For the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, the German national team stayed at Campo Bahia, a resort near Santa Cruz Cabrália that a Munich businessman built as the team’s base. It was due to be ready by March 2014. A few days before the team arrived on 8 June, the furniture was still held in customs, the showers did not work, and there were occasional power cuts. The team manager, Oliver Bierhoff, later recalled the reaction of the goalkeeper Manuel Neuer: Ist doch kein Problem, Oliver, dann zelten wir. (No problem, Oliver, then we will camp.) Germany won the tournament.
The Word Detail
German took the word Detail from French. Duden traces it to détailler, to divide into individual parts. German has built a family of words on it. Detailplanung is detailed planning. Detailgenauigkeit is accuracy down to the detail. Detailfreude is joy in detail.
Words for Too Much Detail
kleinkariert — small-checked, like squared paper. It describes a person whose thinking is narrow and petty.
Paragraphenreiter — a rider of paragraphs, someone who insists on the letter of every rule.
Pi mal Daumen — pi times thumb. It describes a rough estimate made without exact calculation.
A Law for Every Case
On 1 June 1794, the Allgemeines Landrecht für die Preußischen Staaten, the General State Law for the Prussian States, came into force. It had 19,194 sections. Its authors had aimed to solve every possible case and to leave no ambiguity or room for interpretation. One section obliged a healthy mother to breastfeed her baby. Most of the code remained in force in Prussia until 1900. The Max Planck encyclopedia of European private law calls the usual view of it as casuistic legislation one-sided, because the code also contains highly abstract rules.
The Grand Tattoo
The Großer Zapfenstreich, the grand tattoo, is the Bundeswehr’s ceremony to honor, among others, a departing chancellor or federal president. It was first performed in its present musical form in Berlin on 12 May 1838. The ceremony follows a fixed order: the march-in with the report, a serenade, the tattoo itself with the prayer and the national anthem, and the march-out. The music of the tattoo is fixed. The person being honored may choose the three pieces of the serenade. In 2021, Angela Merkel’s choices included Nina Hagen’s Du hast den Farbfilm vergessen.
Munich 1972, Designed Throughout
In 1966, the designer Otl Aicher was asked to lead the design of the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. His guidelines covered everything von der Kleidung für Mitarbeitende über Möbel bis hin zu den Eintrittskarten, from the clothing of the staff to the furniture to the tickets. Red, gold and black were not allowed. His pictograms for the sports are still used around the world. The dachshund Waldi was the first Olympic mascot of all.
Addresses on a Grid
In 1606, Elector Friedrich IV of the Palatinate laid the foundation stone of a citadel at Mannheim and had the Dutch fortress builder Bartel Janson plan the town beside it. Today the inner city consists of 144 blocks, the Quadrate. Each block has a letter and a number. House numbers do not run along the streets. They run around the four sides of each block, starting at the corner that faces the palace. An address reads, for example, D 6, 2. The present system of letters and numbers was introduced in 1811.
The Neufert
Ernst Neufert’s Bauentwurfslehre, the theory of building design, first appeared in Berlin in 1936. It has been translated into 18 languages, and a 41st edition appeared in 2016. The Neue Deutsche Biographie says that to this day der Neufert is the standard work for every architecture student.
The Waste Calendar
German municipalities publish a waste calendar, the Abfallkalender, for each year. The Regensburg calendar for 2026 explains how to use it. Look up your street, note the district numbers for residual waste, paper and recycling, and read the dates off the monthly pages. A changed collection day is marked with the letter Ä. The bins must be out by 6 a.m. on collection day and no more than 24 hours before. Residual waste bins may stand no more than 10 meters from the truck’s regular stopping place. Fulda’s waste information for 2026 lists, holiday by holiday, which collection of residual and organic waste moves to which day.
The Expected Answer
In Brandenburg, the official form for proposing a task for the Abitur, the final school examination, includes an Erwartungshorizont, a horizon of expectation. Its first section is headed Beschreibung der vom Prüfling erwarteten Leistung, a description of the performance expected of the candidate. A second section gives the criteria for marking. In Bavaria, the ministry provides teachers with such sheets for the final German examination of the Realschule. They set a framework within which the student’s work is to be marked. The ministry adds that teachers können und müssen auf kreative und individuelle Schülerleistungen eingehen, can and must respond to creative and individual answers.