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.
business
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.
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.
The Warning Treated as an Attack
In early 2019, the Financial Times published articles on the payments company Wirecard. They accused a Wirecard employee of manipulating accounts and forging documents. In February 2019, the financial supervisor BaFin banned new short positions in Wirecard shares for two months. The Munich prosecutors opened an investigation into a journalist of the Financial Times on suspicion of share price manipulation, after a complaint from an investor. In 2019 BaFin also filed a criminal complaint on suspicion of market manipulation. In June 2020, Wirecard filed for insolvency. It had admitted that 1.9 billion euros in trust accounts probably did not exist. In September 2020, the prosecutors closed the case against the two journalists, Dan McCrum and Stefania Palma. They said the reporting had been “fundamentally accurate”.
A Matter for the Boss
Die Chefsache, the boss’s matter, is a matter so important that the head takes it on personally, or should. Duden gives the example er hat das Projekt zur Chefsache erklärt, he declared the project a matter for the boss. The dictionary DWDS collects uses from the press.
Klimaschutz muss Chefsache in den Staaten dieser Welt werden. — Climate protection must become a matter for the boss in the states of the world. (Süddeutsche Zeitung, 2007)
Der Wolf in Deutschland wird Chefsache! — The wolf in Germany becomes a matter for the boss! (Bild, 2019)
One Hundred Percent Equity
Wolfgang Grupp began running the textile maker Trigema in Burladingen, in the Zollernalb district, in 1969. Many Germans know him from television. For years he appeared in the advertising slot before the Tagesschau, the main evening news, chatting with an ape about Trigema. As a registered merchant, he was personally liable for the company with all his assets. During the Covid crisis, he said in an interview: Wir haben 100 Prozent Eigenkapital, we have 100 percent equity, so we finance ourselves. Equity is our strength, he said. We have reserves, and with them we got through all crises in the past. Otherwise, he said, he would have to go to the banks every week and ask. The company came through the crisis without loans or state aid. From March to June 2020, it switched to masks and delivered 2.3 million of them.
Generations, Not Quarters
Boehringer Ingelheim is a pharmaceutical company with revenue of 27.8 billion euros in 2025. It still belongs to the descendants of its founder, Albert Boehringer. A great-grandson of the founder, Hubertus vom Baumbach, led its board until the summer of 2025. In September 2026 the chief executive, Shashank Deshpande, ruled out a stock market listing: Boehringer Ingelheim strebt keine Börsenlistung an. Boehringer Ingelheim does not seek a stock market listing. He also said: Ein Verkauf oder IPO ist nicht geplant. A sale or IPO is not planned. To the magazine Manager Magazin he explained: Wir sind nicht von externen Investoren oder Kapitalgebern abhängig, wir denken in Generationen, nicht in Quartalen. We do not depend on outside investors or lenders. We think in generations, not in quarters.
The Senior Journeyman Rule
In the German crafts that require a license, a business needs a master craftsman, a Meister. Section 7b of the Crafts Code opens a second way, known as the Altgesellenregelung, the senior journeyman rule. A journeyman who has passed the journeyman’s exam can receive the right to run such a business. He must have worked in the trade for six years in total, four of them in a leading position. The law defines a leading position as one in which the journeyman was given authority to make decisions on his own responsibility in a business. The experience must also be legal. In 2015 the Federal Administrative Court refused to count years in which a journeyman had run a business without the required registration. Otherwise, the court said, the claim would become an Ersitzungstatbestand for journeymen, a right acquired simply by holding it long enough. In 2020 the administrative court in Koblenz turned down a hairdresser who had led a salon without a master. She knew that the salon was illegal.
The Red Hand Letter
When a drug company learns of a new, important risk in one of its medicines, it sends doctors and pharmacists a Rote-Hand-Brief, a red-hand letter. A red hand is printed on the envelope and on the letter. The duty rests on the German Medicines Act. The company sends the letter on its own responsibility, but the federal drug authority agrees its content and its recipients first. The letter may report a new reason not to use a drug or a new warning. One such letter, in February 2024, concerned the drug valproate. It warned of a possible risk of neurodevelopmental disorders in children whose fathers had taken it. Letters that bring no new risk are called Informationsbriefe. They do not carry the red hand.
Risks in the Annual Report
A German company that must publish a Lagebericht, a management report, cannot fill it with good news only. The Commercial Code states: Ferner ist im Lagebericht die voraussichtliche Entwicklung mit ihren wesentlichen Chancen und Risiken zu beurteilen und zu erläutern. The report must also assess and explain the expected development with its main opportunities and risks, and give the assumptions behind it. At companies whose securities trade on a regulated market, the members of the board must add a written statement to the report. In it, they confirm to the best of their knowledge that it gives a true picture and describes the main opportunities and risks.