On 27 February 2022, three days after Russia invaded Ukraine, Chancellor Olaf Scholz told the Bundestag that Europe was living through a Zeitenwende, a turning point in history. He announced a special fund of 100 billion euros for the armed forces. Zeitenwende became the German word of the year. On 14 March 2023, the day she presented her report for 2022, the parliamentary commissioner for the armed forces, Eva Högl, said in an interview: Aber von den 100 Milliarden ist im Jahr 2022 noch gar kein Euro und Cent bei der Bundeswehr angekommen. (But of the 100 billion, not a single euro or cent reached the Bundeswehr in 2022.) She added: Es dauert alles viel zu lange. (Everything takes far too long.)
politics
The Capital Vote
On 20 June 1991, the Bundestag decided where the capital of united Germany would sit. Members had asked for more than 600 minutes of speaking time. In a roll-call vote, Berlin won by 338 votes to 320. In 1994, the decision was written into a law of its own, the Berlin/Bonn Act. Its full name begins with the words Gesetz zur Umsetzung des Beschlusses des Deutschen Bundestages vom 20. Juni 1991, Act to Implement the Resolution of the German Bundestag of 20 June 1991. Since the autumn of 1999, Berlin has been the seat of parliament and government.
The Debt Brake
In 2009, Germany wrote a limit on new public debt into its constitution, the Schuldenbremse, the debt brake. The Bundestag passed it on 29 May 2009, and the Bundesrat followed on 12 June. From 2016, the federal government could borrow no more than 0.35 percent of economic output in structural terms, and from 2020 the states could not borrow at all in structural terms. A change now needed two-thirds of the members of the Bundestag and two-thirds of the votes in the Bundesrat. On 18 March 2025, the outgoing Bundestag changed it with 512 votes to 206. Defense spending above one percent of economic output was exempted, and a special fund of 500 billion euros was created for infrastructure and climate neutrality. The Bundesrat approved on 21 March 2025 with 53 votes, where 46 were needed.
The National Anthem by Letter
Germany’s national anthem rests on an exchange of letters. In May 1952, after an exchange of letters between Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and President Theodor Heuss, the Lied der Deutschen became the official anthem of the Federal Republic, with one rule: Bei staatlichen Veranstaltungen soll die dritte Strophe gesungen werden. (At state events, the third verse is to be sung.) After unification, President Richard von Weizsäcker wrote to Chancellor Helmut Kohl on 19 August 1991 that the third verse ist die Nationalhymne für das deutsche Volk, is the national anthem of the German people. On 23 August 1991, Kohl agreed in writing, namens der Bundesregierung, on behalf of the federal government.
The People Have Spoken
Winfried Kretschmann of the Greens became head of government in Baden-Württemberg in 2011, and he had opposed the Stuttgart 21 rail project. On 27 November 2011, the state’s voters decided in a referendum that it should go ahead. The next day Kretschmann said: Das Volk hat gesprochen, und das akzeptiere ich, auch wenn es nicht meinem Wunsch entspricht. (The people have spoken, and I accept that, even though it is not what I wanted.) In an open letter to the public, answering those who still demanded that the station not be built, he wrote: Die Bahn darf Stuttgart 21 bauen. (The railway may build Stuttgart 21.) In a democracy, he wrote, politics and he himself as head of government no longer had the legitimacy das Projekt Stuttgart 21 dem Grunde nach immer und immer wieder in Frage zu stellen, to question the project in principle again and again.
School Peace
German politics has a word for an agreement not to reopen a school system: Schulfrieden, school peace. In December 2008, the SPD, the Greens, the CDU and the FDP in Bremen agreed to take no initiatives for ten years that would substantially change the school structure they had just reformed. The Bremen SPD chair argued in March 2018: Es war und ist richtig, den Streit über Schulstrukturen zu beenden. (It was and is right to end the dispute over school structures.) In 2018, the leaders of the SPD, CDU, Greens and Left agreed to continue the agreement. The structure was not to be touched in den kommenden zehn Jahren bis 2028, in the coming ten years, until 2028. In North Rhine-Westphalia, the red-green government and the CDU opposition agreed on a school peace in 2011 that was meant to hold until 2023. In August 2026, the CDU group in Bremen, now in opposition, called for a new agreement after 2028: Nicht der Konsens ist gescheitert – der Senat ist bislang an seinem Vollzug gescheitert. (The consensus has not failed. So far, the city government has failed to carry it out.)
The Coalition Agreement
A German coalition agreement cannot be enforced in court. The first one in the Federal Republic, in 1961, had fewer than ten pages. The agreement of 2018 had 175 pages, and the one of 2021 had 177. On 5 May 2025, CDU, CSU and SPD signed their agreement of 144 pages in Berlin. Before that, the SPD had put it to a vote of its members, and 84.6 percent of those who voted approved. In October 2025, the coalition argued about a pension package. The SPD leader Lars Klingbeil said that Labor Minister Bärbel Bas had implemented was im Koalitionsvertrag steht, what is in the coalition agreement. He said it was the job of the CDU/CSU group leader to make sure dass seine Fraktion das verabredete Paket mitträgt, that his group supports the agreed package. The Bundestag passed it on 5 December 2025.
Eight Years to Move the Capital
On 20 June 1991, the Bundestag voted 338 to 320 to move parliament and government from Bonn to Berlin. Then came the law. The Berlin/Bonn Act was passed on 26 April 1994. A separate agreement gave the Bonn region 1.437 billion euros in support for the years 1995 to 2004. Bonn kept the title Bundesstadt, federal city, and six ministries kept their main seat there. The move itself was carried out in stages, and most of it took place in the summer of 1999. Since the autumn of 1999, Berlin has been the seat of parliament and government.
The Easter Rest That Never Happened
In March 2021, during the pandemic, Chancellor Angela Merkel and the state premiers agreed overnight on an Osterruhe, extra days of rest over Easter. On 24 March 2021, Merkel withdrew it. She explained that the idea hatte ihre guten Gründe, war aber in der Kürze der Zeit nicht gut genug umsetzbar, had good reasons, but could not be carried out well enough in the short time available. The open questions concerned pay for the lost working days and the situation of shops and businesses. They could not be answered in time. She added: Dennoch war die Idee der sogenannten Osterruhe ein Fehler. (Nevertheless, the idea of the so-called Easter rest was a mistake.)
Thinking From the End
In the Chancellery under Angela Merkel, her method had a name: Die Dinge vom Ende her denken, thinking things through from the end. Her biographer Ursula Weidenfeld described the steps. Merkel commissioned reports, called ethics councils, watched public opinion and kept her own intentions to herself. Weidenfeld summed it up as Warten, Schweigen und dann erst Handeln, waiting, silence, and only then action. Merkel herself tells a story from school. In a sports lesson, she stood on the three-meter diving board and jumped only when the school bell had already ended the lesson.