Germany, Decision-Making, Analysis

The Stress Test for Stuttgart 21

On 30 November 2010 the arbitrator Heiner Geißler announced his ruling on Stuttgart 21, the planned underground main station. One of its conditions was a Stresstest. Deutsche Bahn had to prove that the new station could handle a timetable with 30 percent more capacity in the peak hour, with good operating quality. The railway ran the test, and the Swiss firm SMA und Partner audited it.

On 29 July 2011 the results were presented and discussed in public, again with Geißler as moderator. The auditors found that the required 49 arrivals in the busiest hour could be handled. Opponents argued that the railway had not kept to its own rules. One group of critics said that the station could handle only 32 to 38 trains in the peak hour.

The Analysis of Possible Failures

In the car and aerospace industries, and often elsewhere, a new product or process goes through an FMEA, a Fehlermöglichkeits- und Einflussanalyse, an analysis of possible failures and their effects. A team from different departments lists what could fail, where and how. For each possible failure it describes the consequences and identifies the causes.

The aim is to avoid failures from the start rather than to find and correct them later. A general German standard for the method appeared in 1980 as DIN 25448. In 1996 the German Association of the Automotive Industry, the VDA, published an improved version. Since 2019 the car industry has used a common handbook of the VDA and its American counterpart, the AIAG.

A Machine to Check a Calculation

Wendelstein 7-X in Greifswald is a fusion experiment of the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics. Its design rests on an optimization concept calculated in advance. The largely worked-out application for EU support was submitted in August 1990. Construction of the new institute building began in 1997. The machine produced its first plasma on 10 December 2015.

Because of the long construction phase, the total cost of the Greifswald site was more than double the original estimate. One experimental phase in 2018 had a clearly stated aim: die Richtigkeit der berechneten Optimierung experimentell zu überprüfen, to check by experiment that the calculated optimization was correct.

The Workshop Owner and the Young Physicist

Carl Zeiss trained for four years as an apprentice mechanic. In his time, microscopes were made by Pröbeln, by trial and error. Zeiss wanted to build microscope optics from calculations instead. A first collaboration with a scientist produced no result. On 3 July 1866 the 50-year-old Zeiss began to work with Ernst Abbe, a 26-year-old lecturer in mathematical physics at the University of Jena.

Abbe’s task was to put the workshop’s microscope production on a secure scientific foundation. The first microscope built from his calculations performed worse than the old ones. The work was finally completed in 1872. After that, no competing product surpassed the quality of their microscopes.

Approved Before It Is Built

In Germany a new building product cannot simply be used. If there is no technical rule for it, it needs a general approval from the German Institute for Building Technology, usually for five years. For a single building, the state’s highest building authority can approve its use in the individual case.

Germany’s first 3D-printed residential house, in Beckum in North Rhine-Westphalia, went through this process. Construction began in September 2020. The state ministry approved the project through individual-case decisions. Above all, it needed values for calculating the stability of the printed walls. For this, the Technical University of Munich carried out numerous material tests. The two-story house was presented on 26 July 2021.

Measuring Before Flying

From 1874 Otto Lilienthal and his brother Gustav made systematic measurements of the lift on flat and curved surfaces. They used a rotating apparatus they had built themselves. In 1889 Otto Lilienthal published his book Der Vogelflug als Grundlage der Fliegekunst, Bird Flight as the Basis of Aviation.

Today it is regarded as the most important publication on flight technology of the 19th century. After jumps from a springboard in his garden, he began real gliding flights only in the spring of 1891, from a disused sand pit near Derwitz in Brandenburg. On 9 August 1896 he crashed from a height of about 15 meters, and he died the next day.

His grave carries the sentence Opfer müssen gebracht werden, sacrifices must be made. It is often quoted as his last words. But the inscription was added only in 1940, and German Wikipedia considers it unlikely that these were his last words.

The General Staff

The Prussian General Staff existed unofficially from 1806 and was formally established by law in 1814. In peacetime, it was responsible for the continuous study of all aspects of war and for drafting and reviewing mobilization and campaign plans. Under Helmuth von Moltke, its chief from 1857, it studied the railway network and built it into its deployment plans.

After the First World War, Article 160 of the Treaty of Versailles ordered: “The Great German General Staff and all similar organisations shall be dissolved and may not be reconstituted in any form.” The army continued the work under a new name, the Truppenamt.

The Start-Up Grant

Unemployed people in Germany who start a full-time business can apply for the Gründungszuschuss, a start-up grant paid for up to 15 months. Under Section 93 of the Third Book of the Social Code, they must present a statement from an expert body on the Tragfähigkeit, the viability, of the business.

A chamber of commerce, a chamber of crafts or a tax adviser can give it. The founder hands the expert body a set of documents. The Federal Employment Agency’s model letter lists them: a business plan, a plan of capital needs and financing, a forecast of sales and profitability, a CV and proof of qualifications. Whether the grant is paid is at the agency’s discretion.

Deals That Fall Through After the Show

In the television show Die Höhle der Löwen, the lions’ den, founders present their companies to investors. The show started on VOX in 2014. A deal is agreed in front of the camera within minutes. The investors check the company only after the recording, and many deals fail at this stage. Some companies did not pass the check because the founders had made false statements on air.

The counts differ. The site deutsche-startups.de counted 11 failed deals out of 16 in the first season and 15 out of 21 in the second. The film site Filmstarts counted 35 deals in the first two seasons, of which 26 failed. A technology blog, citing Business Insider, gave a much lower figure: about 40 percent.

The Diaries Bought in Secret

In 1983 the magazine Stern presented what it said were the diaries of Adolf Hitler. The publisher’s management had bought 62 volumes for 9.34 million marks. Only a few members of the management and of the contemporary history desk knew about the purchase. On 25 April 1983, Stern held an international press conference. On 6 May 1983, news agencies reported that the diaries were forgeries.

Experts of the Federal Criminal Police Office and of a federal materials testing institute had shown it beyond doubt. The German Wikipedia article names the editors’ greatest failure. The diaries vorschnell veröffentlicht wurden und man das BKA-Gutachten nicht abwartete. They were published too hastily, and the editors did not wait for the police report. In 1992 Helmut Dietl turned the affair into the satirical film Schtonk!.