Wer billig kauft, kauft zweimal. — Whoever buys cheap buys twice.
Qualität hat ihren Preis. — Quality has its price.
Qualität setzt sich durch. — Quality prevails.
Image World Champion
Each year the Anholt-Ipsos Nation Brands Index asks people in 20 countries how they see other nations. In 2022, with 60 nations rated, Germany came first for the eighth time and for the sixth year in a row. Ipsos Austria announced the result as Deutschland erneut Imageweltmeister, Germany image world champion again. Respondents rated German products particularly highly. In 2023 Germany fell to second place. In 2025 it was still second.
Trust at Home
In 2021, 64 percent of German consumers said they trusted German products very much. By 2024 the share had fallen to 54 percent, according to the pollster YouGov. A YouGov survey of February 2025, commissioned by the classifieds platform Kleinanzeigen, found that only about a third of consumers still see the label as important for quality and safety. Only 12 percent believed that German products are technically superior.
No Future for the G36
The G36 assault rifle by Heckler & Koch was the Bundeswehr’s standard rifle. In 2015 a report commissioned by the Defense Ministry found that its accuracy dropped sharply when it overheated or faced large swings in temperature. On April 22, 2015, Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen told the budget committee of the Bundestag: Dieses G36, wie es heute konstruiert ist, hat keine Zukunft mehr bei der Bundeswehr. This G36, as it is designed today, has no future in the Bundeswehr. On September 2, 2016, the Regional Court of Koblenz ruled for Heckler & Koch. The Bundeswehr’s warranty claims had no sufficient legal basis. The court expressly did not decide whether the rifle shoots accurately enough.
The Best or Nothing
Das Beste oder nichts, the best or nothing, has been the slogan of Mercedes-Benz since a campaign that began in June 2010. The company presents it as the motto of its founder, Gottlieb Daimler. The trade journal Horizont reported at the launch: Der Spruch geht auf Firmengründer Gottlieb Daimler zurück. The saying goes back to company founder Gottlieb Daimler. Every source for the attribution that we found leads back to the company. None of them cites a letter, a speech or a note by Daimler. The head of brand communications at the time called the slogan generisch und damit authentisch, generic and therefore authentic.
The Good Things
Since 1988 the mail-order company Manufactum has sold solid, long-lived goods under the slogan Es gibt sie noch, die guten Dinge. They still exist, the good things. The range includes preserving jars, hat boxes, willow baskets and stainless-steel vacuum cleaners. The product texts use words such as altbewährt, long proven, gediegen, solid, and stabil, sturdy. In 2007 the Otto group took the company over.
The slogan promises that good things still exist. It also says that they have become rare.
Only From Solingen
Since December 16, 1994, a federal ordinance has protected the name of the city of Solingen. The name may be used in trade only for cutting wares that were processed and finished in allen wesentlichen Herstellungsstufen, in all essential stages of production, within the Solingen industrial area. That area covers the city of Solingen and the neighboring town of Haan. The goods must also be fit for their purpose in material and workmanship. The ordinance lists products from scissors and razors to nutcrackers and corkscrews.
The Button in the Ear
In 1904 Franz Steiff, nephew of the toymaker Margarete Steiff, designed the Knopf im Ohr, the button in the ear. It was meant to set the company’s high-quality toys apart from cheap competitors. The mark was registered with the patent office in 1905. In 2014 the General Court of the European Union refused to protect the button with its tag as an EU trademark. The court found that it lacked distinctiveness.
Crossed Swords
Meissen porcelain has carried crossed swords, taken from the arms of the Saxon electors, since the 1720s. The mark was meant to identify the porcelain beyond doubt. The manufactory dates the idea to a proposal of November 8, 1722, and calls the swords the oldest trademark in Europe still in continuous use. The German Patent and Trade Mark Office is more careful. It says that other marks were still common until 1730, and it calls the swords eine der ältesten, wenn nicht gar die älteste deutsche Marke, one of the oldest, if not the oldest, German trademark.
Cheap and Bad
In 1876 the engineer Franz Reuleaux chaired the German panel of judges at the world’s fair in Philadelphia. In his Briefe aus Philadelphia, letters from Philadelphia, he found that German industry stood out for billige und schlechte Exponate, cheap and poor exhibits. His verdict caused a public controversy in Germany.