Max Weber’s Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft (Economy and Society) was published after his death. In it, Weber sums up bureaucratic administration in one sentence: Die bureaukratische Verwaltung bedeutet: Herrschaft kraft Wissen. Bureaucratic administration means rule by virtue of knowledge. This, Weber adds, is its specifically rational character.
Experts No Boss Can Instruct
The professional code of German doctors says that doctors may not accept instructions from non-doctors on medical decisions. The Occupational Safety Act makes company doctors and safety specialists weisungsfrei, free of instructions, when they apply their expert knowledge. Company doctors are “subject only to their medical conscience.” A company’s data protection officer may receive no instructions on how to carry out the task. The Bundeswehr has a similar rule. A superior should not intervene in the medical or other specialist service of subordinates. The Federal Administrative Court explained in 2004 that the word “should” here means such intervention is forbidden in principle.
Who Chooses the Operating Method
In 2024 the Deutsches Ärzteblatt, the journal of the German medical profession, published a legal article on who may instruct whom among hospital doctors. The chief physician may give detailed instructions to junior doctors in training. That right shrinks as they gain expertise. “The more qualified the subordinate doctors are, the smaller the room” for instructions. If a senior physician masters an operating method that meets the medical standard, the chief may not require her to use the method the chief prefers. The author, a lawyer, describes this as the legal position. It is an interpretation, not a statute.
Who May Train an Apprentice
The Vocational Training Act says: Auszubildende darf nur ausbilden, wer persönlich und fachlich geeignet ist. Only a person who is personally and professionally suitable may train apprentices. Professional suitability covers both the trade and the teaching of it. An employer who lacks it may still take on apprentices, but must appoint a trainer who has it. Trainers prove their teaching skills in an examination. The written part is meant to last three hours. In the practical part the candidate presents a training situation and then discusses it with the examiners.
Proven Expertise at the Top of a Bank
The Banking Act requires every managing director of a bank to have fachliche Eignung, professional suitability. This means enough theoretical and practical knowledge of the bank’s business, together with management experience. It is normally assumed after three years in a leading position at a comparable institution. The Stock Corporation Act sets a similar rule for the supervisory boards of companies of public interest. At least one member must have expertise in accounting, and at least one other member must have expertise in auditing.
Judges Who Are Engineers
The Federal Patent Court has two kinds of judges. The legal members are qualified to hold judicial office. The technical members must be experts in a branch of technology and must have passed a state or academic final examination. Both sit on the court as judges. Commercial disputes follow a related logic. In the commercial chambers of the regional courts, the lay judges must be or have been merchants, board members, managing directors or Prokuristen, holders of commercial power of attorney. They must be at least thirty years old.
No Command Without the Course
The service regulation FwDV 2 governs training in German fire brigades. It says: Die Feuerwehrangehörigen, die eine Funktion ausüben, müssen die entsprechende Ausbildung erfolgreich abgeschlossen haben. Members who hold a function must have successfully completed the training for it. Each leadership course builds on the one before, from Truppführer (squad leader) to Gruppenführer (section leader), Zugführer (platoon leader) and Verbandsführer (unit leader). If someone must lead without the training, it should be a person who has at least the training for the level below. Such an arrangement should be limited to two years.
The Patent Expert and the Academy
In 1905 Albert Einstein was a technical expert, third class, at the Swiss patent office. On 26 September of that year the Annalen der Physik published his paper on special relativity. On 12 June 1913, Max Planck and three other Berlin physicists, Nernst, Rubens and Warburg, proposed Einstein for membership of the Prussian Academy of Sciences. Their proposal notes that he had been employed as a technical expert at the Swiss patent office, and that he had achieved his work at such a young age. It asks that his occasional overshooting of the mark, as with his hypothesis of light quanta, not be held too heavily against him.
An Institute Built Around a Researcher
Adolf von Harnack was the first president of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, the predecessor of the Max Planck Society. In 1928 he described its method. The director is so much the central figure, he said, “that one can also say: the society chooses a director and builds an institute around him.” The Max Planck Society took over this Harnack-Prinzip at its founding in 1948. Today the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry calls the principle outdated in this form, because institutes are almost never founded around a single researcher anymore. The principle still applies when the society selects its researchers.
Researchers Elect Their Own Reviewers
The German Research Foundation, the DFG, has its funding applications assessed by Fachkollegien, review boards for each field. Researchers elect the members for four years. As a rule, voters must hold a doctorate and work in research at an eligible institution. In the 2023 election about 150,000 researchers were eligible and 54,068 voted. There were 1,631 candidates for 649 seats on 49 boards.