In January 2007, Chancellor Angela Merkel met President Vladimir Putin in Sochi. Putin’s black Labrador, Koni, came into the room and moved around close to her. In her memoir Freiheit, published in 2024, Merkel wrote that Putin had known since 2006 that she was afraid of dogs. In Sochi she tried to ignore the dog while they posed for the photographers. She told herself: Bleib ruhig, konzentrier dich auf die Fotografen, es wird vorübergehen. Stay calm, concentrate on the photographers, it will pass. She wrote that Putin’s face seemed to show that he enjoyed the situation. She did not raise the matter with him. In November 2024, at a press conference in Astana, Putin said that he had not known she was afraid of dogs. He apologized to her in public.
The Girl in Rostock
On 15 July 2015, Chancellor Angela Merkel held a citizens’ dialogue with school pupils in Rostock. One of them was Reem, a girl whose family had come from Lebanon. She told the chancellor that her family had lived in Germany for four years and that she did not know whether they could stay. Merkel answered with the rules of asylum policy. Germany could not take in everyone. Das ist manchmal auch hart, Politik, she said. That is sometimes hard, politics. Reem began to cry. Merkel stopped, walked over and stroked her. Ich weiß, dass das eine belastende Situation ist – aber trotzdem möchte ich sie einmal streicheln. I know this is a difficult situation, but I would still like to stroke her. Under the hashtag #merkelstreichelt, her reaction was heavily criticized online.
The tears did not change the answer.
The Schleyer Decision
On 5 September 1977, the Red Army Faction kidnapped Hanns Martin Schleyer, the president of the German employers’ association. The kidnappers demanded the release of imprisoned terrorists. On Schleyer’s behalf, his son Hanns-Eberhard asked the Federal Constitutional Court to order the government to meet the demands. On 16 October 1977, the court refused. The Basic Law, it said, creates a duty to protect not only the individual but also the whole body of citizens. The court could not prescribe a specific decision to the responsible state bodies. It gave the reason. If the constitution fixed the state’s response in advance, that response would become calculable for terrorists. Schleyer was killed on 18 October 1977.
Advertising With Pity
The clothing company Benetton ran advertisements in the magazine Stern that showed no product. One showed a duck covered in oil. One showed children at work in the Third World. One showed a naked body stamped with the words “H.I.V. POSITIVE”. On 6 July 1995, the Federal Court of Justice banned the magazine from printing the ads, because they were unfair competition. Its reasoning was this. A company that uses images of severe suffering to arouse pity for competitive purposes, without any objective reason, violates good morals in competition. The ads aimed only to create a mood in which consumers would side with the company.
On 12 December 2000, the Federal Constitutional Court overturned the rulings. The ads were protected as expressions of opinion.
Business Is Business
Geschäft ist Geschäft. — Business is business. Duden explains it: when money is involved, one cannot take feelings into account.
Beim Geld hört die Freundschaft auf. — Where money begins, friendship ends.
Bei Geldfragen hört die Gemütlichkeit auf. — Where money is concerned, the friendly mood ends. The banker David Hansemann said it in the Prussian United Diet in 1847, in a debate on a state loan for a railroad. It quickly became a common saying.
Dienst ist Dienst und Schnaps ist Schnaps. — Duty is duty and schnapps is schnapps.
Words for Playing on Feelings
auf die Tränendrüse drücken — To press on the tear gland. Duden marks it as mildly disparaging. It means trying to produce emotion and sentimentality through the way something is presented.
die Gefühlsduselei — Emotional fuzziness. Duden marks it as colloquial and disparaging: thinking or behavior driven by exaggerated feeling.
rührselig — Overly sentimental, too easily moved to tears.
die Mitleidstour, die Mitleidsmasche — The pity routine, the pity trick. Tour and Masche both name a method used to get something. Duden gives the example die Tour zieht bei mir nicht! That routine does not work on me.
Keeping Composure
die Contenance wahren — To keep one’s composure. Duden defines Contenance as composure in a difficult situation.
jemanden aus der Contenance bringen — To make someone lose their composure.
einen kühlen Kopf bewahren — To keep a cool head. Duden: not to become nervous and to keep the overview.
den Kopf verlieren — To lose one’s head. Duden: to lose the overview, one’s calm, one’s composure.
Wer schreit, hat Unrecht. — Whoever shouts is in the wrong.
Talks in a Factual Atmosphere
A common word in German official statements on the mood of talks is sachlich, factual. On 7 April 1989, Chancellor Helmut Kohl received Günter Mittag, a secretary of the East German party’s Central Committee. The government bulletin reported: Das Gespräch fand in einer sachlichen Atmosphäre statt. The talk took place in a factual atmosphere. It added that problems were raised openly. On 8 January 2026, Deutsche Bahn and the train drivers’ union GDL opened a new round of wage negotiations. The company’s headline read: Erster Termin konstruktiv und sachlich. First meeting constructive and factual.
Post-Factual
On 9 December 2016, the Society for the German Language chose postfaktisch, post-factual, as its word of the year. The jury explained that the word points to a shift. More and more, it is about emotions instead of facts. Not the claim to truth, but speaking the “felt truth” leads to success in the post-factual age. Chancellor Angela Merkel had used the word in September 2016, after her party lost votes in the Berlin state election. Es heißt ja neuerdings, wir lebten in postfaktischen Zeiten. Das soll wohl heißen, die Menschen interessieren sich nicht mehr für Fakten, sie folgen allein den Gefühlen. It is said these days that we live in post-factual times. That probably means that people are no longer interested in facts and follow only their feelings.
Scholzomat
Scholzomat is a nickname for Olaf Scholz. It joins his name to Automat, a machine that works by itself. He got it as general secretary of the Social Democrats, for his sometimes robot-like manner. A 2021 portrait of him as candidate for chancellor called it den zweifelhaften Spitznamen, the dubious nickname. It said his dry Hamburg manner seemed wooden to many people outside Hamburg.
The nickname was meant as criticism, not as praise.