German marine pilots, the Seelotsen, start their training as experienced captains. To be admitted on the Elbe, a candidate needs an unrestricted certificate of competence as a captain. He also needs at least two years of sea time within the last five years. Training then lasts 12, 18 or 24 months and ends with an exam set by the supervising authority. After the appointment, the new pilot still starts with smaller ships. The pilotage ordinance for the Weser and the Jade sets out the steps in a section titled Lotsentätigkeit nach der Bestallung, pilot work after appointment. In the Weser II/Jade district, a new pilot may guide ships up to 165 meters long and 25 meters wide in the first half-year. The limit rises every half-year. Only in the eighth half-year may the pilot guide ships up to 350 meters long and 50 meters wide. In the Weser I district, the first year starts with ships up to 125 meters long. After the first half-year, a new pilot may assist another pilot who is responsible for the ship.
The Trial Shot in Der Freischütz
Carl Maria von Weber’s opera Der Freischütz had its premiere in Berlin on 18 June 1821. The libretto is by Friedrich Kind. The young hunter Max wants to marry Agathe and become the successor of the hereditary forester, the Erbförster. For this he must pass a Probeschuss, a trial shot. If he misses, he cannot marry Agathe. At a shooting contest, Max does not hit the target a single time, and the onlookers mock him. He then agrees to meet the hunter Kaspar at midnight in the Wolf’s Glen to cast Freikugeln, magic bullets. At the end, a hermit speaks for Max. He argues for abolishing the trial shot. Instead, he proposes a Probejahr for Max, a probationary year, so that Max can find his way back to the path of virtue. The prince accepts his judgment.
The Master Where the Work Is Dangerous
On 1 January 2004, a reform of the German Crafts Code came into force. It cut the number of crafts that require a master craftsman, a Meister, from 94 to 41. The lawmakers kept the requirement for crafts they considered gefahrgeneigt, prone to danger. The federal government later explained the term. These are crafts in which proper work, aimed at avoiding danger to the life or health of others, as a rule requires an especially thorough training. The draft law of 2003 gave examples. Installation and safety work carries a higher risk of electric shocks and explosions, and the same applies to the electrical crafts. Mistakes in roofing and in demanding scaffolding can cause considerable danger. In the health crafts, wrong measurements or poor fitting, for example by an optician or an orthopedic technician, can harm the patient.
A Permit for the Nordschleife
A racing license alone does not let a driver race on the Nordschleife of the Nürburgring. From the 2015 season, the DMSB Permit Nordschleife became mandatory for all participants in the VLN endurance races and the 24-hour race. Its stated aim is more safety on the track, especially for newcomers. Auto Bild called it the Nordschleifenführerschein, the Nordschleife driving license. It has two grades. Grade B, for less powerful cars, comes first. Only drivers who can show results from at least two races receive grade A. Drivers who have not raced on the track for five years must qualify again. In September 2025, the Formula 1 world champion Max Verstappen went through the same steps. He first completed the theory and guided laps for grade B. On 13 September, he raced a restricted Porsche Cayman to collect the 14 laps needed for grade A. But his second entry car did not complete a full lap in the race after a crash in practice. One required result for grade A was missing, and he had to hope the DMSB would make an exception. After he received the permit, he started in a Ferrari 296 GT3 on 27 September.
Fireworks by Category
German law sorts fireworks into four categories by the danger they pose. Category F1 poses a very low danger and is meant for use indoors. It may be sold to people aged 12 and older. Category F2 poses a low danger and is meant for limited outdoor areas. It may be handed only to adults, and shops may sell it to the public only from 29 to 31 December. Adults may set it off without a permit only on 31 December and 1 January. Only staff aged 18 or older who have been instructed may sell fireworks. Category F3 poses a medium danger. Category F4 poses a high danger and is meant only for people with expert knowledge. Both may be set off only by holders of a permit or a Befähigungsschein, a certificate of competence. For F4, the minimum age is 21.
