On 25 November 1973 a nationwide ban on driving applied in West Germany for the first time. It was a response to sharply higher prices for fuel and heating oil. Under the Energy Security Act, driving was banned on four Sundays.
A temporary speed limit of 100 km/h on the Autobahn and 80 km/h on country roads also applied. On the empty roads, people traveled by horse cart or by bicycle.
Sitzenbleiben, staying seated, is the German word for repeating a school year. It is also called an Ehrenrunde, a lap of honor. In 2009 the education researcher Klaus Klemm calculated for the Bertelsmann Foundation that repeated school years cost 931 million euros a year.
The study found that repeating a year did not improve pupils’ results. Its title called the practice “teuer und unwirksam”, expensive and ineffective. Berlin abolished repeating a year in its new secondary schools from the 2010/11 school year.
In Rhineland-Palatinate, families can borrow their children’s textbooks from the school authority for a fee. The books must be treated with care and returned undamaged. A protective cover is strongly recommended. Underlining, markings and notes in the margin are not allowed.
The fee is one third of the shop price for a book used for one year, and one sixth for a book used for two or three years. Parents must pay for any damage.
In December 2017 the German Navy refused to accept a new frigate, the Baden-Württemberg, after delivery. It was the first time the navy had ever done this. The ship had unresolved hardware and software integration problems.
The frigate had originally been scheduled for 2014–15. It entered service on 17 June 2019. The contracts for the four ships of its class were worth 2.27 billion euros.
In May 2013 the Defense Ministry stopped the Euro Hawk reconnaissance drone. The drone would not receive approval to fly in air traffic. By then about 668 million euros had already gone into the project.
Approval would probably have cost another 600 million euros. The Bundestag’s defense committee formed itself into a committee of inquiry and examined the project.
Every service of German statutory health insurance must meet one rule: “Die Leistungen müssen ausreichend, zweckmäßig und wirtschaftlich sein.” Services must be sufficient, appropriate and economical, and they may not exceed what is necessary. Patients cannot claim unnecessary services, doctors may not provide them, and the insurance funds may not approve them.
The doctors’ association in Rhineland-Palatinate teaches new doctors the principle in one sentence: “Erreiche einen gegebenen Zweck mit möglichst geringem Aufwand!” Achieve a given purpose with the least possible effort.
Das Festgeldkonto, the fixed-deposit account. Uli Hoeneß has described how FC Bayern Munich once had twelve million marks in sales and seven million marks in debt. One transfer in 1984 put the club back on its feet.
The remaining million, Hoeneß said, went into the fixed-deposit account, “und seither hatte der FC Bayern keine Schulden mehr”, and since then FC Bayern has had no debts. This famous account later grew to a sum in the hundreds of millions. In 2014 the club paid off its stadium after 9.5 years instead of the planned 25.
The association foodsharing was founded in 2012 with the goal of ending food waste. Its volunteers collect food from shops and businesses that would otherwise be thrown away.
Since its website started in 2012, about 155,000 volunteers, called Foodsaver, and about 15,250 partner organizations have taken part. In 2023 alone they saved about 18 million kilograms of food. Food is also shared at public collection points called Fairteiler.
In 2021 the state of Thuringia began paying half the cost of repairing electrical devices, up to a maximum of 100 euros per year. Nearly 10,000 applications were funded each year. Thuringia was the first state with such a bonus.
Thuringia also proposed a national repair bonus in the Bundesrat, but the proposal did not win a majority among the states. From 2026 Thuringia ended its own bonus because of the tight state budget.
On 1 September 2022 a federal regulation to secure the energy supply came into force. It applied until 28 February 2023. Work rooms in public buildings could be heated to no more than 19 degrees Celsius for light, mostly seated work.
Shops were not allowed to keep their doors permanently open when heat escaped. Illuminated advertising had to be switched off from 10 p.m. until 4 p.m. the next day.