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.
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.
The Code of Good Scientific Practice
In 1997 one of the largest cases of falsified research in German medicine came to light. In response, the German Research Foundation, the DFG, wrote a memorandum on good scientific practice in 1998 and appointed an ombudsman in 1999. In 2019 the memorandum was replaced by a code of 19 guidelines. Every university must turn the code into its own binding rules. The code states plainly: Einrichtungen, die die Leitlinien nicht umsetzen, erhalten keine Fördermittel. (Institutions that do not implement the guidelines receive no funding.) The University of Potsdam, for example, announced that it had to adapt its statute on Selbstkontrolle in der Wissenschaft, self-control in science.
Expert Standards in Nursing
German nursing has its own written standards. The German Network for Quality Development in Nursing was founded in 1992. Its first Expertenstandard, on preventing pressure sores, came out of a pilot project from 1998 to 2001. Others followed, on discharge from hospital, on preventing falls, on mobility and, in 2023, on the health of the skin. Each standard goes through a process in six steps. It is developed by experts, agreed at a consensus conference and then introduced on a trial basis in care facilities. The printed standard serves as the binding basis for this trial.
A Guideline for Writing Guidelines
In German medicine, accepted good practice is written down in Leitlinien, clinical guidelines. Since 1995 the umbrella body of the medical scientific societies, the AWMF, has coordinated their development. Each guideline is graded by how it was made. An S1 guideline comes from an expert group in informal consensus. An S3 guideline has gone through every step of systematic development. Guidelines are not law, but in a given case they can define the care a doctor owes a patient. Even the method of writing a guideline is itself written down. The AWMF calls its rule book die Leitlinie zur Erstellung und Publikation of guidelines, the guideline for writing and publishing them.
From Research to Standard
For new technology, the German standards institute DIN offers a faster route than a full standard, the DIN SPEC. A regular DIN standard needs the consensus of all interested parties. A DIN SPEC needs only the agreement of the group that writes it, and it can be produced within a few months. Companies, research institutes and start-ups can start one, and a DIN SPEC can later become a full standard. DIN describes the purpose: So wird mit einer DIN SPEC der Markt für neue Produkte vorbereitet. (In this way a DIN SPEC prepares the market for new products.) The federal economics ministry runs a funding program called WIPANO. One of its aims is to turn the newest research results into norms and standards.
From Pilot to Rule
das Pilotprojekt
The pilot project. The usual form in which something new is tried.
verstetigen
To make steady. What happens to a pilot project that worked: Das Projekt wird verstetigt. The project is made permanent.
in den Regelbetrieb überführen
To move into regular operation. The pilot becomes the normal way of working.
flächendeckend einführen
To introduce across the whole area.
der Leitfaden
The guiding thread. A written guide for practitioners.
Merke:
Remember. In German schoolbooks, the rule to be learned is printed in a box under this word.
Wo steht das?
Where is that written? The question asked of anyone who claims a rule.
The Lane Rescue Workers Taught First
West German road rules have required a free lane for rescue vehicles, today called the Rettungsgasse, since 1971. For a long time, however, the rules did not say clearly where to form it on a road with four lanes. Most rescue services already taught a simple rule. Drivers in the far-left lane move to the left, and everyone in the lanes to the right moves to the right. In 2016 this practice was written into the road traffic regulations. Since 14 December 2016, § 11 says that the lane is formed zwischen dem äußerst linken und dem unmittelbar rechts daneben liegenden Fahrstreifen, between the far-left lane and the lane directly to its right. Higher fines followed in October 2017.
A Written Rule Against Rules
A 2006 baseline measurement found that German businesses carried about 49 billion euros a year in bureaucracy costs. In August 2006 a law created the Nationaler Normenkontrollrat, the National Regulatory Control Council. It checks the follow-up costs of every bill and regulation drafted by the federal government. In 2015 the federal government committed itself to a rule called “one in, one out”. If a new rule creates a burden for business, an equal relief must in principle be created elsewhere.
Three Books on How to Play
Within four years, three German musicians wrote down how to play their instruments. Johann Joachim Quantz published his method for the flute in Berlin in 1752. Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach published his Versuch über die wahre Art das Clavier zu spielen, Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments, in Berlin in 1753. Leopold Mozart published his Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule, a thorough violin method, in Augsburg in 1756. In 1829 the composer Carl Friedrich Zelter wrote that Mozart’s method could be used solange die Violine eine Violine bleibt, as long as the violin remains a violin. Together, the three books are today the most important source on how music was performed in the middle of the 18th century.