At the World Cup of 1954 in Switzerland, the coach Sepp Herberger did not field his best team in the group match against Hungary. He had already planned for a deciding match against Turkey. Six regular players, among them the goalkeeper Toni Turek, Max Morlock and Hans Schäfer, were rested. Germany lost to Hungary 3 to 8. German Wikipedia calls it a taktisch geprägte Entscheidung, a tactical decision. In the team hotel in Spiez, Herberger had assigned the rooms himself. Germany then beat Turkey and went on to win the final in Bern against the same Hungarian team.
The Frankfurt Kitchen
In 1926, the Viennese architect Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky designed a kitchen for the Neues Frankfurt housing program of the city architect Ernst May. She based the design on the optimization of work processes. Every movement in the kitchen was timed with a stopwatch. The first kitchens were delivered in the autumn of 1926. About 10,000 of the 15,000 new apartments in Frankfurt received one. The smallest type measured 1.9 by 3.4 meters.
The Imperative of Responsibility
In Das Prinzip Verantwortung (The Imperative of Responsibility, 1979), the philosopher Hans Jonas proposed a new rule for an age of powerful technology: Handle so, dass die Wirkungen deiner Handlung verträglich sind mit der Permanenz echten menschlichen Lebens auf Erden. (Act so that the effects of your action are compatible with the permanence of genuine human life on earth.) Where the risks are uncertain, he asked for a Heuristik der Furcht, a heuristic of fear. That means to die schlechtere Prognose der besseren vorzuziehen, to give the worse forecast priority over the better one.
Holidays Are Booked Early
In a survey published in March 2025, the Foundation for Future Studies asked 3,000 Germans how they book their holidays. Eleven percent said they decide spontaneously and book at the last minute. Nearly nine in ten decide against a spontaneous booking. Among young adults, 19 percent book spontaneously. Among families, 9 percent do. The foundation explained that outside young adulthood, people rely on Planungssicherheit, the security of a plan. In 2020, in a survey by the same foundation, 77 percent said they would like to do spontaneously whatever they feel like doing.
The Vocabulary of Rushing
Mit heißer Nadel gestrickt — knitted with a hot needle. It is said of a law or a program that was made in a hurry. A newspaper wrote in 2007: Offenbar ist das Programm zum raschen Stellenabbau mit heißer Nadel genäht worden. (Evidently the program for fast job cuts was sewn with a hot needle.)
Hauruckverfahren — the heave-ho method. DWDS defines it as hasty, reckless action. A CDU politician said in 2006: Ein Ding, das für Jahrzehnte gelten soll, muss nicht im Hauruckverfahren entschieden werden. (A thing that is meant to last for decades does not have to be decided by the heave-ho method.)
Blinder Aktionismus — blind actionism. Duden defines Aktionismus as an exaggerated urge to be active, and notes that the word is often critical.
Generalstabsmäßig — like a general staff. Duden defines it as with military care and precision. Duden gives it no critical label. Its example is a bank robbery planned like a general staff operation.
Erst wägen, dann wagen — first weigh, then venture. It is the motto on a cast-iron wall relief of Helmuth von Moltke in uniform, made in Ilsenburg in 1891.
Gut geplant ist halb gewonnen — well planned is half won.
In the Beginning Was the Deed
In Goethe’s Faust I (1808), Faust sits down to translate the opening of the Gospel of John. He begins with Geschrieben steht: »Im Anfang war das Wort!« (It is written: In the beginning was the word!) He rejects it. He tries Im Anfang war der Sinn, in the beginning was the meaning, and then Im Anfang war die Kraft, in the beginning was the power. He rejects both. Only his fourth attempt satisfies him: Und schreibe getrost: Im Anfang war die Tat! (And I write with confidence: In the beginning was the deed!)
The Lesson Plan
In 1958, the educationalist Wolfgang Klafki published an essay with the title Didaktische Analyse als Kern der Unterrichtsvorbereitung, didactic analysis as the core of preparing a lesson. From the late 1950s, it became the leading guide in the training of new teachers. Its questions include Was bedeutet es für die Schüler heute? (What does it mean for the students today?) and Was wird der Inhalt für die Schüler morgen bedeuten? (What will the content mean for the students tomorrow?) In teacher training, a trainee teacher writes a lesson plan for an assessed lesson. It analyzes the class, the subject and the method before it sets out the sequence of the lesson, phase by phase, with a time for each. The sequence plan is called das Drehbuch der Unterrichtsstunde, the screenplay of the lesson. Some training programs prescribe a length, for example eight to ten pages.
No Money Without a Plan
The DigitalPakt Schule, the federal program of 2019 to bring digital technology into schools, had a clear rule: Keine Förderung ohne Qualifizierung der Lehrenden und ohne technisch-pädagogisches Einsatzkonzept. (No funding without training for the teachers and without a technical and teaching plan for how the equipment will be used.) The school authority and the teaching staff had to draw up this plan together before funding was granted. In July 2020, the teachers’ news site News4teachers called the required media development plan eine bürokratische Kopfgeburt, a bureaucratic invention of the mind. A blank template from Baden-Württemberg ran to 37 pages. The state media center said that only six of them were mandatory.
The Rubicon Model
The psychologists Heinz Heckhausen and Peter M. Gollwitzer described action in four phases. Their model is named after the river Caesar crossed. In the first phase, a person weighs the options. Then the person decides and crosses the Rubicon. The second phase is planning: In der Planungsphase bereitet sich die Person auf das Handeln vor. (In the planning phase, the person prepares to act.) The question is no longer what to achieve, but how. Only the third phase is action. The fourth is evaluation.
The Command Cycle
German soldiers learn a fixed sequence for leading: Lagefeststellung, establishing the situation, then Planung, planning, then Befehlsgebung, giving orders, and finally Kontrolle, checking. The cycle then starts again. Its essential features were already set out in an army regulation of the Reichswehr in 1924. It is taught from the training of noncommissioned officers up to the general staff course. The German Life Saving Association teaches a similar Führungsvorgang. Its training sheet defines it as ein zielgerichteter, immer wiederkehrender und in sich geschlossener Denk- und Handlungsablauf, a purposeful, recurring and self-contained sequence of thinking and acting.