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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
When a German telecom provider misses an agreed appointment for service or installation, the customer can claim compensation. Section 58 of the Telecommunications Act sets it at 10 euros or 20 percent of the monthly fee for each missed appointment, whichever is higher. The customer gets nothing if he caused the missed appointment himself. The same section covers faults. If the provider cannot fix a fault within one calendar day of the report, it must tell the customer so by the following day at the latest.
A tenant’s lease said that the rent was due in advance by the third working day of each month. For more than two years he paid in the middle of the month or even later. The landlord warned him, and the payments came late again. The landlord then ended the lease without notice. On 11 January 2006 the Federal Court of Justice ruled on the case. Rent that is paid late again and again can be a reason for termination without notice. After repeated delays and a warning, even a single further delay can be enough.
The Bundesbank keeps a collection of what others have said about it. One entry is attributed to Jacques Delors, then President of the European Commission, in 1992. Nicht alle Deutschen glauben an Gott, aber alle (glauben) an die Bundesbank. Not all Germans believe in God, but they all believe in the Bundesbank. The collection gives the year but no occasion. Another entry quotes Chancellor Helmut Kohl in the Süddeutsche Zeitung of 26 June 1997. Als Bundeskanzler habe ich manchmal Probleme mit der Bundesbank. Als Bürger bin ich froh, dass es sie gibt. As chancellor, I sometimes have problems with the Bundesbank. As a citizen, I am glad that it exists.
A company listed on a German stock exchange must publish inside information that directly concerns it unverzüglich, without delay. The rule is Article 17 of the EU Market Abuse Regulation. Germans call such a notice an Ad-hoc-Mitteilung. The financial supervisor BaFin explains the purpose. Other investors should not be at a disadvantage to company insiders. On 18 September 2015, US authorities published a notice of violation against Volkswagen over manipulated diesel engines. VW sent its first ad hoc notice on 22 September. At times its preferred shares lost almost half their value. By September 2018, investors had filed 1,668 claims for almost nine billion euros. One of the plaintiffs’ lawyers argued that VW should have informed the market by June 2008 at the latest. VW disputed this. The former chief executive Martin Winterkorn was later put on trial, among other charges, because the market had not been informed in the decisive days of September 2015.