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.
Then We Will Camp
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 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.
Every Train in the Plan
In August 1914, a military timetable took effect in Germany on 4 August at one minute past midnight and replaced the normal timetable. The route and destination of every transport had been fixed exactly in peacetime. The planning lay with the railway section of the Great General Staff, headed since 1912 by Wilhelm Groener. Each army corps needed about 140 trains. The main lines had a planned pause of four hours to absorb disruptions. A regional history journal explains the precision: in the German General Staff, man nichts dem Zufall überließ, nothing was left to chance.
One Formula for Seven Operas
Between 1977 and 2003, Karlheinz Stockhausen composed LICHT, light, a cycle of seven operas named after the days of the week. Together they last about 29 hours. The whole cycle is built on a single superformula of three melodies, one for each of the central characters, Michael, Eva and Luzifer. The formula defines the tonal centers and the durations of whole scenes. Each opera is composed from an elaborated form of its own day’s part of the formula.
Measured Art
In 1525, Albrecht Dürer published in Nuremberg his Underweysung der messung mit dem zirckel und richtscheyt, instruction in measurement with compass and ruler. It was the first comprehensive textbook of geometry in the German language, written for painters and craftsmen. His Vier Bücher von menschlicher Proportion, four books on human proportion, were printed in October 1528, five months after his death. The third book shows how the proportions of the human figure change according to mathematical rules.