On 18 September 1987, Uwe Barschel, the minister-president of Schleswig-Holstein, faced accusations at a press conference. He said: … gebe ich Ihnen, gebe ich den Bürgerinnen und Bürgern des Landes Schleswig-Holsteins und der gesamten deutschen Öffentlichkeit mein Ehrenwort – ich wiederhole: Ich gebe Ihnen mein Ehrenwort! – dass die gegen mich erhobenen Vorwürfe haltlos sind. (I give you, the citizens of Schleswig-Holstein and the entire German public my word of honor, I repeat, I give you my word of honor, that the accusations against me are groundless.) The sworn statements he presented turned out to be false. He resigned as minister-president on 2 October 1987.
Coming Forward Too Late
German tax law gives immunity from punishment to a tax evader who corrects his tax returns in a Selbstanzeige, a self-disclosure. The immunity does not apply if the offense had already been discovered, in whole or in part, at that time, and the offender knew this or should have expected it (§ 371 AO). On 15 January 2013, his bank called Uli Hoeneß, the president of Bayern Munich, after a reporter from the magazine Stern had been asking questions at the bank. Early on 17 January 2013 he filed a self-disclosure. The tax office found that it was not a vollständige und einwandfreie Selbstanzeige, a complete and correct self-disclosure, and the court ruled it invalid. He was sentenced to three years and six months in prison for evading 28.5 million euros in tax. Hoeneß had said he filed on 12 January. That date later turned out to be untrue.
A Bishop Resigns
On the night of 20 February 2010, Margot Käßmann drove through a red light in Hanover with a blood alcohol level of 1.54 per mille. She was bishop of Hanover and chair of the Council of the Protestant Church in Germany. The council unanimously expressed its confidence in her. Four days later she resigned from both offices. Am vergangenen Samstag habe ich einen schweren Fehler gemacht, den ich zutiefst bereue. Last Saturday I made a serious mistake, which I deeply regret. She said that she could not stay in office with the authority it needs.
The Relotius Case
The statute of Der Spiegel says that every fact in the magazine must be correct: müssen unbedingt zutreffen. Its documentation department, with more than 80 staff, is considered the largest of any news magazine in the world. On 19 December 2018 Der Spiegel made public that Claas Relotius, one of its most prominent writers, had invented large parts of his reports. His colleague Juan Moreno had noticed contradictions, checked the facts and reported his suspicion to the heads of the section. They reacted with skepticism. Der Spiegel called the case a low point in its 70-year history, and a commission examined why its checking systems had failed.
“They pay their bills“
The German newspaper, Die Welt, complimented the Chinese highly when it wrote that they pay for their Mercedes Benz automobiles on-time. Zahlungsmoral literally means payment morals.
Zuverlässigkeit is not only a human, but also a product characteristic. Germans expect dependability and durability, especially in technical areas. German power producers constantly stress the Zuverlässigkeit of their nuclear power plants.
Infrastructure in Germany is expected to have 100% Zuverlässigkeit. Brown- or blackouts of the electricity grids occur very rarely. The telephone network almost never fails. Lack of reliability in Germany quickly leads to protests by customers and citizens.
Tausend gute Taten machen keine schlechte gut. A thousand good deeds don‘t make up for one bad one. Wenn ich mich auf Dich verlasse, bin ich verlassen. To be dependent on you means to have been abandoned.
Unzuverlässigkeit is the opposite of Zuverlässigkeit. In the German context, to be labeled unreliable or undependable is a serious criticism, a flaw not easily removed. Unreliable people are not trusted, their reputation is damaged. It is the same for unreliable products.
If commitments are not met it is imperative to prove that external factors were the cause. Unzuverlässigkeit – unreliability – costs time and money and increases risk, which Germans do their best to keep at a minimum.
A German reporting from a state in the former Soviet Union: “The same problems keep repeating themselves. Aspects of important agreements are changed suddenly, which is not a problem as long as everyone is informed quickly. In team meetings we agree to a schedule, which shortly thereafter is not held to due to delays in the delivery of material, which had been ordered two weeks late. When we then contact other sources we find out that they are out of stock. Our work processes get written down, but within a month or two no one knows where they are or what they mean.”
Germans have great difficulty dealing with lack of reliability. Even with their own high standards do they have their problems. Compared to other countries, public transportation in Germany is very reliable. But not dependable enough for the Germans. The same goes for weather forecasts, an imprecise science. Not reliable.