In Luther’s Bible, the command to love one’s neighbor comes in the verse after a command to rebuke him. Du sollst deinen Bruder nicht hassen in deinem Herzen, sondern du sollst deinen Nächsten zurechtweisen, damit du nicht seinetwegen Schuld auf dich lädst. You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall rebuke your neighbor, so that you do not bear guilt because of him. Du sollst deinen Nächsten lieben wie dich selbst. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. In the Gospel of Matthew, the rebuke is private. Sündigt aber dein Bruder, so geh hin und weise ihn zurecht zwischen dir und ihm allein. Hört er auf dich, so hast du deinen Bruder gewonnen. If your brother sins, go and point out his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won your brother.
The Vocabulary of Mistakes
der Fehler — the error, the mistake.
der Patzer — a slip, a blunder.
der Schnitzer — a gaffe.
der Lapsus — a slip, from Latin.
der Druckfehlerteufel — the misprint devil, blamed in jest for typing errors.
einen Bock schießen — to shoot a billy goat. To make a mistake. Duden traces it to the shooting guilds, which gave the worst marksman a billy goat as a consolation prize.
Mein Fehler. — My mistake.
Da muss ich Sie korrigieren. — I have to correct you there.
The Vocabulary of Expertise
Schuster, bleib bei deinem Leisten!
Shoemaker, stay with your last. The dictionary DWDS explains: do only what you understand something about.
Das Ei will klüger sein als die Henne.
The egg wants to be cleverer than the hen. It is said of a young person who wants to teach older and more experienced people.
Sind Sie vom Fach?
Are you from the field? The question asks whether someone is a trained specialist.
Er versteht sein Handwerk.
He understands his craft. It is praise for anyone who has mastered the work, not only for craftsmen.
der Quereinsteiger
The lateral entrant. Someone who enters a profession without its usual training.
Words for Speaking Up, and for Saying Too Much
Schweigen im Walde — silence in the forest. Duden: out of embarrassment or fear, nobody dares to say anything.
sich einbringen — to bring oneself in, to take part and make one’s contribution felt.
den Mund aufmachen — to open one’s mouth, to speak up.
seinen Senf dazugeben — to add one’s mustard. Duden: to give one’s opinion on everything, unasked.
einen langen Senf machen — to make a long mustard. Duden: to use unnecessarily many words.
Stille Wasser sind tief. — Still waters are deep. Duden: behind quiet people who do not express their feelings and views, there is more than one thinks.
Words for Unwelcome Correction
der Besserwisser — someone who always believes he knows better
der Klugscheißer — vulgar: someone who thinks himself very clever and believes his remarks are very clever
oberlehrerhaft — know-it-all and lecturing, like an old-style senior schoolmaster
The dictionary DWDS marks all three as disparaging. A correction that serves the work is welcome. These words are for a correction that mainly serves the person who makes it.
Say It to the Board
On 7 November 2009, the Süddeutsche Zeitung published an interview with the Bayern Munich defender Philipp Lahm that the club had not approved. Lahm criticized the quality of the squad, the transfer policy and the lack of a clear philosophy: Man darf Spieler nicht einfach kaufen, weil sie gut sind. (You cannot simply buy players because they are good.) Two days later, Lahm met the board. He apologized for the way he had done it and for the tone, and he accepted a fine. The club’s statement said that Lahm has accepted that it would have been better to express his opinion directly to the board. Lahm later revealed in his book that the fine was 50,000 euros.
The Göttingen Eighteen
On 5 April 1957, Chancellor Konrad Adenauer told the press that tactical nuclear weapons were only a Weiterentwicklung der Artillerie, a further development of artillery. A week later, on 12 April, eighteen nuclear scientists published a declaration. Among them were the Nobel laureates Otto Hahn, Max Born and Werner Heisenberg. It began: Die Pläne einer atomaren Bewaffnung der Bundeswehr erfüllen die unterzeichnenden Atomforscher mit tiefer Sorge. (The plans to arm the Bundeswehr with nuclear weapons fill the undersigned nuclear researchers with deep concern.) They explained why they spoke: Deshalb können wir nicht zu allen politischen Fragen schweigen. (That is why we cannot stay silent on all political questions.) None of them, they wrote, would take part in making, testing or using nuclear weapons. Adenauer was outraged and rejected the scientists’ interference in politics. He met them on 17 April. The German Wikipedia states that public pressure led Adenauer to give in, and that the Federal Republic renounced nuclear weapons.
The Vocabulary of Concerns
Bedenken äußern — to voice concerns. German also says Bedenken erheben, geltend machen or anmelden: to raise, assert or register them, as one registers a claim.
Zu bedenken geben — to give someone something to consider. It is the polite way to put a concern on the table.
Bedenken ausräumen — to clear concerns away. It is the job of the person who wants the change.
Bedenkenträger — a carrier of concerns. The dictionary DWDS defines him as someone who has concerns, often exaggerated ones, about a plan or an innovation, and marks the word as often pejorative.
Wer schweigt, stimmt zu — whoever stays silent agrees.
The Warning App That Changed Course
In April 2020, the federal government and the state premiers backed a design for the German coronavirus warning app that would store contact data centrally. On 24 April 2020, the Chaos Computer Club, the German Informatics Society and other organizations published an open letter to the government: Das von Ihnen präferierte Konzept für die App ist nicht der richtige Weg. (The concept you prefer for the app is not the right way.) In the night to 26 April, the government gave in. That morning it said it now preferred a decentralized approach, with contacts stored only on the phones. Linus Neumann, one of the Chaos Computer Club’s spokespeople, called it a sehr gute Entscheidung, a very good decision. The source code was published openly in May. The app was released on 16 June 2020, and it had 6.5 million downloads by the next day.
The Voting Computers
In the 2005 Bundestag election, voting computers were used in some constituencies. Two complaints were filed against the election. On 5 October 2006, the Chaos Computer Club and a Dutch group showed on Dutch television that the same type of machine could be manipulated without anyone noticing. The club examined the devices for the Federal Constitutional Court and published its report in June 2007. On 3 March 2009, the court ruled that the federal regulation on voting machines was unconstitutional. Because elections are public, the court said, the essential steps of voting and counting must be open to checking by citizens zuverlässig und ohne besondere Sachkenntnis, reliably and without special expert knowledge. The 2005 election was not repeated, because there was no sign of error or manipulation.