The first sitting of a new Bundestag is opened by the Alterspräsident, literally the president by age. Until 2017 that was the oldest member. On 1 June 2017, the Bundestag changed its rules. Now the member who has belonged to the Bundestag longest opens the sitting. Age decides only when two members have served equally long. The stated reason was parliamentary experience. The change also had a political background. Under the old rule, a member of the AfD, which was about to enter the Bundestag, would have opened the 2017 session. On 25 March 2025, Gregor Gysi opened the new Bundestag after thirty years and nine months as a member. The title is still Alterspräsident.
politics
The Ox Tour
Ochsentour, the ox tour, is the German word for a slow, laborious career, especially in politics. In 2016, the Weser-Kurier described the career of Christian Weber, president of the Bremen parliament from 1999. He joined the SPD in 1972 and began by collecting membership dues from door to door. He then rose through the local party offices. Weber hat das absolviert, was man gemeinhin die Ochsentour nennt. Weber went through what is commonly called the ox tour. The paper quoted his view of party work: So lernt man das System kennen, man lernt, mit wem man sich anlegen darf. That is how you learn the system, and you learn whom you may pick a fight with. Of newcomers from outside, he said that fully independent minds were not so welcome.
Reopening a Promise
Before the federal election of February 2025, the CDU and CSU promised in their program: Wir halten an der Schuldenbremse des Grundgesetzes fest. We are holding to the debt brake of the Basic Law. A month after the election, the party leader Friedrich Merz, not yet chancellor, led a reform of the debt brake through the outgoing Bundestag. It passed on 18 March 2025. In the ZDF Politbarometer poll that week, 73 percent of respondents said that the Union and Merz had deceived the voters. Among the Union’s own supporters, 44 percent said so.
Word Broken in Hesse
Before the Hesse state election of January 2008, the SPD leader Andrea Ypsilanti ruled out working with the Left Party. Es gibt keine irgendwie geartete Zusammenarbeit mit den Linken. There will be no cooperation of any kind with the Left. After the election, she planned to become premier with the Left Party’s support. In March 2008, she dropped the plan after three days, because one of her own members, Dagmar Metzger, refused to go along. In the autumn she tried again. On 3 November 2008, the day before the vote, four SPD members announced that they would not elect her. The vote was called off. The word used against Ypsilanti was Wortbruch, breach of one’s word. After her party lost heavily in the new election of January 2009, she stepped down as party leader and as leader of the parliamentary group.
Two Famous Assurances
In spring 1986, Labor Minister Norbert Blüm pasted up a poster himself on the market square in Bonn. It read: Denn eins ist sicher – die Rente. Because one thing is certain: the pension. The short form Die Rente ist sicher became almost a proverb, and Blüm was much smiled at and criticized for it. On 1 July 1990, the day the West German mark came to East Germany, Chancellor Helmut Kohl said in a television address that the eastern states would schon bald wieder in blühende Landschaften be transformed, soon into flourishing landscapes again. In 2021, an analysis in t-online found the statutory pension surprisingly robust. It also wrote that with the poster, Blüm had secured himself a place in the collective memory of the republic.
Your Savings Are Safe
On Sunday, 5 October 2008, in the middle of the financial crisis, Chancellor Angela Merkel and Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück stood before the cameras. Merkel said: Wir sagen den Sparerinnen und Sparern, dass ihre Einlagen sicher sind! We tell the savers that their deposits are safe. No decision of parliament stood behind the guarantee. An economics journal later noted that it was put into the world without a decision of parliament, as a political promise. It calmed the savers, as intended.
Writing by Ear
Lesen durch Schreiben, reading through writing, is a method for teaching children to read and write. Children write words as they hear them, and corrections come later. It goes back to the Swiss educator Jürgen Reichen. In 2018, a study by the University of Bonn found that children taught with the classic primer, the Fibel, spelled clearly better. The study set off a national argument. The head of the German Teachers’ Association, Heinz-Peter Meidinger, said: Kinder wurden damit zu Versuchskaninchen einer übereifrigen Reformpolitik gemacht. Children were made the guinea pigs of an overzealous reform policy. Meidinger called for a nationwide ban. Baden-Württemberg’s education minister, Susanne Eisenmann, had already banned the method in her state.
New Territory
On 19 June 2013, at a press conference with Barack Obama in Berlin, Chancellor Angela Merkel said: Das Internet ist für uns alle Neuland. (The internet is new territory for all of us.) #Neuland quickly became the most-discussed term on German Twitter. The next day, the car rental company Sixt ran an advertisement with Merkel’s picture: Für alle, die #Neuland entdecken wollen. (For everyone who wants to discover #Neuland.)
When Germany Changes Fast
Germany can change very fast. On 28 October 2010, the Bundestag extended the running time of the nuclear power plants. On 11 March 2011, the disaster in Fukushima began. Three days later, the government announced a three-month moratorium for the seven oldest plants and for Krümmel. On 30 June 2011, the Bundestag voted with 513 of 600 votes to end nuclear power. Eight reactors lost their licenses on 6 August 2011. German unification was faster still. The Berlin Wall opened on 9 November 1989. The D-Mark came to East Germany on 1 July 1990, and the country was united on 3 October 1990.
Shake Off the Mildew
In the budget debate of 6 September 2023, Chancellor Olaf Scholz offered the sixteen state premiers and the opposition leader Friedrich Merz a Deutschland-Pakt, a pact for Germany. Its purpose, he said, was to den Mehltau aus Bürokratismus, Risikoscheu und Verzagtheit abschütteln, shake off the mildew of bureaucracy, fear of risk and timidity. He called for Tempo statt Stillstand, Handeln statt Aussitzen, speed instead of standstill, action instead of waiting things out. One of his examples was concrete: „Schneller“ heißt, dass alle 16 Länder bis Ende des Jahres Bauanträge auch digital annehmen. (Faster means that all sixteen states accept building applications digitally as well by the end of the year.)