On 28 August 1988 three jets of the Italian aerobatic team Frecce Tricolori collided during an air show at the US air base in Ramstein. Sixty-seven spectators and three pilots died. On the next day, aerobatic displays were banned in Germany. Three years later they were allowed again under safety conditions. One of them is that no maneuvers may be flown over the spectators or toward them. Infusion needles with the Rekord cone, then still common in Germany, were replaced by needles with the internationally standardized Luer cone. A support group for survivors, relatives and rescue workers was set up, the first of its kind in the Federal Republic.
Erfurt, 2002
On 26 April 2002 a former pupil killed 16 people at the Gutenberg-Gymnasium in Erfurt and then himself. He had been expelled in October 2001, months before the Abitur exams, and a Gymnasium pupil who left without the Abitur had no school-leaving qualification at all. Thuringia closed that gap. Since 2004 every pupil at a Thuringian Gymnasium must take an exam at the end of grade 10, the Besondere Leistungsfeststellung. The weapons law was also changed. Sport shooters under 25 now need a medical and psychological examination, and the rules for storing guns and ammunition became much stricter.
Hamburg, 1892
In the 19th century Hamburg’s waterworks took water from the Elbe without treatment. Plans for filtering it existed, but they were not carried out, for reasons of cost. In neighboring Altona the water was already filtered. In 1892 cholera broke out, and more than 8,600 people died in Hamburg. In Altona hardly anyone died. The filtration plant on the island of Kaltehofe, under construction since 1890, was completed in 1893. It stayed in operation until 1990. After the epidemic, water treatment in Hamburg and other cities could no longer be stopped.
The Written Rules of an Apartment Building
The Hausordnung, the house rules, settles the recurring questions of living together in a German apartment building. According to the German Tenants’ Association, it typically covers quiet hours, cleaning the stairwell, clearing snow, and where walkers, prams and bicycles may stand. It binds tenants when it is clearly part of the lease. A notice that only hangs in the hallway creates no obligations of its own. A landlord can answer repeated breaches with a formal warning and, in serious cases, possibly with termination without notice.
Where the apartments belong to several owners, their decisions are written down too. For every resolution since 1 July 2007, the property manager must keep a Beschluss-Sammlung, a collection of resolutions. Each entry is made without delay, numbered and dated, and every owner may inspect it. A question that was decided years ago stays decided, and anyone can look it up.
The Accident Commission
Under a federal administrative regulation, German road authorities work with an Unfallkommission, an accident commission. In North Rhine-Westphalia its permanent members are the road traffic authority, the road construction authority and the police. The commission must observe the development of road accidents continuously. When accidents cluster at one place within a set period, the place becomes an Unfallhäufungsstelle, an accident cluster spot. The commission then decides on measures to remove the factors that favor accidents. The measures must be suitable, appropriate and enforceable. Afterwards the commission checks whether they worked.
A Ministry Founded After Chernobyl
In the spring of 1986, environmental protection in the federal government was divided among the ministries of the interior, agriculture and health. The Chernobyl reactor disaster led to the founding of the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Reactor Safety on 6 June 1986. The ministry still exists, under changing names.
Pilot, Test, Then Permanent
The German Football League took part early in the international trials of the video assistant referee. In the 2016/17 season it tested the system offline at three Bundesliga matches per round. In the next season it was used live in all nine matches of each round. In March 2018 the 18 Bundesliga clubs decided, with one abstention, to keep the video assistant permanently. They named the wish for more sporting fairness as the reason. According to the league, by the 26th round of that season the video assistant had prevented 49 clear wrong decisions in 68 interventions.
A Surcharge Meant for One Year
The Solidaritätszuschlag, a surcharge on income tax, was first levied from 1 July 1991 to 30 June 1992. From 1995 it was levied again, without a time limit, to finance German unity. Since 2021 about 90 percent of those who paid it are fully exempt. In March 2025 the Federal Constitutional Court rejected a complaint against it. Such a surcharge need not be limited in time from the start, the court held. It must be abolished or adjusted only when the extra financial need behind it has evidently ended. Germans have a saying for this: Nichts hält länger als ein Provisorium, nothing lasts longer than a provisional arrangement.
Words for a Fix That Will Not Last
die Flickschusterei — cobbler’s patching. DWDS: an improper, improvised repair, and also an attempt to improve a bad situation that does not bring the hoped-for result. Die Zeit wrote in 2008 of making a few new shoes for once, statt Flickschusterei, instead of patching.
das Stückwerk — piecework, something incomplete. Seine Bemühungen blieben nur Stückwerk, his efforts remained only piecework.
mit heißer Nadel genäht — sewn with a hot needle, done in a hurry and therefore without care.
Wer billig kauft, kauft zweimal. — Whoever buys cheap buys twice.
einen Mangel abstellen — to stop a defect, to remove it.
The Hardest Structure to Break
In Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, economy and society, published in 1921–22 after his death in 1920, the sociologist Max Weber wrote: “Eine einmal voll durchgeführte Bürokratie gehört zu den am schwersten zu zertrümmernden sozialen Gebilden.” A bureaucracy, once fully developed, is among the social structures hardest to smash. He called it a practically unbreakable form of rule.