On 1 January 2008 Bavaria’s law to protect non-smokers came into force. Beer tents and smokers’ clubs were exempt. After the 2008 state election, the new government loosened the law. From 1 August 2009, smoking was again allowed in small pubs with one room and in side rooms of restaurants. A citizens’ initiative then collected more than 1.3 million signatures within two weeks. On 4 July 2010, 61 percent of voters in a referendum chose smoke-free restaurants and pubs. From 1 August 2010 all exceptions were abolished, including those for beer tents. Ten years later, in 2020, smoking in restaurants, pubs and beer tents in Bavaria was still completely banned.
Blotting Paper and Nylon
In 1908 Melitta Bentz developed the ready-made disposable coffee filter. She used blotting paper from her son’s school exercise books. Until then, coffee was filtered through ordinary funnels with filters of cloth or blotting paper. On 20 June 1908 the Imperial Patent Office granted her a utility model. In 1958 Artur Fischer brought his plastic wall plug, made of polyamide, onto the market. German Wikipedia calls it the most successful wall plug in the world for decades. The first industrially made expansion plug had been invented in 1910 by John Joseph Rawlings. Before that, a piece of wood was set into the wall with plaster or mortar. Fischer filed more than a thousand patents and utility models. In 2014 he received the European Inventor Award for his life’s work.
A Mentality of Improvement
In April 2016 the Federal Agency for Civic Education published an essay on start-ups in Germany. Its authors, Nancy Richter and Thomas Schildhauer, wrote: Aber man muss wissen, dass die deutsche Innovationsmentalität eher inkrementelles Wachstum und damit die Verbesserung von bestehenden Produkten, Services, Prozessen und Geschäftsmodellen unterstützt. (But one must know that the German innovation mentality tends to support incremental growth, and with it the improvement of existing products, services, processes and business models.) Incremental innovation, they noted, needs investments whose use and results can be planned fairly well. According to the innovation reports, Germany is very well positioned in it.
The Vocabulary of the Catch
Wo ist der Haken?
Where is the hook? Where is the catch? The Duden dictionary defines Haken here as a hidden difficulty.
Die Sache hat einen Pferdefuß.
The matter has a horse’s foot. It has a bad side that is not obvious at first.
zu schön, um wahr zu sein
Too good to be true.
die Vorschusslorbeeren
Advance laurels. Praise given before anything has been achieved. The word usually carries doubt.
die Schwarzmalerei
Painting in black. A description that is too pessimistic. The word marks the limit: listing risks is expected, painting everything black is not.
All Eighteen Failed
The Puma is the German army’s new infantry fighting vehicle. It is considered highly modern, but its introduction suffered long delays and large cost increases. On 15 December 2022 an armored infantry brigade reported grave defects in all 18 Pumas used in a two-week exercise. All 18 had broken down after at most eight days. Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht then stopped the purchase of further Pumas. According to later reports, most of the problems came from a lack of trained personnel, spare parts and special tools. Only a cable fire in one vehicle counted as a serious fault. By early January 2023, 17 of the 18 vehicles had been repaired. On 5 May 2023 an order for 50 more Pumas was announced.
Comply or Explain
On 26 February 2002 a government commission handed the federal government the German Corporate Governance Code. It collects principles and recommendations for the boards of listed companies that are recognized als Standards guter und verantwortungsvoller Unternehmensführung, as standards of good and responsible management. The code is not law. But the Stock Corporation Act requires every listed company to declare once a year whether it follows the code’s recommendations. It must also state which recommendations it does not follow, and why.
Quiet Repairs
German car owners know the official recall, when the Federal Motor Transport Authority orders a repair. Advice pages also describe a quieter kind, the stille Aktion, the silent campaign. It usually concerns comfort features such as the air conditioning or the multimedia system. The car magazine Auto Zeitung explains: Hier erfolgt die Reparatur heimlich beim nächsten Werkstattbesuch und ohne offiziellen Rückruf des Autos. (Here the repair is made secretly at the next workshop visit, without an official recall of the car.) Owners who do not go to an authorized workshop usually miss out. The magazine’s advice is to ask the dealer, who has access to the database.
Codification Follows Usage
Since December 2004 the Council for German Orthography, the Rat für deutsche Rechtschreibung, has regulated how standard German is spelled. It watches how people actually write. Its rules state the principle: Die Kodifizierung folgt dem Schreibgebrauch. (Codification follows usage.) The capital letter ẞ shows how this works. Proposals for it go back to 1879, and it entered the international Unicode standard in 2008. Only since 29 June 2017 has it been part of official spelling, as an option next to SS. In 2024 the council also struck spellings that had not won out in usage, among them Jogurt and Spagetti. The updated rules have been binding for schools and public administration since 1 July 2024.
ChatGPT on a Private Account
A medical technology group in Hamburg allowed its employees to use ChatGPT and similar AI tools. The rules were published on the intranet. Employees were to open their own private accounts with the providers. The tools were not installed on company computers. The group works council went to court to stop the introduction. On 16 January 2024 the Hamburg Labor Court rejected all its applications. The employer had no access to the data and could not monitor how employees used the tools. In these summary proceedings, the court found that no right of co-determination of the works council had been violated.
The Studs of Bern
On 4 July 1954 West Germany beat Hungary 3–2 in the World Cup final in Bern, the Wunder von Bern, the miracle of Bern. Adolf Dassler, the founder of Adidas, had equipped the team with boots with screw-in studs. At half-time the studs were changed for the wet pitch, and the story became part of the legend. Dassler had filed for a utility model in November 1952. Others had come earlier. Ludwig Wacker of Zweibrücken received a patent for studs in 1925, and a master shoemaker in Bremen received one in 1949. Hannover 96 wore screw-in studs in the German championship final in May 1954. German Wikipedia adds about the World Cup final: Die tatsächliche Wirkung kann anhand fehlender Daten nicht zweifelsfrei geklärt werden. (The actual effect cannot be determined beyond doubt for lack of data.)