Stuttgart 21, the plan to put Stuttgart’s main station underground, was first presented to the public in 1994. The formal approval procedure began in 2001. In 2010, when construction started, the protests grew. On 30 September 2010, the police used water cannons in the palace garden, and hundreds of people were injured. The state’s premier then proposed an arbitration led by Heiner Geißler, a former CDU federal minister. From 22 October to 30 November 2010, supporters and opponents argued over the facts in Stuttgart’s city hall, and the sessions were broadcast live on television, radio and the internet. The news channel Phoenix had its second-highest ratings up to that time. A year later, on 27 November 2011, the state held a referendum on leaving the project. Statewide, 58.9 percent voted against leaving it.
politics
The Round Table
On 7 December 1989, a month after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Zentraler Runder Tisch, the Central Round Table, met for the first time in East Berlin. Church representatives without a vote called the meeting and chaired it. The seats were divided equally, 19 to 19, between the old forces of the GDR and the new opposition groups. One of its first and most important subjects was the dissolution of the Stasi. It met sixteen times, for the last time on 12 March 1990, just before the first free election. Round tables on the same model were set up across the country, down to the level of towns. The table was named after the Polish round table. Its seating was rectangular.
The Coal Commission
In June 2018, the federal government set up a commission on growth, structural change and employment. Germans called it the Kohlekommission, the coal commission. Its job was to work out how Germany would end coal power. Its 28 voting members included unions, industry associations, environmental groups, scientists and people from the mining regions, among them the mayor of Spremberg in Lusatia. On 26 January 2019, it presented its report. The last coal plant was to close in 2038, and the regions were to receive 40 billion euros in aid over twenty years. Twenty-seven of the 28 members voted for it. The one vote against came from a representative of Lusatian residents affected by open-cast mining, because the report did not protect the village of Proschim from being cleared. Parliament turned the plan into law in 2020.
The Parents Said No
In 2008, Hamburg’s governing coalition planned a major school reform. All children were to learn together for six years instead of four before being sorted into different types of secondary school. After changes negotiated with the opposition, the city parliament passed the law on 3 March 2010, this time unanimously. A parents’ initiative called Wir wollen lernen, we want to learn, forced a referendum. On 18 July 2010, with a turnout of 39 percent, 54.5 percent of voters rejected the six-year primary school, and the core of the reform failed.
Too Little Time to Deliberate
In early July 2023, the Bundestag was about to pass a major change to the law on heating systems in buildings, in the last week before the summer break. A CDU member of parliament, Thomas Heilmann, asked the Federal Constitutional Court to stop the vote, because members had too little time to study the final text. On 5 July 2023, the court issued an interim order by five votes to two, and the vote was postponed. The court weighed the risk of an irreversiblen Verletzung der Beteiligungsrechte, an irreversible violation of the member’s right to take part, against the cost of a delay. The Bundestag passed the law on 8 September 2023. In July 2026, the court decided the main case. It ruled Heilmann’s application inadmissible and found that the deliberations had been very compressed, but neither exceptionally short nor empty of content.
Controversial in Class
In 1976, at a conference held by the Baden-Württemberg state agency for civic education in Beutelsbach in Swabia, scholars of civic education found three points they could agree on. They are still an important reference for civic education. Teachers may not overwhelm students into holding desired opinions. Students must be enabled to analyze a political situation and their own interests. And the second rule reads: Was in Wissenschaft und Politik kontrovers ist, muss auch im Unterricht kontrovers erscheinen. (What is controversial in scholarship and politics must also appear controversial in the classroom.)
Twelve Hours to Comment
When a federal ministry prepares a draft law, it is to send it möglichst frühzeitig, as early as possible, to the states, the associations of local governments and the national associations whose interests it affects. The rule is old. Its predecessor from 1924 already asked ministries to bring in the representatives of the professional groups concerned in good time. In October 2019, an unusual alliance of employers’ associations and unions wrote an open letter of protest. They included the industry federation BDI, the energy association BDEW, the union federation DGB and the services union ver.di. A ministry had sent a draft over a weekend and wanted comments by Monday at 6 p.m. The letter said this left weniger als 12 Stunden, less than twelve hours, to prepare a position, and that it was not the first time.
The Göttingen Eighteen
On 5 April 1957, Chancellor Konrad Adenauer told the press that tactical nuclear weapons were only a Weiterentwicklung der Artillerie, a further development of artillery. A week later, on 12 April, eighteen nuclear scientists published a declaration. Among them were the Nobel laureates Otto Hahn, Max Born and Werner Heisenberg. It began: Die Pläne einer atomaren Bewaffnung der Bundeswehr erfüllen die unterzeichnenden Atomforscher mit tiefer Sorge. (The plans to arm the Bundeswehr with nuclear weapons fill the undersigned nuclear researchers with deep concern.) They explained why they spoke: Deshalb können wir nicht zu allen politischen Fragen schweigen. (That is why we cannot stay silent on all political questions.) None of them, they wrote, would take part in making, testing or using nuclear weapons. Adenauer was outraged and rejected the scientists’ interference in politics. He met them on 17 April. The German Wikipedia states that public pressure led Adenauer to give in, and that the Federal Republic renounced nuclear weapons.
Communication Is Disturbed
On 10 September 1989, two months before the Wall fell, thirty East Germans published the founding call of the Neues Forum, the New Forum. Its first sentence was: In unserem Land ist die Kommunikation zwischen Staat und Gesellschaft offensichtlich gestört. (In our country, communication between state and society is evidently disturbed.) It asked for a democratic dialogue in aller Öffentlichkeit, gemeinsam und im ganzen Land, in full public view, together and in the whole country. On 21 September, the state news agency called the group hostile to the constitution and the state. By the end of 1989, about 200,000 people had signed the call.
The Warning App That Changed Course
In April 2020, the federal government and the state premiers backed a design for the German coronavirus warning app that would store contact data centrally. On 24 April 2020, the Chaos Computer Club, the German Informatics Society and other organizations published an open letter to the government: Das von Ihnen präferierte Konzept für die App ist nicht der richtige Weg. (The concept you prefer for the app is not the right way.) In the night to 26 April, the government gave in. That morning it said it now preferred a decentralized approach, with contacts stored only on the phones. Linus Neumann, one of the Chaos Computer Club’s spokespeople, called it a sehr gute Entscheidung, a very good decision. The source code was published openly in May. The app was released on 16 June 2020, and it had 6.5 million downloads by the next day.