German social law has a rule for the citizen who asks the wrong office. Under § 16 of the First Book of the Social Code, an application filed with an authority that is not responsible, an unzuständig authority, must be passed on to the responsible one unverzüglich, without delay. Since April 2011, the public service number 115 has answered questions about dealings with the authorities. Its promise is that it does not matter welche Behörde, Verwaltungsebene oder Zuständigkeit betroffen ist, which authority, level of government or area of responsibility is involved.
government
Schools Belong to the States
Language, schools, universities, education, radio, television and the arts are the business of the German states. This is the Kulturhoheit der Länder, the cultural sovereignty of the states. It means that the states have the primary responsibility for legislation and administration in culture. The rule follows from the Basic Law. Wherever the Basic Law does not expressly give a field to the federation, the states are responsible.
Wirecard and the Gap Between Supervisors
Wirecard filed for insolvency on June 25, 2020. Three days earlier, the company itself had said that balances of 1.9 billion euros in trust accounts most probably did not exist. A committee of inquiry of the Bundestag then asked who had been responsible for supervision. The financial supervisor BaFin is responsible for banks, insurers and financial holding companies. In BaFin’s view, Wirecard was ein Unternehmen aus dem Bereich Informationstechnik und keine Finanzholding, an information technology company and not a financial holding. For money-laundering supervision of other companies, the state authorities are responsible. In Wirecard’s case, the authority in Lower Bavaria took up its responsibility only when suspicion grew. An official of the finance ministry told the committee: Wenn keine Zuständigkeit vorliegt, gibt es auch nichts zu koordinieren. Where there is no responsibility, there is nothing to coordinate.
Who Should Have Sounded the Alarm
In the July 2021 flood, twelve residents of a home for people with disabilities died in Sinzig, in the Ahr valley. The district administrator of Ahrweiler, Jürgen Pföhler, was accused of raising the alarm far too late and ordering only a partial evacuation. He rejected the responsibility. The technical operations command, he said, had been responsible for alerting the population. Prosecutors opened an investigation on August 6, 2021. In April 2024, the prosecutors in Koblenz announced that he would not be charged.
Public Office by Merit
Article 33(2) of the German Basic Law reads: Jeder Deutsche hat nach seiner Eignung, Befähigung und fachlichen Leistung gleichen Zugang zu jedem öffentlichen Amte. Every German has equal access to every public office according to aptitude, qualification and professional performance. The constitution names three criteria for a public appointment. Who the candidate knows is not one of them.
The Debt Brake Ruling
On November 15, 2023, the Federal Constitutional Court ruled on the Second Supplementary Budget Act 2021. The act had moved 60 billion euros of unused borrowing authority into a climate fund. The court declared the act unvereinbar und nichtig, incompatible with the Basic Law and void. The court measured the act against the Schuldenbremse, the debt brake written into the constitution.
The Federal Court of Audit’s annual remarks
The Bundesrechnungshof, the Federal Court of Audit, checks whether the federal government spends its money properly and economically. It collects its findings in a volume called the Bemerkungen, the remarks. The findings are specific. The Bemerkungen 2025 stated that the expansion of the locks on the Mosel River, at 855 million euros, was neither necessary nor economical. It also reported that the Finance Ministry had spent 35 million euros on more than 17,000 smartphones for the customs service.
The Black Book of public waste
Every autumn since 1973, the Bund der Steuerzahler, the Taxpayers’ Association, has published its Schwarzbuch, its black book of public waste. The 2026/27 edition lists 100 cases. The city of Stuttgart put up sails and parasols for 350,000 euros, some of them under a huge plane tree. The town of Hadamar in Hesse built a toilet block on a fairground for 355,700 euros. In Schleswig-Holstein, 6.7 million euros of public money went into technology that is not used.
The soldiers’ commissioner
Any German soldier may write directly to the Wehrbeauftragte, the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Armed Forces, without going through the chain of command. The office was created in 1956 under Article 45b of the Basic Law. Every year the commissioner writes a full report for the Bundestag. In March 2024, Eva Högl presented the report for 2023. She said that the armed forces were shrinking and aging, and that recruitment was not satisfactory. Many barracks, she said, were in a state she called erbärmlich, miserable.
Care Before Speed
In December 2020, Klaus Reinhardt, president of the German Medical Association, said that a review period of four weeks for a Covid vaccine was too long. A spokesperson for the Federal Ministry of Health answered that the care and reliability of the vaccine had oberste Priorität, top priority. The headline in the Deutsches Ärzteblatt on 4 December 2020 was Bei Impfstoffzulassung gilt Sorgfalt vor Schnelligkeit. In vaccine approval, care comes before speed.