German public administration follows the Grundsatz der Aktenmäßigkeit, the principle that every case is kept in a file. The Bundestag’s research service wrote in 2023 that proper file-keeping includes this duty. A paper by a federal and state working group on IT in administration, published by the Federal Archives, explains why. Only a complete file allows a full and legally secure reconstruction of a case. The documents serve as later proof of completeness, and they make a decision traceable and transparent. Lawyers and civil servants know the old maxim behind it. Quod non est in actis, non est in mundo. What is not in the file is not in the world.
The Leitz Binder
Louis Leitz, a mechanic in Stuttgart, developed the mechanism of the lever-arch binder in the 1890s. The sources differ on the year. The Deutsche Biographie gives 1893, and the Württemberg State Museum gives 1896. In 1911 the binder got the finger hole in its spine. The brand name became the general German word for a lever-arch file, the Leitz-Ordner. The Deutsche Biographie says that Leitz revolutionized the management of written records.
Lessons From Afghanistan
The Bundestag can set up an Enquete-Kommission, a commission of inquiry, to prepare decisions on large and important subjects. Members of all parliamentary groups sit on it together with outside experts. Setting one up needs the support of at least a quarter of the members of the Bundestag. The commission Lehren aus Afghanistan, lessons from Afghanistan, examined Germany’s twenty-year deployment there, from 2001 to 2021. It presented an interim report in February 2024. In January 2025 it adopted its final report, with 72 recommendations for Germany’s future role in international crisis management.
How It Actually Was
In 1824 Leopold von Ranke published a history of the Romance and Germanic peoples from 1494 to 1514. In the preface he wrote that history had been given the office of judging the past and teaching the present. His book did not claim such high offices. “[E]r will blos zeigen, wie es eigentlich gewesen.” It only wants to show how it actually was. He also named his material: memoirs, diaries, letters, the reports of ambassadors and the original accounts of eyewitnesses.
The Effort of the Concept
“Worauf es deswegen bei dem Studium der Wissenschaft ankommt, ist die Anstrengung des Begriffs auf sich zu nehmen.” What matters in the study of science is to take on the effort of the concept. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel wrote this in the preface to the Phenomenology of Spirit, published in 1807. In the same preface he wrote “Das Wahre ist das Ganze,” the true is the whole. He also described impatience, which demands the impossible: “die Erreichung des Ziels ohne die Mittel,” reaching the goal without the means.
Thirty Years, No Cost
In 1968 the sociologist Niklas Luhmann was appointed to a chair of sociology at the new University of Bielefeld. At the end of the 1960s he was asked there to name his research project. He wrote: “Theorie der Gesellschaft; Laufzeit: 30 Jahre; Kosten: keine.” Theory of society. Duration: 30 years. Cost: none. His main tool was a Zettelkasten, a card index he had kept since the 1950s. It grew to about 90,000 notes. His Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft, The Society of Society, appeared in 1997, shortly before his death.
Zettel’s Dream
Arno Schmidt wrote Zettel’s Traum from 1963 to 1969. It appeared in 1970 as a facsimile of his typescript, 1,334 large pages written by typewriter and by hand. The title alludes, among other things, to the weaver Zettel, known in English as Bottom, in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In German, Zettel also means a slip of paper.
The Luther Bible, Checked Verse by Verse
In 2006 the German Bible Society asked the Council of the Protestant Church in Germany to review the Luther Bible of 1984. About 70 theologians worked on the revision. They changed many more passages than had been expected. In the New Testament, almost half of all verses were changed. In some places, such as Psalm 42, they restored wording that the 1984 revision had changed, bringing the text closer to Luther’s language. The new edition went on sale on 19 October 2016, the first day of the Frankfurt Book Fair.
The Chatter of Yesterday
Was kümmert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern? What do I care about my chatter of yesterday? Germans often attribute this sentence to Konrad Adenauer. It cannot be found in his writings or speeches. It first appears in print in 1969. What Adenauer did say, in December 1949, was milder. He was criticized at a meeting of his party’s parliamentary group for changing his position. He answered: “Aber meine Herren, es kann mich doch niemand daran hindern, jeden Tag klüger zu werden.” But gentlemen, nobody can stop me from getting wiser every day.
Only the Thorough Is Truly Entertaining
Thomas Mann began writing Der Zauberberg, The Magic Mountain, in 1913. He first planned a short novella. The novel appeared in 1924, in two volumes. In its foreword, the narrator announces how he will tell the story. “Wir werden sie ausführlich erzählen, genau und gründlich.” We will tell it in detail, precisely and thoroughly. He rejects the idea that a story is boring because it is long. He leans rather to the view “daß nur das Gründliche wahrhaft unterhaltend sei,” that only what is thorough is truly entertaining. He warns that the seven days of a week will not be enough to tell it.