In 2022 the federal government, the unions and the employers met in a revived Konzertierte Aktion, a concerted action against inflation. They agreed that employers could pay a bonus of up to 3,000 euros, free of tax and social contributions, until the end of 2024. Paying it was voluntary. Unions and employers wrote the bonus into numerous collective agreements. A survey by the union-affiliated Hans Böckler Foundation, published in July 2024, found that almost 26 million employees had received more than 52 billion euros in such bonuses. 77 percent of employees covered by a collective agreement received at least one payment.
The Fool of Lake Constance
Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin was a cavalry officer. After the maneuvers of 1890 he left active military service as a lieutenant general and began to work on a rigid airship. In 1894 an expert commission appointed by Kaiser Wilhelm II declared the project unworkable. Its members included the physicist Hermann von Helmholtz. After two sessions it advised the Prussian war ministry not to support the project. From 1895 people called Zeppelin a fool, and some laughed at him in the street. After a series of accidents with his airships he was known as der Narr vom Bodensee, the fool of Lake Constance. The Kaiser called him den Dümmsten aller Süddeutschen, the dumbest of all South Germans. In 1896 Zeppelin joined the Association of German Engineers, the VDI. On 2 July 1900 his first airship, LZ 1, rose from Manzell on Lake Constance.
The Small Patent
In 1891 Germany created the Gebrauchsmuster, the utility model. It protected models of tools and everyday objects, or parts of them. It was meant for small and medium-sized businesses that wanted to protect their inventions quickly and cheaply. It also spared the Patent Office from examining many inventions. Utility model number 1 went to a dial made of imitation ivory. On 8 July 1908 a coffee filter with a curved base was registered. It was Melitta’s. To this day, the Patent Office does not examine the substantive requirements of a utility model before registering it. Germans call it the kleines Patent, the small patent. At the end of 2017, 81,001 utility models were in force in Germany.
The Midtech Trap
In April 2024 economists writing for the ifo Institute, among them its president Clemens Fuest, wrote that Europe and Germany are caught in a Midtech-Falle, a mid-tech trap. Much of the money for research goes into existing industries. Innovationen in Europa und Deutschland sind durch die Ingenieurskunst auf etablierten Feldern getrieben, they wrote, innovations in Europe and Germany are driven by engineering in established fields, such as the car industry. The authors called the concentration of German companies’ research spending on the car industry a great risk for the German economy. In September 2025 Germany fell from ninth to eleventh place in the Global Innovation Index. The president of the German Patent and Trade Mark Office called it Anlass zur Sorge, a cause for concern.
The Workshop Owner and the Young Physicist
Carl Zeiss trained for four years as an apprentice mechanic. In his time, microscopes were made by Pröbeln, by trial and error. Zeiss wanted to build microscope optics from calculations instead. A first collaboration with a scientist produced no result. On 3 July 1866 the 50-year-old Zeiss began to work with Ernst Abbe, a 26-year-old lecturer in mathematical physics at the University of Jena. Abbe’s task was to put the workshop’s microscope production on a secure scientific foundation. The first microscope built from his calculations performed worse than the old ones. The work was finally completed in 1872. After that, no competing product surpassed the quality of their microscopes.
Ideas From Inside, in Numbers
In March 2019 the German Economic Institute reported on how companies collect ideas from their own employees. In the companies surveyed, 29 percent of employees had recently submitted ideas or improvement suggestions. About 43 percent of the suggestions were put into practice. At Siemens, employees made more than 160,000 improvement suggestions in 2017, with a measurable benefit of more than 300 million euros. Employees in medium-sized firms submitted 2.5 suggestions a year each, and employees in large firms 0.3. On average, companies paid a good 1,400 euros for an idea that was put into practice.
I Hear the Message
In the first scene of Goethe’s Faust, the scholar Faust sits alone at night and raises a cup to his lips. Easter bells ring, and a choir announces the resurrection. Faust answers: Die Botschaft hör ich wohl, allein mir fehlt der Glaube (I hear the message well, but I lack the faith). The line became a familiar quotation in German, a skeptical answer to good news.
The Project Must Be Approved First
Trainee IT specialists in Germany carry out a project in their company as part of their final examination. Before they start, they submit a written project description. Under the training regulation, it must describe the starting situation and the goal of the project and set out a schedule. The examination board must then approve it. The Chamber of Commerce in Nuremberg tells its trainees: Bevor Sie mit der Durchführung Ihrer Projektarbeit beginnen, müssen Sie die Genehmigung durch den Prüfungsausschuss abwarten. (Before you begin your project work, you must wait for the approval of the examination board.) At the Chamber of Commerce in Arnsberg, a trainee whose application is rejected receives the reasons by email, revises the application and submits it again.
Always Better, Suggested by the Staff
In 1899 the founders of Miele, Carl Miele and Reinhard Zinkann, chose the motto Immer besser, always better. In August 1951 the company introduced a suggestion scheme for its employees. In September 2026 Miele marked 75 years of the scheme. According to the company, employees submitted more than 26,000 improvement suggestions in the previous ten years. Their economic benefit was over 20 million euros, and Miele paid more than three million euros in bonuses. In one example, small spare parts are now shipped in mailing envelopes instead of cartons. On about 75,000 shipments this saved around 54,000 euros in the first year.
Doubt Everything at Least Once
The physicist and writer Georg Christoph Lichtenberg kept notebooks that he called Sudelbücher, waste books. In one of them he wrote: Zweifle an allem wenigstens einmal, und wäre es auch der Satz: zweimal 2 ist 4. (Doubt everything at least once, even if it is the sentence: two times two is four.)