über den Tellerrand blicken or schauen
To look over the edge of the plate. Duden gives two meanings. One is etwas von einer höheren Warte aus betrachten, to look at something from a higher point of view. The other is über seinen eingeschränkten Gesichtskreis hinausblicken, um etwas richtig einzuschätzen, to look beyond one’s limited horizon in order to judge something correctly.
Words for the Wider View
die Gesamtschau
the overall view, taking everything together
im Zusammenhang sehen
to see something in its context
das große Ganze
the big picture
die Querschnittsaufgabe
a cross-sectional task, one that concerns several departments
einen Rattenschwanz nach sich ziehen
to drag a rat’s tail behind it, to set off a long chain of consequences
Kneipp’s Five Pillars
The teaching of the priest Sebastian Kneipp (1821–1897) rests on five pillars: water, movement, nutrition, medicinal plants and the order of daily life. Over time it grew into a holistic concept of health.
In 2015, Kneippen was added to Germany’s national register of intangible cultural heritage, as traditional knowledge and practice following the teaching of Sebastian Kneipp.
A License That Requires Sustainability
In December 2021 the clubs of the German Football League decided to make sustainability a condition of the license to play. TSG Hoffenheim described the two Bundesliga divisions as the first major professional football leagues with mandatory sustainability criteria in their licensing rules.
The criteria were adopted on 30 May 2022. They cover club management and organization, environment and resources, and stakeholders. For the license for the 2023/24 season, clubs had to meet 39 minimum criteria of the first category.
Stakeholders in the Governance Code
The German Corporate Governance Code tells the boards of listed companies to ensure the continued existence of the company and its sustainable creation of value. They must take into account the interests of shareholders, employees and the other groups connected with the company, the stakeholders.
The 2022 version states: “Sozial- und Umweltfaktoren beeinflussen den Unternehmenserfolg.” Social and environmental factors affect the success of the company. The code recommends that corporate strategy also give appropriate weight to ecological and social goals.
Reading a Law in Its Context
In 1840 the jurist Friedrich Carl von Savigny named four elements of interpreting a law: “ein grammatisches, logisches, historisches und systematisches”, grammatical, logical, historical and systematic. German law students still learn them.
The systematic element reads a provision in the light of where it stands in the whole legal system. A Göttingen teaching script gives an example. A rule of the Trade Regulation Act stands in the title on established businesses. By general view, it therefore does not apply to traveling traders.
Peace, Justice and Creation as One Question
From 1988 to 1989 the churches in East Germany held an Ecumenical Assembly on three themes at once: justice, peace and the integrity of creation. The plenary met in Magdeburg from 8 to 11 October 1988. On 30 April 1989 the results were handed to the 19 churches that had commissioned the assembly.
The three themes belong together in the churches’ thinking. In 2011 a synod paper of the Protestant Church in Central Germany spoke of “der gegenseitigen Abhängigkeit”, the mutual dependence, between justice, peace and the care of creation.
The Catholic Academy in Berlin calls the assembly a forerunner and signpost of the Peaceful Revolution of autumn 1989.
The Total Work of Art
Gesamtkunstwerk, the total work of art. The German word describes a work that uses all or many art forms together. The philosopher K. F. E. Trahndorff used it in 1827.
Richard Wagner made the idea famous. In two essays of 1849, Die Kunst und die Revolution and Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft, he described an art that unites all the arts through the theater. English uses the German word.
War as a Continuation of Policy
Der Krieg ist eine blosse Fortsetzung der Politik mit andern Mitteln. War is merely a continuation of policy by other means. Carl von Clausewitz wrote this in Vom Kriege, On War, published in 1832.
Clausewitz did not treat war as a separate technical field. He wrote that war is not only a political act but a real political instrument, “eine Fortsetzung des politischen Verkehrs, ein Durchführen desselben mit andern Mitteln”, a continuation of political dealings, carried out by other means.
Security in the Widest Sense
On 14 June 2023 the federal government presented Germany’s first National Security Strategy. Its approach, called integrated security, means the interplay of all means and instruments. Its fields range from defense and civil protection to development policy, raw materials, the climate crisis, pandemics and food security.
Experts at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs criticized the strategy. They counted 129 fields of action in 14 chapters and found no explicit setting of priorities.