A volunteer in the Bundeswehr signs up for between six and eleven months of service. The law states: Die ersten sechs Monate gelten als Probezeit. (The first six months count as probation.) Basic training usually lasts three months, and it follows a fixed order. After recruits receive their uniforms, they begin with drill. Shooting training begins with practice without live ammunition, and live firing comes only at the end of weapons training. According to the Bundeswehr, the high point of basic training is the feierliche Gelöbnis, the ceremonial pledge.
From Observing to Teaching
A German teacher does not go straight from university to a classroom of their own. First comes the Referendariat, a preparatory service at a school. It usually lasts 18 months. In Hesse it lasts 21 months, in Bavaria 24, and in Brandenburg only 12. The sequence is fixed: Hospitation, Ausbildungsunterricht, eigenständiger Unterricht. The trainee first observes lessons, then teaches under supervision, and finally teaches alone. Trainers visit lessons along the way and give advice. The service ends with the Second State Examination. Lawyers go through the same kind of preparatory service, which lasts two years.
The School Entry Phase
In North Rhine-Westphalia, the first two years of primary school are not simply first and second grade. The school law says: Die Klassen 1 und 2 werden als Schuleingangsphase geführt. Die Schuleingangsphase dauert in der Regel zwei Jahre. Sie kann auch in einem Jahr oder in drei Jahren durchlaufen werden. (Grades 1 and 2 are run as the school entry phase. The school entry phase normally lasts two years. It can also be completed in one year or in three.) In July 2026, the state amended the law. The principal can now decide as early as enrollment that a child will stay in the entry phase for three years.
Days to Get to Know Each Other
German labor courts recognize a phase that comes even before the probation. It is called the Einfühlungsverhältnis, literally a relationship for feeling one’s way in. A candidate spends a few days in the company before being hired, to get to know the work and the people. No employment relationship arises. There is no duty to work, no right to pay, and the employer may not give instructions. Several state labor courts have recognized it since 1989. Lawyers advise keeping it to a few days.
Instruction Before the Work Begins
The same rule covers a new person and a new method. Under the Occupational Safety and Health Act, the employer must instruct employees in safety bei der Einstellung, bei Veränderungen im Aufgabenbereich, der Einführung neuer Arbeitsmittel oder einer neuen Technologie vor Aufnahme der Tätigkeit, on hiring, when their tasks change, and when new equipment or a new technology is introduced, before they start the work. The Works Constitution Act goes further. When new technology or new work processes are planned, the employer must inform each affected employee. Once it is clear that an employee’s job will change and their skills will not be enough, the employer must discuss with them how those skills can be adapted. In that case, the works council has a say in the training.
The Orchestra’s Trial Year
A musician who wins an audition for a German orchestra is not yet a member for good. The collective agreement for German orchestras allows a fixed-term trial contract of up to eighteen months. Before a musician is hired, before the contract is extended and before a dismissal, the orchestra’s board must find out the opinion of the orchestra. In one case, a violinist in the first violins at a state theater had a twelve-month trial from October 2013 to September 2014. The orchestra voted against her in June 2014, and her contract was not extended. In 2017, the Federal Labor Court ruled the fixed term invalid. Counting her earlier work with the same orchestra, the trial had been too long.
Three Years and a Day
After passing the journeyman’s examination, some German craftsmen still set out on the Walz, the traditional journeyman years. For most of the journeymen’s associations, it lasts at least drei Jahre und ein Tag, three years and a day. The journeyman may not come within 50 kilometers of his home town during that time. He must be ledig, kinderlos, schuldenfrei und unter 30 Jahre alt, single, childless, free of debt and under thirty. From the late Middle Ages until industrialization, the journeyman years were, in many guilds, one of the conditions for admission to the master’s examination. In 2014, the tradition was added to Germany’s national list of intangible cultural heritage.
Settling In at Daycare
When a small child starts at a German daycare center, the first weeks follow a plan called the Eingewöhnung, the settling-in. The best-known model is the Berlin model, named after Hans-Joachim Laewen, Beate Andres and Eva Hédervári-Heller. It begins with a basic phase of about three days. The child spends one or two hours a day in the group, and the parent stays in the room, passive but attentive to the child. The first short separation comes only on the fourth or fifth day. If the child protests, the parent comes back after a few minutes. The separations then grow longer step by step. The settling-in is complete when the child accepts the teacher as a sichere Basis, a secure base. The city of Bielefeld tells parents to plan mindestens 2 – 4 Wochen, at least two to four weeks. Its leaflet adds: Ihr Kind bestimmt das Tempo! (Your child sets the pace!)
Before the Settling-In
Until the late 1980s, and often well into the 2000s, it was common for small children in Germany to be handed over to daycare without any settling-in period. Research at the Free University of Berlin in 1984 and 1985, by Kuno Beller’s team, which included Hans-Joachim Laewen, found that children who started this way were absent through illness three to four times as often in their first six to seven months. They also showed delays in development and a less secure attachment to their mothers. In 2007, Laewen, Beate Andres and Eva Hédervári spoke of einem gravierenden Verstoß gegen das Kindeswohl, a serious violation of the child’s welfare, when children under three were not settled in. Today the term Eingewöhnung is fixed in the education plans of the German states.
The Stepwise Return to Work
An employee in Germany who returns to work after a long illness does not have to start with a full day. Under the stufenweise Wiedereingliederung, the stepwise reintegration, the doctor and the employee agree on a plan. It might begin with two or three hours a day and rise in stages to full hours. It usually lasts between six weeks and six months. Throughout this time, the employee still counts as unfit for work and continues to receive sick pay from the health insurer. From six weeks of illness at the latest, the doctor must regularly assess whether such a return is possible. Germans commonly call it the Hamburger Modell, the Hamburg model. The origin of the name is uncertain.