der Ingenieur und denkt. When he‘s given a problem, the engineer stands still and ponders, with schenkt (to give) and denkt (to think) rhyming. Engineers are tinkerers. They‘ll work on something until they find an acceptable solution.

Hans Holbein the Younger

Of particular interest to us as students of German culture are minutes 22:20 to 25:00 in this very interesting mini-documentary about Hans Holbein. Pay particular attention to the segment 24:00-24:37. “If you wanted precision, quality and Vorsprung durch Technik (the current motto of Audi) you bought German.”

Hans Holbein the Younger (1497–1543) was a German painter and printmaker who worked in the Northern Renaissance style, and is considered one of the greatest portraitists of the 16th century.

Holbein was born in Augsburg, Bavaria, but he worked mainly in Basel, Switzerland as a young artist. Holbein travelled to England in 1526 in search of work, with a recommendation from the great European thinker, Erasmus of Rotterdam.

Holbein was welcomed into the humanist circle of Thomas More, the Archbishop of Canterbury, where he quickly built a strong reputation. By 1535, he was King’s Painter to none other than Henry VIII of England.

And by the way, the documentary is done exceptionally well. Tudor England. Henry the VIII. Thomas More. And, of course, Thomas Cromwell. Very much worth watching in full.

German inventions

Did you know that these ten important everyday items were actually invented by Germans? From transportation to information technology, Germany made some of the most crucial inventions of our time!

YouTube comments:

“Fritz Haber invented the Haber-Bosch process which converts atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia needed for fertilizers which aided in feeding millions. Unfortunately, the same process was used in the war effort in WW1.”

“Helmut Gröttrup was not only co-inventor of the smart card, but also an outstanding rocket engineer. During World War II, he worked in the German A4 (aka V-2) rocket program under Wernher von Braun. From 1946 to 1950 he headed a group of 170 German scientists who were forced to work for the Soviet rocketry program under Sergei Korolev.”

“Thanks for the Aspirin!”

“Hard times for Tesla”

A comment from Oliver in Berlin on an article from March 5, 2025 in the New York Times online with the title “Tesla Sales Slump in Europe as Anger Toward Elon Musk Grows.”

“Having worked in marketing for automotive a lot, image is half the hill when you consider high investment purchases like cars. In Germany you think a lot about what your neighbors think. That’s why even ultra rich Germans almost never would buy a Rolls Royce or Bugatti because it sends the ‘wrong’ message about themselves. That said, it’s not just the negative image Tesla has because of Musk. Germans are very detailed and technology obsessed when it comes to cars. And Tesla lost a lot of ground recently while Germany’s car makers not only caught up but even leading in many ways. In design and tech and, definitely in reputation and image. Hard times for Tesla are coming.”

The German Mittelstand

The Mittelstand is often described as the heart of Germany’s economy – and rightly so, given that mid-sized firms account for the largest share of the country’s economic output, employ about 60 percent of all workers, provide crucial training, and contribute significantly to corporate tax revenues in Germany. See BDI

Ludwig Erhard, the Economics Minister who crafted post-war West Germany’s economic miracle (Wirtschaftswunder) warned against reducing the Mittelstand to a mere quantitative definition, but instead emphasized more qualitative characteristics which embody the German Mittelstand, as it is “much more of an ethos and a fundamental disposition of how one acts and behaves in society.”

Crisis and insecurity

The experiences during, between and after the two world wars continue to exert great influence on German thinking. During both wars the economy was geared fully towards producing armaments. There was little material, money and manpower to supply everyday consumer goods.

The years between the wars were filled with civil war type unrest, weak governments, and several phases of inflation including a dramatic hyper-inflation. The years after the Second World War were marked by hunger, lack of housing, severe winters, high unemployment and a fear of what the future would bring.

The entire West German economy had to be rebuilt. This was achieved surprisingly fast due to the generous and far-sighted help of the Western allies and on the production of high-quality technical products. After nearly thirty years of instability, unpredictability and hardship, there was a strong demand among the German people for reliable, durable, high quality products. The Germans wanted security and predictability.

The German product philosophy has not changed, even though there are few alive who experienced the war years. The experiences were so dramatic that they have been passed on to the younger generations. German products which carry the name Bosch, Siemens or Volkswagen speak to the experiences of both earlier and current generations.

TÜV

TÜV Technischer Überwachungsverein. The Institute for Technical Testing has locations across Germany (and in many countries), applies vigorous testing procedures to products of all kinds. A TÜV certificate is a sign of the highest quality.

Stiftung Warentest. The Foundation for Product Testing, similar to Consumer Reports in the U.S., is an independent, neutral organization which tests critically over 200 products each year. Its standards are among the highest internationally, including all requirements defined by law. The media covers many of the test results.

The quality of a product is its most important characteristic. The testing results produced by TÜV and Stiftung Warentest are considered by Germans to be 100% reliable. Each have been taken to court many times for the critical scores they have given products. Neither organization has lost a court case.