On 7 April 1994 the property developer Jürgen Schneider disappeared. His real estate empire collapsed and left debts of about three billion dollars. Craftsmen were left with unpaid bills of more than 50 million marks. Hilmar Kopper, the head of Deutsche Bank, called this sum Peanuts. The word became the Unwort des Jahres, the non-word of the year, for 1994. At his trial in Frankfurt in 1997, Schneider confessed. For a shopping complex in his home city, he had counted stairs, corridors and cellars as rentable space. On that basis he had forecast 57 million marks in rent. Viele Angaben waren objektiv falsch, he said. Many figures were objectively false. He also said that the responsible loan officer had never asked further questions. At Christmas 1997 the regional court sentenced him to six years and nine months in prison.
To Trust Someone to Do It
German builds two different verbs on trauen, to trust.
jemandem vertrauen
To trust someone.
jemandem etwas zutrauen
To believe that someone is able to do something.
Traust du dir diese Aufgabe zu?
Do you think you can handle this task?
das Zutrauen
Confidence in someone’s abilities.
Opinion polls use the second verb to ask about competence. In the ARD-DeutschlandTrend of September 2021 the question was: Welcher Partei trauen Sie am ehesten zu, die wichtigsten Probleme in Deutschland zu lösen? Which party do you think is most able to solve the most important problems in Germany? The statistics portal Statista files the answers under the party with the greatest competence.
Not Qualified, Presumed at Fault
Section 630h of the German Civil Code governs the burden of proof for errors in medical treatment. Since 2013 its fourth paragraph has read: War ein Behandelnder für die von ihm vorgenommene Behandlung nicht befähigt, wird vermutet, dass die mangelnde Befähigung für den Eintritt der Verletzung des Lebens, des Körpers oder der Gesundheit ursächlich war. If the person giving treatment was not qualified for it, the law presumes that this lack of qualification caused the injury to life, body or health. A typical case is a junior doctor who performs his first complex operation alone. The patient must still prove that an error was made. The law then presumes that the lack of qualification caused the damage.
Who Germans Trust
In March 2018 the GfK Verein published its survey of trust in professions. It had asked 2,000 people in Germany aged 14 and over. Feuerwehrleute, firefighters, came first with 96 percent, level with paramedics. Nurses followed with 95 percent. Doctors, bus and train drivers and pilots each reached almost 90 percent. At the bottom were advertising professionals with 25 percent, insurance agents with 23 percent and politicians with 14 percent. The press release noted that the federal election of 2017 took place during the survey and probably played a role in the politicians’ figure.
Words for Letting Someone Down
jemanden im Stich lassen
To abandon a person who was counting on you.
jemanden hängen lassen
To leave someone hanging. One fails to deliver what the other person was relying on.
jemanden im Regen stehen lassen
To leave someone standing in the rain. One withholds help that the other person expected.
jemanden versetzen
To stand someone up. One does not come to an agreed meeting.
Auf sie ist Verlass.
She can be relied on.
One Person, One Word
In January 2025, before the federal election, the Greens campaigned with posters of their candidate for chancellor, Robert Habeck. The slogan read Ein Mensch. Ein Wort. One person, one word. It adapts the old saying Ein Mann, ein Wort, one man, one word. On a Friday evening in early January, a company that said it was working for the Greens projected Habeck’s portrait onto the Siegestor, the victory gate in Munich. Under it stood the words Bündniskanzler. Ein Mensch. Ein Wort. Alliance chancellor, one person, one word. The police stopped the projection. A few days later Habeck defended it in a video podcast of FOCUS online. Natürlich ist das eine gewisse Provokation. Of course it is a certain provocation.
What Managers Look For First
In July 2022 the market research firm Appinio surveyed 100 managers and 400 employees in Germany for the software company Cegid. The managers ranked the traits and values they look for in job applicants. Zuverlässigkeit, reliability, came first with 64 percent, far ahead of every other trait. Verantwortungsbereitschaft, willingness to take responsibility, came second with 35 percent. Creativity came third with 30 percent.
Reliability on the Report Card
Brandenburg’s official register of regulations publishes the report card forms for the state’s schools. On the form for grades 2 to 4 of primary school, the section Arbeitsverhalten, work behavior, includes Zuverlässigkeit und Sorgfalt, reliability and care. The teacher rates it on a four-step scale. The scale runs from hervorragend ausgeprägt, outstandingly developed, to wenig ausgeprägt, little developed. The same item appears on the form for grades 9 and 10 at a Gesamtschule, a comprehensive school.
Islands of Certainty
In Vita activa oder Vom tätigen Leben, published in Stuttgart in 1960, Hannah Arendt asks how people can act together when nobody can foresee the future. Her answer is the promise. [D]as Heilmittel gegen Unabsehbarkeit – und damit gegen die chaotische Ungewißheit alles Zukünftigen – liegt in dem Vermögen, Versprechen zu geben und zu halten. The remedy against unpredictability, and so against the chaotic uncertainty of everything to come, lies in the ability to make and keep promises. People throw promises wie Inseln der Sicherheit, like islands of certainty, into the threatening sea of the uncertain. A promise also needs another person. [N]iemand kann sich durch ein Versprechen gebunden fühlen, das er nur sich selbst gegeben hat. No one can feel bound by a promise that he has made only to himself.
Reliable, Not Fast
On 13 June 2024 the Bundestag passed a reform of the German postal law. Until then, at least 80 percent of the letters posted on a working day had to reach the recipient on the next working day. The reform sets the first binding target only for the third working day after posting, at 95 percent. By the fourth working day, 99 percent must have arrived. A report on t-online described the public mood. Most letters are no longer urgent, and for many people it no longer matters so much whether a letter arrives today or tomorrow. Hauptsache, er kommt irgendwann zuverlässig an. The main thing is that it arrives reliably at some point. In a YouGov survey of 2,577 people on 11 June, 50 percent supported this central point of the reform.