Germany, Decision-Making, Resources

Once It Is Decided

Die Würfel sind gefallen. — The dice have fallen. DWDS: a decision has been made, it stands. It is the German form of the Latin alea iacta est.

Augen zu und durch. — Eyes shut and through. DWDS describes it as a call, often to oneself or others, to keep going with a task undeterred, regardless of objections, difficult circumstances or bad consequences.

Hin und her macht Taschen leer. — Back and forth makes pockets empty. It is a well-known stock-market saying. It warns against buying and selling again and again, because each change costs fees and often comes at the wrong moment. Some sources attribute the saying to the investor André Kostolany.

The Gold in the Julius Tower

After the war of 1870 to 1871, the new German Empire created a war treasure, the Reichskriegsschatz, from French payments. It was worth 120 million gold marks. From 1874, it lay in 1,200 chests of gold coins in the Juliusturm, the Julius Tower of the citadel in Spandau. In 1913, the treasure was raised to 360 million gold marks. In 1914, at the start of the First World War, it was used for its purpose. The tower’s name came back in the 1950s. Finance Minister Fritz Schäffer held back budget surpluses for West German rearmament, and the political debate called the hoard the Juliusturm. His budget policy followed the principle of the guter Hausvater, the good father of the household. In the third quarter of 1956, the hoard reached more than seven billion marks. In the end, much of the money saved for rearmament went to social policy, above all to a pension reform that made pensions rise regularly.

Back to Nine Years

In 2001 Saarland became the first western German state to shorten the Gymnasium, the academic high school, from nine years to eight. Most other states followed. The Abitur after only twelve school years got a nickname, the Turbo-Abitur. Then the states turned back. Lower Saxony returned to 13 years after the summer of 2015. Bavaria, Hesse and Schleswig-Holstein also decided to return. North Rhine-Westphalia began the change in the 2019/20 school year, and its first regular nine-year class takes the Abitur in 2027. An SPD education expert in the NRW state parliament said that politics had bowed to the pressure of business associations when it introduced the eight-year system. Pupils, he said, now needed more time for the development of their personality. The German Economic Institute estimated the direct cost of the return at about 1.2 billion euros nationwide. In Baden-Württemberg a parents’ initiative collected more than 100,000 signatures. On 29 January 2025 the state parliament passed a law to return to the nine-year Gymnasium from the 2025/26 school year.

Fast Aid, Then Years of Disputes

In spring 2020 the German states paid emergency aid to small firms and the self-employed. The money went out sehr unbürokratisch und oftmals ohne große Vorprüfung, very unbureaucratically and often without much prior checking. In April 2020 North Rhine-Westphalia stopped payments for a time, after fraud attempts with fake application websites. Later the state demanded part of the money back. In March 2023 the Higher Administrative Court of North Rhine-Westphalia ruled the repayment notices unlawful. The court found it had remained unclear what the aid was meant to replace: lost sales, payment problems or living costs. The state could also have recalculated about 220,000 further cases, but said it did not plan to.

Hans in Luck

In the Grimm tale Hans im Glück, Hans receives a lump of gold as big as his head for seven years of work. On the way home he trades the gold for a horse, the horse for a cow, the cow for a pig, the pig for a goose, and the goose for a whetstone. A field stone is added, and at the end both stones fall into a well.

Hans is not unhappy. “So glücklich wie ich”, he cries, “giebt es keinen Menschen unter der Sonne.” There is no one under the sun as happy as I am.

Each trade seems good to Hans at the moment he makes it. Each trade also leaves him with less.

Words for Thrift

Wer den Pfennig nicht ehrt, ist des Talers nicht wert.
Whoever does not respect the penny is not worth the thaler.

Kleinvieh macht auch Mist.
Small animals also make manure. Small amounts add up.

der Pfennigfuchser
a penny-pincher, a person who counts every penny

der Sparfuchs
the saving fox, a person who always finds the cheapest way

am falschen Ende sparen
to save at the wrong end, to save in a way that costs more later

Reading the Weekly Flyers

About 60 percent of German consumers look at supermarket advertising flyers at least once a week. This was the result of a survey of 1,300 adults by the consultancy Oliver Wyman, published in September 2022. Co-author Jens von Wedel named the reason: “Es geht zumeist um eine sparsame Haushaltsführung.” It is mostly about running the household economically.

According to the market researcher GfK, more than 80 percent of flyer readers would switch to another store for an offer.

Yesterday’s Bread

Semmelknödel, bread dumplings, are made from stale rolls. Harald Seitz of the Federal Center for Nutrition says: “Semmelknödel sind die perfekte Resteverwertung für altbackene Brötchen.” Bread dumplings are the perfect use of leftover stale rolls. According to ZDF, they began as a farmers’ dish for using up old bread.

Arme Ritter, poor knights, are slices of old bread, soaked and fried. A supermarket recipe page calls them a former emergency meal. Resteverwertung, the use of leftovers, is an everyday German word.

The Black Zero

Die schwarze Null, the black zero. In November 2014 the Bundestag passed the federal budget for 2015 without any new borrowing. It was the first time since 1969. Total spending was set at 299.1 billion euros.

Critics doubted that the budget was really balanced. The Green budget politician Sven-Christian Kindler said: “Schäuble versteckt seine Schulden trickreich in Schattenhaushalten.” Schäuble hides his debts cleverly in shadow budgets.

A Relentless Teacher of Thrift

Robert Bosch founded the company that carries his name, and he gave millions to public causes. In 1955 Theodor Heuss wrote Bosch’s entry in the national biography. He called Bosch, “in seinem Betrieb”, in his own company, “ein unerbittlicher Erzieher zur Sparsamkeit”, a relentless teacher of thrift.