The German Association of the Automotive Industry, the VDA, has a method called Reifegradabsicherung für Neuteile, maturity assurance for new parts. It measures how mature a project is at agreed points in product development. The scale runs from maturity level 0 to 7. Level 0 is the Innovationsfreigabe für Serienentwicklung, the innovation release for series development.
The Bridge on the Tay
On 28 December 1879 the new railway bridge over the Firth of Tay in Scotland collapsed under a train. In the first days of January 1880 Theodor Fontane wrote the ballad Die Brück’ am Tay, The Bridge on the Tay. In it Johnie, the bridge keeper’s son on the train, trusts his engine: Ein fester Kessel, ein doppelter Dampf, / Die bleiben Sieger in solchem Kampf. (A solid boiler, a double steam, they will win in such a fight.) Three witches frame the poem, and one of them has the last word: Tand, Tand / Ist das Gebilde von Menschenhand! (A trinket, a trinket is the work of human hands.) Today the ballad is a classic of German lessons in school. German Wikipedia calls it a warning against a hubris that believes in technology.
Rules for the Vegan Schnitzel
The German Food Code, the Deutsches Lebensmittelbuch, describes how foods are made and what they may be called. Many vegan and vegetarian products looked like meat products and carried similar names. Without common rules, products appeared that did not match what consumers expected. On 21 August 2018 the German Food Code Commission unanimously adopted guidelines for these products. Names such as Schnitzel, Gulasch or Frikadellen may be borrowed. Names of specific sausages, such as Bierschinken, are usually not used for meat substitutes.
The Vocabulary of Agreement
eine Entscheidung mittragen
To help carry a decision. To support it together with others.
hinter einer Entscheidung stehen
To stand behind a decision.
eine tragfähige Lösung
A solution that can bear weight. One that will hold.
abnicken
To nod something through. To approve without real examination.
durchwinken
To wave something through.
das Lippenbekenntnis
A commitment of the lips. The Duden dictionary defines it as a commitment that shows itself only in words, not in deeds.
The Tailor of Ulm
On 31 May 1811 Albrecht Ludwig Berblinger, the tailor of Ulm, tried to fly his self-built glider in public. He took off from the 13-meter wall of a bastion on the Danube, the site the town had demanded. He fell into the river. Fishermen pulled him out while the crowd jeered. Afterwards people called him a liar and a fraud. The customers of his tailor’s shop stayed away. He died in 1829 in a hospital, completely impoverished. Today it is thought that the cold water of the Danube creates downdrafts along the walls. In 1934 Bertolt Brecht wrote the poem Ulm 1592, which was taken into many school readers. In the poem a bishop declares after the tailor’s fall: Der Mensch ist kein Vogel, / Es wird nie ein Mensch fliegen. (Man is not a bird. No man will ever fly.)
Recipes Tested, Then Printed
The Dr. Oetker Schulkochbuch, the school cookbook, was written in 1910 by Emilie Henneking, a home economics teacher in Bielefeld. It first appeared in 1911. Her aim was to pass knowledge on to the next generations. By 1927 it was already the standard work in millions of households and in cooking schools. The edition of 2018 contains 455 recipes. They were developed in the Dr. Oetker test kitchen and tested under different household conditions. More than 19 million copies have been sold.
The Health Card That Took Ten Years
Germany’s electronic health card was meant to be introduced on 1 January 2006. The company responsible, gematik, was founded in 2005 by the umbrella organizations of the health care system. Half of the votes belonged to the health insurers. The other half belonged to the associations of doctors, dentists, hospitals and pharmacists. The introduction was delayed again and again. Critics said that the interest groups made gematik almost unable to decide, because they could not agree on central questions. In 2010 the German Medical Assembly voted to abandon the project in its existing form. Only from 1 January 2015 did the old insurance card stop counting as proof of insurance. In 2019 the federal government took 51 percent of gematik, and decisions since then have been made by simple majority.
Leadership Again
On 11 February 2026 the Commission of Experts for Research and Innovation handed its annual report to Chancellor Friedrich Merz. He said: Wir haben eine hoch innovative Forschungslandschaft in Deutschland. (We have a highly innovative research landscape in Germany.) Damit verbindet sich für uns der Anspruch, wieder Technologieführerschaft zu übernehmen. (With this comes our ambition to take on technology leadership again.) He added: Forschung ist kein Selbstzweck. (Research is not an end in itself.)
The Country Doctor in Breslau
Robert Koch was the district medical officer in Wollstein, a small town in the Prussian province of Posen. He also ran a private practice as a country doctor. In 1873 he set up a private laboratory in part of his consulting room. There he studied bacteria, above all the anthrax bacillus. He sent the first version of his article on anthrax to the botanist Ferdinand Cohn in Breslau. Cohn reacted with enthusiasm and invited Koch to present his work in Breslau over several days. A student named Paul Ehrlich met Koch for the first time on this occasion. The article was published in 1876. Today Koch is regarded as a founder of modern bacteriology.
The Suggestion Books at Bosch
In the autumn of 1924 Robert Bosch introduced Betriebsvorschlagsbücher, suggestion books, in his factories. Their purpose was to perfect working methods and to make the manufacture and administration of products better or cheaper. In 2014 the trade magazine INDUSTRIAL Production marked 90 years of the scheme. It reported that more than 21,900 Bosch employees at its German sites had submitted improvement suggestions in the previous year, with savings of about 33 million euros. The magazine closed with a line it attributes to Robert Bosch, without naming a source: Keiner soll mit dem Erreichten sich zufrieden geben, sondern stets danach trachten, seine Sache noch besser zu machen. (Nobody should be satisfied with what has been achieved. Everyone should always try to do his work even better.)