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The First Steps at a Dangerous Scene

German fire brigades and rescue services use the GAMS-Regel, a memory aid for the first measures at a dangerous incident.

Gefahr erkennen — recognize the hazard.

Absperren — cordon off the area.

Menschenrettung durchführen — rescue people.

Spezialkräfte nachfordern — call in specialist units.

The aim, says the medical encyclopedia DocCheck Flexikon, is not to endanger oneself, the team or others. To recognize the hazard, crews use a second scheme, called 4A-1C-4E. Its letters stand for Atemgifte (toxic gases), Angstreaktion (panic), Ausbreitung (spread), Atomare Strahlung (radiation), Chemische Stoffe (chemicals), Elektrizität, Explosion, Einsturz (collapse) and Erkrankung/Verletzung (illness or injury). In June 2025 a Cologne fire officer wrote a paper on water rescue. He noted that drowning and being swept away cannot be captured by the classic scheme. He cited a proposal to extend it with one more E, for Ertrinken/Wassergefahren, drowning and water hazards.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsDItOR9Eas

Three Letters Against a Virus

During the coronavirus pandemic, German public health advice was condensed into three letters, AHA: Abstand, Hygiene, Alltagsmaske, distance, hygiene, everyday mask. Indoors an L was added, for Lüften, airing the room. After the meeting of the chancellor and the state premiers in October 2020, the federal government’s website showed the AHA+A+L-Formel. The second A stood for the Corona warning app. The Society for the German Language placed AHA fifth among its Words of the Year 2020.

Risks Into the Budget

In June 2015, the federal reform commission on the construction of large projects presented its final report. It explained why such projects so often cost more than planned. Cost estimates neglect existing risks and are often well below the costs that can really be expected. The regular underestimation of costs and time is often politically motivated. Even where risks were assessed, they usually did not enter the budget approved for the project. A study it cited of 170 large projects found an average cost increase of 73 percent, although the report noted that the study was not representative. Its third recommendation is titled Risikomanagement und Erfassung von Risiken im Haushalt, risk management and recording risks in the budget. Risks should be named when funds are requested. Identifying and assessing them, and planning countermeasures, should be a condition for receiving money. Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt summed it up: risk buffers and professional risk management make cost and time plans more reliable.

The Pension Fund’s Floor

The German statutory pension insurance must keep a reserve, the Nachhaltigkeitsrücklage, sustainability reserve. Until 2004, it was called the Schwankungsreserve, the fluctuation reserve. The law ties the contribution rate to it. If the reserve falls below its floor, the contribution must rise. If it holds more than 1.5 months of spending, the contribution must fall. For years the floor was 0.2 months of spending. In 2022, the pension insurer told the Bundestag that this was not enough. Within a single year, it wrote, the money on hand at the end of October was already 0.2 to 0.3 months of spending below the level at year’s end. The pension package of 2025 raised the floor to 0.3 months. It expected the reserve to stand at 41.5 billion euros at the end of 2025, or 1.39 months of spending.

Power Plants That May Not Close

Some German power plants no longer produce electricity for the market, but they are not allowed to shut down for good. They are system-relevant and form the Netzreserve, the grid reserve. They run only when the operators of the transmission grid call for them. The cost of keeping them ready, and of using them, is paid through grid fees. In May 2026, the Federal Network Agency confirmed a need of 7,407 megawatts of reserve plants for the winter of 2026 to 2027. German plants cover 4,742 megawatts. The remaining 2,665 megawatts are to come from plants in neighboring countries. The agency’s president, Klaus Müller, said that the reserve is needed until the grids are better expanded.

The Shelters That Were Given Up

Germany originally had 2,000 public air-raid shelters. In 2007, the federal government decided, in agreement with the states, to give up the shelter concept and stop maintaining the shelters. In January 2025, the government told the Bundestag that 579 shelters with about 478,000 places were still formally dedicated to civil protection. None of them was functional or ready for use. The head of the Federal Office of Civil Protection, Ralph Tiesler, said there had never been shelters for more than three percent of the population. The process of giving them up was stopped in March 2022, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine began. Planning for a national shelter concept is under way.

The shelters were given up in calm times. Planning began again only when the worst case looked realistic.

The Anti-Stress Ordinance

In May 2013 the Bundesrat, the chamber of the federal states, adopted a draft ordinance against mental stress at work. In August 2014 Labor Minister Andrea Nahles said: Es gibt unbestritten einen Zusammenhang zwischen Dauererreichbarkeit und der Zunahme von psychischen Erkrankungen. There is an undisputed link between constant reachability and the rise in mental illness. She had the Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health examine whether limits for stress could be defined. The press called the plan an Anti-Stress-Verordnung. The employers’ federation BDA rejected it. In 2020 the Left Party in the Bundestag was still calling for such an ordinance.

The Health Card Planned for 2006

A German law of 2003 aimed to introduce the electronic health insurance card on 1 January 2006, with a full security and data protection concept and field tests. At a congress at the time, some participants already called the schedule untenable. Only from 1 January 2015 was the card the sole valid proof of insurance. In November 2015 an opposition group in the Bundestag claimed the project had cost over 1.3 billion euros. That figure comes from the questioners, not from the government.

Fast Aid, Then Years of Disputes

In spring 2020 the German states paid emergency aid to small firms and the self-employed. The money went out sehr unbürokratisch und oftmals ohne große Vorprüfung, very unbureaucratically and often without much prior checking. In April 2020 North Rhine-Westphalia stopped payments for a time, after fraud attempts with fake application websites. Later the state demanded part of the money back. In March 2023 the Higher Administrative Court of North Rhine-Westphalia ruled the repayment notices unlawful. The court found it had remained unclear what the aid was meant to replace: lost sales, payment problems or living costs. The state could also have recalculated about 220,000 further cases, but said it did not plan to.

The Building and Its Paperwork

When a contractor finishes a public building job in Germany, the client typically requires the Revisionsunterlagen: plans of the building as built, operating and maintenance instructions, test certificates and data sheets. The city of Mülheim an der Ruhr publishes its requirements for tenders. The documents must arrive at least three weeks before acceptance, in two paper copies and a digital copy. Their content muss einem unbeteiligten Dritten den störungsfreien Betrieb eines Gebäudes ermöglichen. It must allow an outside party who was not involved to run the building without disruption. If the documents are missing or incomplete, the city can refuse acceptance and hold back part of the final payment.