Germany played Argentina in the World Cup quarterfinal on 30 June 2006, at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin. The match went to penalties. Goalkeeper Jens Lehmann had a sheet of hotel notepaper with the names of the Argentine penalty takers, written in pencil. Goalkeeping coach Andreas Köpke had drawn the information from a database of 13,000 penalties kept by the Dutch coach Huub Stevens. Köpke said: Wir haben nichts dem Zufall überlassen. “We left nothing to chance.” Utz Claassen bought the note for one million euros, and it is now shown at the Haus der Geschichte in Bonn. Lehmann later admitted that the note was quite hard to read.
The Moose Test
On 21 October 1997 the new Mercedes A-Class tipped onto its side in an evasive maneuver test by the Swedish magazine Teknikens Värld. Daimler-Benz stopped sales, and production stopped on 11 November 1997. The company then fitted the electronic stability program ESP as standard equipment. It also retrofitted every car already built with ESP and a modified chassis.
Care Before Speed
In December 2020, Klaus Reinhardt, president of the German Medical Association, said that a review period of four weeks for a Covid vaccine was too long. A spokesperson for the Federal Ministry of Health answered that the care and reliability of the vaccine had oberste Priorität, top priority. The headline in the Deutsches Ärzteblatt on 4 December 2020 was Bei Impfstoffzulassung gilt Sorgfalt vor Schnelligkeit. In vaccine approval, care comes before speed.
The Car Toll
Under Andreas Scheuer, the Federal Transport Ministry awarded the contracts for a German car toll in October and December 2018. On 18 June 2019, the European Court of Justice ruled that the toll broke EU law. After a settlement with the operator, the failed toll cost taxpayers 243 million euros. In December 2023, an expert opinion found that a damages claim against Scheuer had only small chances of success, and the ministry did not sue. In the same decision the ministry called his political responsibility undisputed.
Words for not hurrying
Gut Ding will Weile haben — a good thing wants time.
Eile mit Weile — hurry with leisure, a German rendering of festina lente.
Übers Knie brechen — to break something over the knee. The German phrase for forcing a hasty resolution, and it names what happens to the thing.
Erst mal eine Nacht drüber schlafen — sleep a night over it first. Said in German meetings, and acted on.
The expert report
A German decision of any weight is preceded by a Gutachten: an expert report, commissioned, written, and read before anything is decided.
Building disputes, medical questions, insurance claims, legislation. The report comes first and is a document in its own right, with an author who is answerable for it.
The diagnostic phase is not a stage of thinking. It is a deliverable.
The acquisition
Acquisition. The German word for a significant purchase, and it carries weight — eine Anschaffung fürs Leben, an acquisition for life. Buying is treated as an event with consequences, not as consumption.
Planning lead-time
Planungsvorlauf. Planning lead-time. German projects allocate a named period before execution begins, and it appears in the schedule as a phase with its own duration. Starting work before it has elapsed is a departure from the method, not an acceleration of it.
Time to think it over
Bedenkzeit. Time to think it over. A German negotiating and mediating convention: a party may ask for it, and asking is not read as weakness or delay. The request is granted as a matter of course, and often proposed by the mediator.
The court-appointed expert
Der Sachverständige. German disputes over technical matters routinely go to a court-appointed expert, who produces a written report on a timetable measured in months. The court waits. The report arrives when it is finished.