The Works Constitution Act draws a line. Under Section 81, the employer must inform each employee about their tasks and responsibilities and the kind of work they do. Under Section 82, the employee kann verlangen, can demand, that the calculation and composition of their pay be explained and that their performance and career prospects be discussed. Under Section 83, the employee has the right to see their personnel file. The employer must bring the basics of the job, and the risks that come with it. For much of the rest, the employee must ask.
The Letter in the Mailbox
Under Section 130 of the Civil Code, a written declaration takes effect when it reaches the person it is addressed to. A letter counts as received once it is in the mailbox at a time when the recipient can be expected to empty it. The Federal Labor Court has applied this to letters of dismissal. A dismissal can be received even while the employee is away on vacation, and even if the employer knows it. An employee who does not open the letter cannot delay its receipt.
Ask Your Doctor or Pharmacist
Germans know the sentence that ends most television commercials for medicines. Zu Risiken und Nebenwirkungen lesen Sie die Packungsbeilage und fragen Sie Ihren Arzt oder Apotheker. “For risks and side effects, read the package insert and ask your doctor or pharmacist.” The law on advertising for medicines requires it. The advertisement does not list the risks. It tells the viewer where to go and get the information. Since December 2023, the required wording has been gender-neutral: fragen Sie Ihre Ärztin, Ihren Arzt oder in Ihrer Apotheke.
Dare to Know
In December 1784, Immanuel Kant published his answer to the question “What is Enlightenment?” in the Berlinische Monatsschrift. It begins: Aufklärung ist der Ausgang des Menschen aus seiner selbstverschuldeten Unmündigkeit. “Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-incurred immaturity.” Kant defined immaturity as the inability to use one’s own understanding without guidance from another. The motto of the Enlightenment, he wrote, is Sapere aude! Have the courage to use your own understanding.
Solitude and Freedom
Wilhelm von Humboldt wrote a memorandum on the organization of the new university in Berlin, dated around 1810. In it he named Einsamkeit und Freiheit, solitude and freedom, as the principles that govern the university. The Humboldt ideal that grew from it includes the free choice of subjects and the free organization of one’s studies.
The Supervisory Board Must Ask
The German Stock Corporation Act gives the supervisory board the right to demand a report from the management board at any time. In October 2025 the Federal Court of Justice made clear that this right is also a duty. If reports are missing, the supervisory board must demand them, follow up and, if necessary, apply pressure. Informal conversations are not enough.
Germany and the Love of Privacy
This unwillingness to discuss private time with colleagues reveals both the German distaste for small talk, but also the German desire for privacy.
Germans have a clear and robust sense of what should be in the public domain and what should not, and although there are exceptions for good friends, finding out what your colleagues get up to outside of work requires military grade interrogation techniques.
With waterboarding out of the question, I am left with little recourse other than to linguistically trap colleagues into giving away small details of their lives. The excruciating process of trial and error can last for years, until one day a colleague feels comfortable enough to actually tell you directly what they get up to when not at work.
Germans hand police too much data, court rules
German authorities have too much access to people’s internet and mobile phone data and laws must be rewritten as they are unconstitutional, a court says.
The federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe has ruled that the privacy of Germans should be better protected.
Police investigating crimes or trying to prevent terror attacks are currently allowed to access names, addresses, birth dates and IP addresses. They are not entitled to access data involving connections to other people.
However, campaigners challenged the existing laws, and the judges agreed police should only be allowed such access if there was a specific danger or suspicion of a crime. Current laws violated the right of citizens to phone and internet privacy, they ruled.
Privacy is a significant concern for Germans for historical reasons, dating back to the all-pervasive Stasi intelligence service of the old East Germany and the vicious Gestapo of the Nazi era.
Police Have Too Much Access to People’s Data, German Court Rules
The Constitutional Court said that the current laws did not do enough to protect personal privacy in the digital realm.
July 2020. BERLIN — The German police and intelligence agencies have excessive access to citizens’ mobile and internet communications, the country’s Constitutional Court said on Friday, ordering the existing laws to be tightened.
It was the latest decision by the court to support personal privacy over public security concerns in the digital sphere, which, taken together, have made the country a world leader in protecting personal privacy.
Critics charge that the string of court decisions could hinder the ability of security services to prevent crimes and terrorist attacks.
Information Management – Holschuld
Wikipedia – Information management uses the legal terms Holschuld (obligation to collect) and Bringschuld (obligation to deliver) for the information behavior of persons or personnel who have to collect information, messages or knowledge from the owner of the information in a timely and complete manner and in a suitable form or to forward it to another person.
According to the sender-receiver model, work instructions, service instructions or a manager must clarify in advance which information is required to be retrieved (pull) and for which information is required to be delivered (push) and who is responsible for the transmission of information. There is an obligation to deliver if the sender is the initiator of the information forwarding. In the case of an obligation to collect, the recipient is the initiator and must make an effort to obtain information from a source.
As a rule, information and messages are the responsibility of the person who received this information. He must decide to which addressees it is to be passed on. In hierarchical organizations, the reporting obligation (obligation to provide) is imposed on the respective lower level, which has to report to the higher level. Management must then inform the board accordingly. Since the supervisory board should obtain all relevant information in a better and more detailed manner, it has to actively demand the executive board’s obligation to provide it and to meet its obligation to collect it to a greater extent.