Subject Matter Archives - understand-culture

The Master Requirement, Removed and Restored

In 2004, Germany abolished the master requirement, the Meisterpflicht, for 53 crafts. Among tile layers, the number of businesses then rose from about 12,400 to more than 70,000. The number of apprentices fell by 67 percent. The association of turners said it had lost a complete generation of journeymen and masters.

On 14 February 2020, a new law came into force that restored the requirement for 12 of these crafts, among them tile layers, parquet layers, interior decorators and organ builders. The federal government said it was responding to falling numbers of apprentices and falling quality.

The Pharmacist’s Pharmacy

In Germany, only a licensed pharmacist may own a pharmacy. Every partner in a pharmacy must hold the permit to run it. Besides the main pharmacy, which the owner must run in person, an owner may run at most three branches. On 19 May 2009, the European Court of Justice upheld the rule. A pharmacist also wants to make a profit, the court said. But as a professional pharmacist, he runs the pharmacy nicht nur aus rein wirtschaftlichen Zwecken, not only for purely economic purposes, but also from a professional point of view. His interest in profit is tempered by his training, his professional experience and the responsibility he bears.

In 1958, the Federal Constitutional Court decided an earlier pharmacy case. Bavaria had allowed a new pharmacy only where the public needed one and its economic basis was secure. The court declared the rule void, because it violated the freedom to choose an occupation. But it allowed the state to make entry depend on personal qualifications, especially education and training. The court described an occupation as something that is for the individual Lebensaufgabe und Lebensgrundlage, his life task and the basis of his livelihood.

Weber on the Word Beruf

The German word for occupation is Beruf, from berufen, to call. In 1904 and 1905, Max Weber published the essays that became Die protestantische Ethik und der „Geist“ des Kapitalismus, The Protestant Ethic and the “Spirit” of Capitalism. He wrote that the word, like the English calling, carries a religious idea, a task set by God. In its modern sense, he wrote, it comes from the Bible translations. It appears to have been used first in Luther’s translation of the Book of Sirach.

At the end of the book, Weber drew his conclusion: Der Puritaner wollte Berufsmensch sein, – wir müssen es sein. The Puritan wanted to be a man of the calling. We have to be. He warned that for the last men of this development, a phrase might come true: Fachmenschen ohne Geist, Genußmenschen ohne Herz, specialists without spirit, sensualists without heart.

The Age of One-Sidedness

In Goethe’s novel Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre, completed in 1829, Wilhelm talks with the character Montan. Wilhelm objects that a many-sided education has been held to be useful and necessary. Montan replies: Ja, es ist jetzo die Zeit der Einseitigkeiten; wohl dem, der es begreift, für sich und andere in diesem Sinne wirkt. Yes, now is the age of one-sidedness. Happy is he who understands it and works in this spirit for himself and for others. A little later he says: Sich auf ein Handwerk zu beschränken, ist das Beste. To restrict oneself to one craft is the best. At the end of The Protestant Ethic, Max Weber referred to the Wanderjahre. Restriction to specialized work, he wrote, is in today’s world the condition of any valuable action.

Kant on the Jack of All Trades

In the preface to his Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, of 1785, Immanuel Kant wrote that all trades, crafts and arts have gained from the division of labor. No one does everything. Each person restricts himself to one kind of work, so as to do it with the greatest perfection and more ease. Kant goes on: Wo die Arbeiten so nicht unterschieden und verteilt werden, wo jeder ein Tausendkünstler ist, da liegen die Gewerbe noch in der größten Barbarei. Where work is not distinguished and divided in this way, where everyone is a thousand-artist, the trades still lie in the greatest barbarism. Tausendkünstler is the German word for a jack of all trades.

Man as a Fragment

In 1795, Friedrich Schiller published his letters Über die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen, On the Aesthetic Education of Man. In the sixth letter, he described what the division of work does to a person: Ewig nur an ein einzelnes kleines Bruchstück des Ganzen gefesselt, bildet sich der Mensch selbst nur als Bruchstück aus. Forever chained to a single small fragment of the whole, man forms himself only as a fragment. Instead of expressing humanity in his nature, Schiller wrote, he becomes merely an imprint of his occupation, of his science. Schiller’s complaint takes for granted that a person’s occupation shapes the whole person.

Retraining

The Vocational Training Act defines Umschulung, retraining, as training meant to qualify a person for a different occupation. The Federal Employment Agency funds full-time retraining for a recognized training occupation if, as a rule, it is at least one third shorter than the regular training. Retraining inside a company is possible only in recognized training occupations. It ends with the examination before the chamber. A retrainee funded by the agency receives a bonus of 1,000 euros for passing the intermediate examination and 1,500 euros for passing the final examination.

Only in a Recognized Occupation

Germany has 324 recognized training occupations. Training for one of them may follow only its training regulation. Young people under 18 may not be trained in any other occupation, unless the training prepares them for further education.

The Trained Salesperson

Fachverkäufer im Lebensmittelhandwerk, specialist salesperson in the food trades, is a recognized training occupation. The training takes three years, in one of three branches: butchery, bakery or confectionery. Those who hold it sell by serving and advising customers. In general retail, Verkäufer, salesperson, is itself a training occupation with two years of apprenticeship. A third year leads to the qualification Kaufmann im Einzelhandel, retail merchant. Part of the training is learning about the goods.

Master Business

A German craft business may advertise itself as a Meisterbetrieb, a master’s business, only if the owner or the technical manager holds the master title. According to the chamber of crafts in Dortmund, the rule exists so that customers are not misled. A business with another qualification may call itself a Fachbetrieb, a specialist business. The crafts’ own newspaper names two examples of advertising that can bring costly warning letters from competitors: a false Meisterbetrieb, and the slogan Alles rund ums Haus, everything around the house.