On 30 July 1999 the Federal Court of Justice set minimum standards for expert reports on whether a witness statement is credible. The expert first assumes that the statement is untrue. The court called this the Nullhypothese, the null hypothesis. The expert keeps to that assumption bis diese Negation mit den gesammelten Fakten nicht mehr vereinbar ist, until it can no longer be reconciled with the facts collected.
The Town Where Products Were Tested
From 1986 to 2021, the town of Haßloch in the Palatinate was a test market. The market research institute GfK, the Gesellschaft für Konsumforschung, used it to test new products for companies under real conditions, with real customers in real shops. In age structure and income distribution, the test households were a smaller copy of all households in Germany. The town was called Mini-Deutschland, Germany in miniature. About 3,000 of its roughly 10,000 households took part voluntarily. The test households had a GfK chip card that was scanned with every purchase. Boxes on the television sets measured how well TV advertising worked. Brands such as Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble and Wrigley tested new products there. If the people of Haßloch bought a product, it went onto supermarket shelves in the rest of the country. Products they rejected were not taken into the range. The test market ended in December 2021. GfK said it would rely more on smartphone apps, online surveys and AI-based software.
The Business Judgment Rule
A German board member can make a business decision that fails and still have done nothing wrong. Section 93 of the Stock Corporation Act, the Aktiengesetz, says so: Eine Pflichtverletzung liegt nicht vor, wenn das Vorstandsmitglied bei einer unternehmerischen Entscheidung vernünftigerweise annehmen durfte, auf der Grundlage angemessener Information zum Wohle der Gesellschaft zu handeln. There is no breach of duty if the board member could reasonably assume that he was acting on the basis of appropriate information and for the good of the company. The rule goes back to the ARAG/Garmenbeck judgment of the Federal Court of Justice of 21 April 1997. Parliament wrote it into the law with the UMAG of 22 September 2005. The courts give a board einen weiten Handlungsspielraum, a wide room for action. That room includes accepting the danger of Fehlbeurteilungen und Fehleinschätzungen, misjudgments and wrong estimates. In 2022 the Federal Court of Justice applied the same principles to the criminal offense of breach of trust. A court asks what the board knew and how it decided at the time, from the ex ante view. The later outcome is not the test.
Whoever Measures a Lot
Wer viel misst, misst Mist.
Whoever measures a lot measures rubbish.
The saying warns that every new measurement adds a new error.
First Count the Cash
Kassensturz, counting the cash. When German parties begin to negotiate a coalition, they often start with a full count of the public finances. In November 2017 the SPD and the CDU in Lower Saxony did this before anything else. The purpose was to find out which political wishes could be financed.
Minister-President Stephan Weil described the first meeting: “Das hatte heute nicht den Charakter einer Entscheidungssitzung, sondern eher einer ersten Lesung.” Today was not a meeting for decisions, but more like a first reading.
Assignments to Examine
German coalition agreements often contain Prüfaufträge, assignments to examine a question before it is decided. The 2025 federal coalition agreement announced 88 of them, together with 18 commissions and working groups.
Critics see this as a way to postpone decisions. In 2014 the Greens in Saxony called the new state coalition a “Prüf-Koalition”, a coalition of examining.
Measured After the Shock
On 2 June 2006 the education ministers of the German states adopted an overall strategy for monitoring education. It has four parts: international school studies, a central test of the national education standards in a comparison of the states, comparison tests in classrooms, and a joint education report of the federal and state governments.
The aim was an education policy based on evidence. The strategy followed the performance problems that had become obvious since the end of the 1990s.
In 2014 a study in the journal Die Deutsche Schule found that the results were not processed and discussed in sufficient depth. In six or seven states, schools received only the share of correct answers.
The Wolf Kill Goes to the Lab
When sheep or other livestock are killed in Schleswig-Holstein, a trained examiner inspects the dead animals. “Ziel einer Rissbegutachtung ist es herauszufinden, ob der Verursacher des Schadens ein Wolf war oder nicht.” The goal is to find out whether a wolf caused the damage.
Where possible, DNA samples are taken from the bite wounds. They are sent to the Senckenberg Institute in Gelnhausen. The state pays compensation on the basis of the assessment, and also when a wolf cannot be ruled out. The payments are voluntary and depend on reasonable protection of the herd.
Fifteen Thousand Crashes on the Computer
On 10 September 1959 Mercedes-Benz began systematic crash testing at its plant in Sindelfingen. The first test car was a pre-production vehicle of the coming W 110 series. The movements of the dummy were filmed for analysis.
Today a new model may need up to 15,000 crash simulations and about 150 real crash tests. Its crash test center conducts about 900 crash tests and about 1,700 sled tests each year.
The Father of Statistics
In 1748 Gottfried Achenwall became an associate professor at the University of Göttingen. He gave Statistik, the systematic description of states, the form of an independent discipline. In 1749 he published an outline of the political science of the leading European states.
August Ludwig von Schlözer called him the “Vater der Statistik”, the father of statistics. The national biography adds that the word Statistik does not come from him at all.