The German state has its own standard for running IT projects, the V-Modell. The first version was developed in 1986 by the federally owned company IABG for the Ministry of Defense. In February 1991, it was made the development standard for software in the Bundeswehr. A civil version followed in 1993, and in 1997 the V-Modell 97 was recommended across the federal administration. The current form, V-Modell XT, appeared in February 2005. It defines the activities of a project, the documents they must produce and the roles responsible for them. The private sector now uses it as well.
Retirement at 67, Scheduled Years Ahead
A law of April 2007 provided that Germans would retire later. The standard retirement age was to rise from 65 to 67, step by step from 2012 to 2029. The law contains a table, year of birth by year of birth. Someone born in 1947 reaches the standard retirement age at 65 years and one month. Someone born in 1958 reaches it at 66. Someone born in 1963 reaches it at 66 years and ten months. Everyone born in 1964 or later retires at 67. Each person could look up their date years in advance.
Five Months Without Trains
The Riedbahn between Mannheim and Frankfurt is one of Germany’s busiest rail lines. Deutsche Bahn adopted a plan for its complete renewal in September 2022 and awarded the contracts in September 2023. The line was then closed completely from 15 July to 14 December 2024. It reopened on 14 December 2024. Some tracks and a branch line followed by 24 December, and the new ETCS signaling only in 2025. The cost rose by 195 million euros, or 15 percent, to 1.5 billion euros. The Riedbahn is the first of about forty such renewals planned on the same model by 2030.
Eight Years to Move the Capital
On 20 June 1991, the Bundestag voted 338 to 320 to move parliament and government from Bonn to Berlin. Then came the law. The Berlin/Bonn Act was passed on 26 April 1994. A separate agreement gave the Bonn region 1.437 billion euros in support for the years 1995 to 2004. Bonn kept the title Bundesstadt, federal city, and six ministries kept their main seat there. The move itself was carried out in stages, and most of it took place in the summer of 1999. Since the autumn of 1999, Berlin has been the seat of parliament and government.
Forty-Nine Days in Rothwesten
The currency reform of 1948 changed West Germany’s money overnight. From 21 June 1948, only the new Deutsche Mark was valid. The details had been worked out in secret. From 21 April to 8 June 1948, eleven German financial experts met in a closed building in Rothwesten near Kassel, behind a fence guarded by US military police. For 49 days, they drafted the regulations and the logistics of the reform. On the Allied side, most of the work was done by Edward Tenenbaum, who was 27 years old.
After Euro 2000
At the European Championship of 2000, the German national team went out in the group stage. The German Football Association responded with a plan for the long term. It expanded its talent program to 390 training centers for players aged eleven to seventeen. From 2001, youth academies were introduced in the Bundesliga, and from 2002 they were mandatory in the second division as well. Today every club in both leagues must run one to obtain its license. The academies were long seen as the origin of the golden generation that won the World Cup in 2014.
Plan First, Then Build
In April 2013, the federal ministry for transport and building set up a commission of 36 senior experts on the construction of major projects. Its final report of June 2015 named three examples of projects that had gone far over cost and schedule: the new Berlin airport, the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg and the Stuttgart 21 railway station. One of its ten recommendations, under the heading Erst planen, dann bauen, was this: Der Bauherr sollte mit dem Bau erst nach Erstellung eines zusammenfassenden Dokuments beginnen, das die lückenlose Ausführungsplanung für das gesamte Projekt sowie detaillierte Angaben zu Kosten, Risiken und zum Zeitplan enthält. (The client should start building only after a summary document has been drawn up. It must contain the complete construction planning for the whole project and detailed information on costs, risks and schedule.) In December 2015, the federal cabinet adopted a ten-point action plan. Point two was Erst planen, dann bauen, plan first, then build.
The Elbphilharmonie
Hamburg’s concert hall on the Elbe was first planned to be finished in 2010. The city’s share of the cost was first calculated at 77 million euros. In the end, construction cost about 866 million euros, and the first concerts took place on 11 January 2017. A committee of inquiry of the Hamburg parliament examined what had gone wrong. It found that when the work was put out to tender in 2006 and the contract was signed in 2007, the planning noch nicht weit genug fortgeschritten gewesen, had not yet advanced far enough.
The Easter Rest That Never Happened
In March 2021, during the pandemic, Chancellor Angela Merkel and the state premiers agreed overnight on an Osterruhe, extra days of rest over Easter. On 24 March 2021, Merkel withdrew it. She explained that the idea hatte ihre guten Gründe, war aber in der Kürze der Zeit nicht gut genug umsetzbar, had good reasons, but could not be carried out well enough in the short time available. The open questions concerned pay for the lost working days and the situation of shops and businesses. They could not be answered in time. She added: Dennoch war die Idee der sogenannten Osterruhe ein Fehler. (Nevertheless, the idea of the so-called Easter rest was a mistake.)
Thinking From the End
In the Chancellery under Angela Merkel, her method had a name: Die Dinge vom Ende her denken, thinking things through from the end. Her biographer Ursula Weidenfeld described the steps. Merkel commissioned reports, called ethics councils, watched public opinion and kept her own intentions to herself. Weidenfeld summed it up as Warten, Schweigen und dann erst Handeln, waiting, silence, and only then action. Merkel herself tells a story from school. In a sports lesson, she stood on the three-meter diving board and jumped only when the school bell had already ended the lesson.