A Year in the Club Before a Gun
A member of a German shooting club, a Schießsportverein, may buy a firearm only after a year of proven practice. Section 14 of the Weapons Act sets the conditions. For most firearms, the applicant must be at least 21. The shooting federation must certify that the member has practiced the sport in a club with firearms that require a permit for at least twelve months. Within those twelve months, the member must have shot once in every full month, or 18 times in total. As a rule, a sport shooter may buy no more than two firearms within six months. Above three semi-automatic long guns and two multi-shot handguns, the bar rises again. The federation must certify that the shooter needs the extra gun for the sport and has taken part regularly in shooting competitions.
A World Champion’s Expired License
A head coach in the Bundesliga or the second Bundesliga needs a valid coaching license under the licensing rules of the German Football League, the DFL. The DFB’s Fußball-Lehrer-Lizenz, the football teacher license, is valid for three years. To renew it, a coach must show 20 hours of further training. In January 2020, Jürgen Klinsmann was head coach of Hertha BSC Berlin. He had won the World Cup in 1990 and had been national coach. He had earned his license in 2000 in a special DFB course. The DFL now stated that proof of a valid license was missing. Klinsmann said: An Weihnachten habe ich die Unterlagen schlichtweg vergessen, at Christmas I simply forgot the documents. He had to submit proof of the training courses he had completed. The license was then renewed, and he could coach the team against Bayern Munich.
The Town Where Products Were Tested
From 1986 to 2021, the town of Haßloch in the Palatinate was a test market. The market research institute GfK, the Gesellschaft für Konsumforschung, used it to test new products for companies under real conditions, with real customers in real shops. In age structure and income distribution, the test households were a smaller copy of all households in Germany. The town was called Mini-Deutschland, Germany in miniature. About 3,000 of its roughly 10,000 households took part voluntarily. The test households had a GfK chip card that was scanned with every purchase. Boxes on the television sets measured how well TV advertising worked. Brands such as Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble and Wrigley tested new products there. If the people of Haßloch bought a product, it went onto supermarket shelves in the rest of the country. Products they rejected were not taken into the range. The test market ended in December 2021. GfK said it would rely more on smartphone apps, online surveys and AI-based software.
Death Notices on the Autobahn
Since 2008, drivers on the German Autobahn have passed large posters from the campaign Runter vom Gas!, Take your foot off the gas! The Federal Ministry of Transport and the German Road Safety Council run it together. The first posters showed fictional death notices, with a photo and lines such as Fuhren gerne sportlich, liked to drive sportily, and Zu schnell in die Kurve, too fast into the bend. In early 2009, the ministry and the council presented three new motifs. They showed car wrecks with the stickers “Baby an Bord” and “Abi 2008”, the school-leaving year, and a crashed motorcycle with a “Just Married!” balloon still tied to it. Tiefensee said: Die Plakate zeigen eindrucksvoll, wozu Raserei und mangelnde Rücksicht im Verkehr führen. The posters show powerfully what speeding and a lack of consideration in traffic lead to. Today the posters stand at more than 700 sites along the motorways and at rest stops, and the motifs change every year.
Watching Emigrants Fail
On 15 August 2006, the channel VOX broadcast the first episode of Goodbye Deutschland! Die Auswanderer, Goodbye Germany! The Emigrants. The docu-soap follows Germans who leave the country to start a new life abroad. It has now run for twenty years. In an anniversary article, the news agency dpa listed what regular viewers see when an emigration goes wrong: Grandiose Selbstüberschätzung, Einfältigkeit, gänzlich fehlende Sprachkenntnisse, ein äußerst löchriger Businessplan, grandiose self-overestimation, simple-mindedness, a complete lack of language skills, a business plan full of holes. The article went on: meist sieht man das Unheil als Zuschauer schon aus weiter Entfernung heranrauschen, as a viewer, you usually see the disaster rushing toward them from far away. One emigrant, Claudia from Swabia, wanted to move to the United States and sell teddy bears of her own design. The narrator noted that the trained bank clerk brought hardly any qualification for the new job. Claudia tried to brush the doubts aside: Ich habe mal ein Kleid für mich genäht, I once sewed a dress for myself. Then she added: Das ist nichts geworden, it didn’t turn out.