Trust Archives - Page 15 of 22 - understand-culture

Words for the Expert

der Sachverstand — understanding of the matter. The word for expertise is built on Sache, the matter itself.

vom Fach sein — to be of the subject, to work in the field. Er ist vom Fach carries weight in an argument.

der Fachmann, die Fachfrau — the specialist.

Fragen Sie den Fachmann. — Ask the specialist.

Da müssen Sie den Experten fragen. — You will have to ask the expert about that.

Das kann ich nicht beurteilen. — I cannot judge that.

der Fachidiot — the specialist idiot, someone with deep knowledge of a narrow field and no grasp of anything beyond it.

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.

The Day the A-Class Tipped Over

On 21 October 1997 the new Mercedes A-Class tipped over in a swerving test by a Swedish car magazine. Daimler-Benz stopped deliveries at once. It resumed them in February 1998, with electronic stability control fitted as standard, and it retrofitted the cars already sold. According to a report by the news agency dpa, fitting stability control as standard cost about 100 million marks a year. The reputation of the A-Class was damaged at first. The campaign that followed quoted the tennis player Boris Becker: Stark ist, wer keine Fehler macht. Stärker, wer aus seinen Fehlern lernt. (Strong is the one who makes no mistakes. Stronger is the one who learns from his mistakes.) Stability control later became standard in all Mercedes models.

Instead, We Kept Silent

The sleeping pill Contergan was sold in Germany from 1 October 1957 to 27 November 1961. Under the drug law of the time, a manufacturer only had to register a new medicine. In 1961 the Hamburg doctor Widukind Lenz and others linked Contergan to severe malformations in newborn children. Other sources speak of about 4,000 affected children in Germany. After the scandal, Germany rewrote its drug law. The new law came into force at the start of 1978. Since then a medicine may be approved only after proof of its quality, its efficacy and its safety. The manufacturer, Grünenthal, apologized only in August 2012, at the unveiling of a memorial in its home town of Stolberg. Its managing director Harald Stock asked forgiveness that for 50 years the company had not found its way to the victims von Mensch zu Mensch, from person to person. Stattdessen haben wir geschwiegen. (Instead, we kept silent.) Victims’ associations criticized that the apology spoke only about the company’s lack of communication.

When the Neuer Markt Closed

On 10 March 1997 Frankfurt opened the Neuer Markt, a stock market segment for young growth companies. Its index peaked on 10 March 2000. In the following 31 months it lost more than 96 percent of its value, over 200 billion euros. Some companies had published misleading figures. The segment was closed on 5 June 2003. Ten years after its start, the magazine Computerwoche wrote that many shareholders remembered it mit Grausen, with horror. The crash had shaken many investors’ trust in shares for good, and many still kept their hands off them. According to the German Shares Institute, the number of shareholders in Germany had fallen by 2.5 million since 2000.

The Vocabulary of Expertise

Schuster, bleib bei deinem Leisten!
Shoemaker, stay with your last. The dictionary DWDS explains: do only what you understand something about.

Das Ei will klüger sein als die Henne.
The egg wants to be cleverer than the hen. It is said of a young person who wants to teach older and more experienced people.

Sind Sie vom Fach?
Are you from the field? The question asks whether someone is a trained specialist.

Er versteht sein Handwerk.
He understands his craft. It is praise for anyone who has mastered the work, not only for craftsmen.

der Quereinsteiger
The lateral entrant. Someone who enters a profession without its usual training.

Earning the Right to Edit

On German Wikipedia, changes made by newcomers do not appear to readers at once. An experienced author first checks them and marks the new version as gesichtet, sighted. A user earns the right to have his own edits appear at once after at least 30 days and 150 edits, together with some further conditions. The right to approve the edits of others comes after 60 days and at least 300 edits. Both rights can also be granted on request.

The Craftsman’s Estimate

A German customer who calls a plumber without agreeing on a price still owes a definite amount. Section 632 of the Civil Code fills the gap. If a fee schedule exists, the scheduled fee counts as agreed. If none exists, the usual fee counts as agreed. The written estimate, the Kostenanschlag or Kostenvoranschlag, is free unless the parties agreed otherwise. Section 649 covers the case where the estimate turns out too low. If the work cannot be done without a substantial overrun, the craftsman must tell the customer without delay. The customer may then end the contract and pay only for the work done so far. The Frankfurt Chamber of Industry and Commerce explains that an overrun of 10 to 20 percent is probably not yet substantial.

Sunday at Noon

Every Sunday around noon, six journalists from different countries discussed politics with Werner Höfer in the Internationaler Frühschoppen, the international morning drink. The program began on radio in 1952 and moved to television in 1953. Until 1970 it started at 11:30. When it was moved to 12:00, viewers protested, above all women. The series reached 1,874 broadcasts. It ended suddenly in 1987. It had emerged that in 1943 Höfer had written approvingly of the execution of the pianist Karlrobert Kreiten, and he was forced out. Just one week later, an almost identical program, the Presseclub, started in the same slot.

The Handover Record

When Germans move into or out of a rented apartment, tenant and landlord usually walk through it together, room by room. They record defects, meter readings and the keys handed over in an Übergabeprotokoll, a handover record, and both sign it. The law does not require it. Once it is signed, it binds. According to the homeowners’ association Haus & Grund in Frankfurt, a record signed by both sides that shows no defects counts as a negatives Schuldanerkenntnis, a negative acknowledgment of debt. The tenant can no longer claim that old damage existed at the handover. In a case reported by the insurer ARAG, a landlady later claimed damage from her tenant’s heavy smoking and kept the deposit. The local court of Leonberg held her to the record both had signed at move-out, which showed no damage.