Germany, Persuasion - understand-culture

Gaps in the Path

Erzählen Sie etwas über sich! Tell us something about yourself! A German career guide calls this a classic request to applicants in the job interview. They are expected to connect their Werdegang, the path of their career, to the requirements of the job.

Longer gaps in the curriculum vitae are praktisch immer thematisiert und hinterfragt, practically always raised and questioned, the same guide writes. A gap becomes critical after three to four months without activity. The career portal of the University of Potsdam advises: Rechnen Sie damit, im Vorstellungsgespräch zu Lücken oder Brüchen befragt zu werden. Expect to be asked about gaps or breaks in the interview.

The Defendant’s Life Comes First

A guide for law students sets out the written grounds of a German criminal judgment in this order. First come the defendant’s personal circumstances. They say when and where he was born, how he grew up, what schooling and training he had, and what his family and financial situation is. His previous convictions belong to this Lebenslauf, the account of his life. Then come the facts of the case, the assessment of the evidence, the legal assessment and the sentence.

The Federal Court of Justice speaks of findings zum Werdegang, zum Vorleben und zur Persönlichkeit des Angeklagten, on the defendant’s development, his earlier life and his personality. They are needed above all when a court convicts. The law does not fix their place in the judgment. The guide recommends putting them first, because this makes the judgment easier to read.

The House of History

The Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, the House of the History of the Federal Republic of Germany, is a federal foundation set up by law. The law states its purpose: to present the history of the Federal Republic and of the GDR unter Einbeziehung der Vor- und Entstehungsgeschichte, including the history before them and of how they came about.

Its museum in Bonn opened in June 1994. The permanent exhibition Unsere Geschichte. Deutschland seit 1945, Our History: Germany Since 1945, counted 14.3 million visits until it closed in September 2024. The museum calls itself gegenwartsbezogen, related to the present. Although its staff are historians, it says, its task is gegenwärtige Ereignisse einzuordnen, to place current events in context.

In the Beginning

In 1983 the historian Thomas Nipperdey published Deutsche Geschichte 1800–1866, German history from 1800 to 1866. Its first sentence is: Am Anfang war Napoleon. In the beginning was Napoleon.

In 2000 Heinrich August Winkler published Der lange Weg nach Westen, The Long Road West, a German history of the 19th and 20th centuries. It begins: Im Anfang war das Reich. In the beginning was the Reich. What distinguishes German history from that of the great Western European nations, he writes, has its origin here.

In the preface Winkler names his questions. Germany became a nation state much later than England and France, and a democracy later still. He asks what consequences this doppelte Verspätung, double delay, hatte und bis heute hat, had and still has today.

Circumstances Handed Down

Die Menschen machen ihre eigene Geschichte, aber sie machen sie nicht aus freien Stücken, nicht unter selbstgewählten, sondern unter unmittelbar vorgefundenen, gegebenen und überlieferten Umständen. People make their own history, but not as they please. They make it under circumstances they did not choose, circumstances they find before them, given and handed down.

Karl Marx wrote this in the first chapter of Der achtzehnte Brumaire des Louis Bonaparte, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, between December 1851 and March 1852. It first appeared in May 1852 in New York. The next sentence reads: Die Tradition aller toten Geschlechter lastet wie ein Alp auf dem Gehirne der Lebenden. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.

Blind to the Present

On 8 May 1985, the 40th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, Federal President Richard von Weizsäcker spoke in the German Bundestag. It is not a matter of mastering the past, he said. Das kann man gar nicht. That cannot be done. The past cannot be changed afterwards or undone.

Then he said: Wer aber vor der Vergangenheit die Augen verschließt, wird blind für die Gegenwart. But whoever closes his eyes to the past becomes blind to the present.

Relevant to the System

systemrelevant
Relevant to the system. In 2020 the Society for the German Language put the word in sixth place among its words of the year. First place went to Corona-Pandemie. During the pandemic the word described jobs and institutions by their role in keeping the whole running.

A Model for Industry 4.0

On 20 April 2016 the German Institute for Standardization, DIN, announced DIN SPEC 91345. It defines the Referenzarchitekturmodell Industrie 4.0, the reference architecture model for Industry 4.0, known as RAMI 4.0. The model was developed in the Plattform Industrie 4.0.

RAMI 4.0 takes the form of a cube of layers. Its three axes are the life cycle of the product, the hierarchy of the plant equipment, and the layers of integration. It serves to describe the basic ideas of Industry 4.0 in a structured way.

Before the Bracket

The German Civil Code is divided into five books. The first book is the General Part. Its rules are vor die Klammer gezogen, placed before the bracket, as in mathematics. With some limits, they apply to all four books that follow.

German law students learn this as das Prinzip des Vor-die-Klammer-Ziehens, the principle of placing rules before the bracket. A study guide for the law exam names the purpose: to avoid repetition in the code.

Living Systems

On 16 December 2004 the state education ministers adopted national educational standards for biology. They build the subject on three basic concepts: system, structure and function, and development. Lebendige Systeme (Biosysteme) sind Gegenstand der Biologie. Living systems are the subject of biology. Lebendige Systeme bestehen aus unterschiedlichen Elementen, die miteinander in Wechselwirkung stehen. Living systems consist of different elements that interact with one another.