In February 1962 a storm flood struck the North Sea coast and Hamburg. The city’s senator for the interior, Helmut Schmidt, called in army engineers with rubber boats. The Bundeswehr’s own history of disaster relief notes that he did so obwohl verfassungsrechtlich dazu nicht befugt, although not authorized to under the constitution. In 1968 an amendment to the Basic Law closed the gap. A state may now request the armed forces in a natural disaster or a particularly serious accident.
Who Shoots Down the Drone?
As drones disrupted German airports, 144 times by the end of August 2025, a central question was whose job it was to stop them. The police of the states are in principle responsible for averting danger. On 26 February 2026 the Bundestag passed an amended Aviation Security Act, which allows the armed forces to support the states and their police. At the committee hearing in January, experts still disagreed. One of them, from the drone industry association UAV DACH, said the planned reform would leave das Zuständigkeitschaos, the chaos of responsibilities, unsolved.
Tasks Reserved for Nurses
Since 1 January 2020, Section 4 of the Nursing Professions Act has reserved certain tasks for licensed nurses. They include assessing a person’s individual need for care and organizing, shaping and steering the care process. Pflegerische Aufgaben nach Absatz 2 dürfen beruflich nur von Personen mit einer Erlaubnis nach § 1 durchgeführt werden. These nursing tasks may be carried out professionally only by persons with a nursing license. An employer may neither assign these tasks to staff without the license nor tolerate their doing them.
Everyone Sweep Before Their Own Door
Goethe wrote a short verse called Bürgerpflicht, civic duty. Ein jeder kehre vor seiner Tür. / Und rein ist jedes Stadtquartier. / Ein jeder übe sein’ Lektion, / So wird es gut im Rate stohn! Let everyone sweep before his own door, and every quarter of the town is clean. Let everyone practice his own lesson, and all will be well in the council. The first line became a common saying.
The Castle
In Franz Kafka’s novel Das Schloss, written in 1922 and published in 1926, two years after his death, the land surveyor K. arrives in a village below a castle. His appointment may go back to a letter that went astray years earlier. The villagers are supposed to bring their concerns to the castle, aber es wird nicht klar, wie dies zu erfolgen hat, da die Zuständigkeiten unbekannt sind, but it does not become clear how, because the responsibilities are unknown.
Who Clears the Snow
In winter, every strip of German pavement has someone responsible for it. Towns are responsible first, but local bylaws usually transfer the duty to the owners of the adjoining property. Owners can pass it on to their tenants. According to the owners’ association Haus & Grund Passau, this works only if it is explicitly agreed in the lease, and the house rules alone are not enough. The duty usually runs on weekdays from 7:00 to 20:00. If someone slips because the path was not cleared or gritted, the person responsible can be sued for damages and for compensation for pain and suffering.
Two Offices in One School
A German public school usually has two different bodies in charge of it. The Schulträger, as a rule the town or district, is responsible for the outer school matters, such as the building, its equipment and its maintenance. The state school authority is responsible for the inner matters, the teaching staff and the curriculum. In Berlin’s district of Treptow-Köpenick, for example, the district office looks after the caretakers and sports ground attendants, while the regional school supervision deals with the teachers. In one building, the teachers answer to one office and the caretaker to another.
When the Coach Goes Shopping
In March 2020, Bayern Munich’s coach Hansi Flick publicly called for new players. The sporting director, Hasan Salihamidžić, clearly disliked this. Flick had also asked for a veto on transfers. A sports site wrote that there had already been Kompetenzgerangel, wrangling over competences, with the previous coach. During the 2020/21 season the disagreements continued. Club officials objected that Flick had contacted players he wanted on his own. In April 2021, after winning the league, the cup and the Champions League in 2019/20, Flick said he wanted to end his contract early.
The Mother of the Company
A company in the German armed forces has a Kompaniefeldwebel, the company sergeant major, known colloquially as the Spieß or the Mutter der Kompanie, the mother of the company. He advises the company commander on the inner service and supports him in personnel and rations. His authority rests on Section 3 of the regulation on superiors. Ein Soldat, dem nach seiner Dienststellung ein besonderer Aufgabenbereich zugewiesen ist, hat im Dienst die Befugnis, anderen Soldaten Befehle zu erteilen, die zur Erfüllung seiner Aufgaben notwendig sind. A soldier assigned a special area of tasks may give other soldiers the orders needed to carry out those tasks.
A Clear Division Between Managing Directors
On 6 November 2018 the Federal Court of Justice ruled on a company with two managing directors. The company’s insolvency administrator sued one of them for payments made after the company had, he argued, become insolvent. The lower court had accepted the director’s defense that the matter lay with his co-director. The Federal Court of Justice held that a division of areas requires klare und eindeutige Abgrenzung der Geschäftsführungsaufgaben, a clear and unambiguous demarcation of management tasks, agreed by all members. The management as a whole keeps responsibility for matters that cannot be delegated. The division need not be in writing.