September 2021. Deutsche Welle. Before devastating floods swept across western Germany in mid-July, killing 184 people, Germany’s Ahr valley was a popular destination for wine lovers and hikers.
But now, there is little left for tourists to explore: Vineyards have been destroyed, trails and roads have been washed away. It will take years for tourism in the region to recover. The flooding could be a wakeup call for other touristic regions in Germany to adapt to climate change — or suffer the consequences.
BBC. 2020. For centuries, Germany has been synonymous with order. So how can a rule-abiding nation also have an anything-goes spirit?
In the nearly four years I’ve lived in Germany, that woman’s reprimand was just one of many examples I’ve experienced of Germans strictly adhering to the rules in the name of preserving Ordnung (order). Because in Germany, as the famous expression goes, “Ordnung muss sein” (“there must be order”). In fact, this proverbial saying is so well-ingrained in the German psyche that it’s become a cultural cliché for Germans around the world, and a way of life for them at home.
“Most of this isn’t particularly unique to Germany (except the famous end of speed restriction on the Autobahn and the standard speed limits in different areas). Germany mostly follows the Vienna Convention standard signs, as opposed to the American/Japanese/Australian ones which have different colors and shapes and often use text instead of symbols.”
“I love that the German word for a traffic sign is ,,das Schild” (“shield”). Makes me think of knights and turtles.”
“I found this very interesting. I wonder how strictly Germans obey das Stopp-Schild. In the USA we have identical stop signs, but most drivers just treat them like a Vorfahrt gewären Schild. They will slow down and check for cross traffic, but won’t usually come to a complete stop unless they see someone coming.
Interestingly, we also have a sign that looks exatly like the Vorfahrt gewären Schild, except that it says YIELD in the middle. It basically means the same thing. However, because most drivers treat the stop sign like a yield sign, some people will be even less careful at a yield sign, which can be very dangerous.
My hometown recently replaced all of the yield signs with stop signs because of this. There is no equivalent to the Vorfahrtsstrasse-Schild in the USA. If an intersection does not have a stop sign (or yield sign or stop-light or similar) then you can assume that you have the right of way, because there will be a stop sign (or similar) on the intersecting road.
The closest thing to a Vorfahrtsstrasse-Schild in the USA would be a green light an intersection. You only see this at intersections with high traffic, where the priority road constantly changes, such as on a highway, or a town’s main street. As for speed limits, our signs look very different, but the speeds are very similar (after the conversion to MPH). I also wonder how strictly Germans obey speed limits, because in the USA you can usually go 5-10 MPH faster without getting pulled over, at least in my experience.”
At many German universities, the following rule of thumb applies: achelor’s theses are 40 to 60 pages long, and Master’s theses are around 80 to 120 pages. Some universities also specify the expected scope in words, which is then between 15,000 and 20,000 words.
Still others only specify the processing time, but do not express any limitation in terms of the number of pages or words. Depending on whether you are writing your Master’s thesis in three or six months, you can use the following rules of thumb as a guide: 3 months processing time = 60-80 pages, 6 months processing time = 80-120 pages
The Guardian. 2017. A leaked defence document has revealed the country’s worries about the breakup of the global order – a scenario with serious consequences for post-Brexit Britain.
The German defence ministry set out its worst-case scenario for the year 2040 in a secret document that was leaked to Der Spiegel last week: “EU enlargement has been largely abandoned, and more states have left the community … the increasingly disorderly, sometimes chaotic and conflict-prone, world has dramatically changed the security environment.”
The 120-page-long paper, entitled Strategic Perspective 2040, is a federal government policy document – and the scenarios it imagines are grimly realistic: an east-west conflict in which some EU states join the Russian side or a “multipolar” Europe, where some states adopt the Russian economic and political model in defiance of the Lisbon treaty.
Because Germans believe in discipline – in sticking to a plan – they plan for less unforeseen circumstances. Instead, they build in room for quick adjustments based on the situation on the ground.