On Sunday, 5 October 2008, in the middle of the financial crisis, Chancellor Angela Merkel and Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück stood before the cameras. Merkel said: Wir sagen den Sparerinnen und Sparern, dass ihre Einlagen sicher sind! We tell the savers that their deposits are safe. No decision of parliament stood behind the guarantee. An economics journal later noted that it was put into the world without a decision of parliament, as a political promise. It calmed the savers, as intended.
A Euro a Minute
German sports teams put a price on lateness. In 2024, Borussia Dortmund’s catalog of fines for the 2023–24 season spread on social media. Coming late to training, team routines or meetings cost 100 euros per minute. Coming late on match day cost 3,000 euros. Missing a club appointment cost 5,000 euros. The German women’s handball team at the 2025 home World Championship kept a smaller list. Whoever came late paid one euro, per minute.
Punctual Like the Bricklayers
Pünktlich once meant more than being on time. Duden still lists an old meaning, gewissenhaft, korrekt, conscientious and correct. According to Rolf-Bernhard Essig, until about 1500 the word meant precise to the point. The saying pünktlich wie die Maurer, punctual like the bricklayers, keeps something of both. Today it is also said of a person who drops his tools exactly when work time ends.
Typically German
In September 2017, the pollster YouGov asked Germans which things they considered very typically German. Punctuality was rated very typically German by 57 percent, after bureaucracy at 65 percent, beer at 63 percent and the Oktoberfest at 62 percent. When people are asked about their own values, the picture changes. In a 2011 YouGov study of values, 60 percent of Germans named honesty as an important value. Reliability and loyalty were each named by 22 percent.
Sayings About Time
Fünf Minuten vor der Zeit ist des Soldaten Pünktlichkeit.
Five minutes before the time is the soldier’s punctuality. A common variant says des Deutschen, the German’s.
Wer nicht kommt zur rechten Zeit, der muss sehn, was übrig bleibt.
Whoever does not come at the right time must see what is left over. It is said at the table.
Pünktlichkeit ist die Höflichkeit der Könige.
Punctuality is the politeness of kings. The saying is French in origin, L’exactitude est la politesse des rois, and is attributed to King Louis XVIII. The French word is exactitude, exactness.
The Academic Quarter
German university timetables often add two letters after the hour. c. t., cum tempore, with time, means the class starts a quarter of an hour later. A lecture at 2 p.m. c. t. begins at 2:15. This is the akademisches Viertel, the academic quarter. s. t., sine tempore, without time, means the class starts at the exact hour. At some universities, such as Erlangen-Nürnberg, all classes begin c. t. by default.