In its rules for 8D reports, Hella, a German supplier of lighting and electronics for cars, sets out how its own suppliers must answer a complaint about a defective part. The 8D report first asks for Sofortmaßnahmen, immediate measures. These apply to the part under complaint, they are temporary, and the supplier must check their effectiveness constantly. Corrective measures come next. They must ensure that a defect does not occur a second time, and the long-term measures should stop the problem permanently and reliably. A final check confirms that the measures were carried out for good. The German verb in Hella’s rule is abstellen, to remove a defect, and here it must be removed dauerhaft und verlässlich, permanently and reliably.
A Rule That Was Provisional From the Start
In March 2015 a Germanwings plane crashed, and all 150 people on board died. On 27 March the German aviation association BDL announced a provisional procedure. From then on, two authorized crew members always had to be in the cockpit. The airlines introduced the rule as a Sofortmaßnahme, an immediate measure. In April 2017 the association reported the result of its evaluation. The two-person rule had brought no gain in safety, and opening the cockpit door more often created additional risks. From June 2017 at the latest, a pilot could again be alone in the cockpit. Instead, the airlines pledged that doctors examining pilots would pay closer attention to psychological and psychiatric aspects.
After the Ice Rink Roof Fell
On 2 January 2006 the roof of the ice rink in Bad Reichenhall collapsed. Fifteen people died, twelve of them children and young people. In September 2006 the conference of state building ministers adopted guidance on checking the structural safety of buildings. The engineering guideline VDI 6200 grew out of it and appeared in February 2010. It covers buildings of all kinds except transport structures. It requires operators to keep a building logbook, and certified experts must carry out the inspections. Each building is placed in a class according to the consequences its failure would have.
Smoke Alarms, One State at a Time
In 2003 Rhineland-Palatinate changed its state building code to require smoke alarms in homes. The other states followed one by one. Berlin was the last, on 9 June 2016. Its rule applied to new and converted buildings from 2017, with a transition period for existing homes until 2020. From then on, the duty was written into the building law of all 16 states. At that time Saxony was the only state without a duty for existing apartments.
The Deposit That Started Itself
In 1991 Environment Minister Klaus Töpfer put the packaging ordinance into force. It contained a rule designed to act on its own. If the share of reusable drink containers fell below its 1991 level of 72 percent, and a second count confirmed it, a deposit on one-way containers would follow. Germans call this the Pfandautomatismus, the deposit automatism. In 1997 the share fell just below 72 percent. After the confirming count and a long political fight, the deposit applied from 1 January 2003.
The Constructive Vote of No Confidence
In the Weimar Republic, extreme forces on the left and the right could bring down a government together without agreeing on a successor. The authors of the Basic Law wanted to avoid exactly this error. Under Article 67, the Bundestag can express its lack of confidence in the chancellor only by electing a successor with the majority of its members. Forty-eight hours must pass between the motion and the vote. The procedure has been used twice. In April 1972 it failed against Willy Brandt. In October 1982 it succeeded, and Helmut Kohl replaced Helmut Schmidt.
What Changed After Ramstein
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.