A man who wants to become a Freemason in Germany is called a Suchender, a seeker. He can begin by attending a lodge’s guest evenings. In May 2026 the Nordkurier reported on the Freemasons in Greifswald. A seeker there may apply for admission after about a year of getting to know each other and gegenseitigem Beschnuppern, sniffing each other out. A 2021 report in the Volksstimme, from the Altmark region, describes the next steps. The lodge examines the seeker. A lodge member is assigned to him as a Bürge, a guarantor, who accompanies him on his first steps. When the examination is complete, a secret vote decides on his admission.
friendship
Five Percent Confide in a Colleague
In December 2019 YouGov asked 2,046 adults in Germany with whom they share their deep thoughts and feelings. Several answers were allowed. 46 percent named their partner, 44 percent their family and 38 percent close friends. 12 percent named a best friend. Five percent named colleagues at work. 13 percent said they share them with nobody.
An Invitation Home
In May 2025 the Goethe-Institut published a column on everyday life in Germany. In its English version, the writer says: If you have managed to be invited into the home of a German, first of all I would like to congratulate you. The writer explains that one’s own four walls are a place of retreat, and that having visitors means revealing a lot about yourself. Nur gute Freundinnen und enge Familienmitglieder dürfen in die Privatsphäre eindringen. Only good friends and close family may enter one’s private sphere. The career site Karrierebibel says the same about an invitation from the boss: Eine Einladung beim Chef ist ein Vertrauensbeweis.* An invitation to the boss’s home is proof of trust.
What One Can Tell a Friend
In a YouGov survey of November 2016, three in four Germans said they could tell a close friend that he or she drinks too much. Just as many could tell a friend that they hold a different opinion on an important topic. Other things are harder to say. 52 percent could not tell a female friend that she does not look good. 40 percent could not tell a close friend that he is a bad father. In a YouGov values study of 2011, 60 percent named honesty as a quality especially close to their hearts, more than any other.
Three Days, Until Sunset
In Friedrich Schiller’s ballad Die Bürgschaft, published in 1799, a man condemned to death asks the tyrant: Ich flehe dich um drei Tage Zeit, I beg you for three days’ time. His friend stays behind as a pledge and will die if he does not return. On the way back, floods and robbers hold him up. He keeps going, because the bloody tyrant must not be able to boast daß der Freund dem Freunde gebrochen die Pflicht, that the friend broke his duty to the friend. Und die Sonne geht unter, da steht er am Tor. And the sun is setting as he stands at the gate. Da bin ich, für den er gebürget! Here I am, the one he stood bail for! The tyrant concludes: Und die Treue, sie ist doch kein leerer Wahn. And loyalty is not an empty illusion after all.
Everyone Has Secrets
In Die Metaphysik der Sitten of 1797, Immanuel Kant writes about friendship. A person feels a strong need to open up to others. But fear of misuse forces him to keep a good part of his judgments, above all about other people, locked inside himself. Ein jeder Mensch hat Geheimnisse und darf sich nicht blindlings Anderen anvertrauen. Every person has secrets and may not confide in others blindly. Moral friendship, Kant writes, ist das völlige Vertrauen zweier Personen in wechselseitiger Eröffnung ihrer geheimen Urteile und Empfindungen, is the complete trust of two persons in opening their secret judgments and feelings to each other. A confidant with these qualities is rare, Kant says, as rare as a black swan. Yet such moral friendship does exist now and then.
A Friendship in Sie
The friendship between Goethe and Schiller is one of the best known in German literature. They addressed each other as Sie. Goethe told Schiller: Sie haben mir eine zweite Jugend verschafft und mich wieder zum Dichter gemacht. You have given me a second youth and made me a poet again. The music writer Graham Johnson notes that Goethe never said du even to Schiller. Goethe did move to du with the composer Carl Friedrich Zelter. This happened in 1812, when Zelter’s stepson had shot himself. In his reply to Zelter’s letter, Goethe addressed him for the first time with the brotherly du.
Stammtisch
der Stammtisch — the regulars’ table. The same group meets at the same pub on a regular day. Duden defines it as a table in a restaurant where a circle of regulars meets regularly, and which is usually reserved for them. Traditionally, a sign on the table marks the reservation. The word also has a dismissive use. Stammtischpolitik, Stammtisch politics, means simplified political talk.
The Office
The hit TV series The Office, which originated in the UK, now exists in nine different versions adapted to the individual languages and tastes of the American, French, German, French Canadian, Chilean, Swedish, and Israeli people as well. The U.S. and German versions are by far the most successful and longest running of the lot.
That a mockumentary show about everyday office life should have to be adapted so many times to fit tastes across cultures, in spite of keeping a similar structure, set of characters, and setting speaks volumes about the importance of minor cultural differences in such a mundane setting.
Here, in broad strokes, are some of the chief differences. In the British version, nobody is working, nobody has a happy relationship, everyone looks terrible, and everybody is depressed.
In the French version, nobody is working but even the idiots look good, and everybody seems possessed of an intriguing private life. In the German version, actual work is visibly being done, and most of the staff is coupled up.
The American version most clearly shows the staff typically working, and places emphasis on their relationships outside of the office, highlighting the reality that many of them have relatively strong relationships outside of the workplace as well. Especially clear are the tactics of Michael Scott to be the best friend of everyone in the office, in spite of being their boss and having to make the tough decisions which don’t make everyone happy.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUcS4DrExOo[/embedyt]His German counterpart, Berndt Stromberg, also seems to value the attention of his employees over his actual tasks, but clearly does not want to be everybody’s friend.
True Friends
If to consult is to provide advice, then that advice might, perhaps should, include what the customer needs to hear, but does not want to hear. A fine line. How to walk it? To withhold that advice could mean to underserve, or even damage, the customer. To provide that advice, however, could damage the relationship.
If true friends are those who tell you what you need to hear, but surely you do not want to hear, at the risk of damaging or destroying the friendship, aren’t true suppliers-vendors-consultants those who do the same?