In the Cum-Ex tax affair, written records decided what the public learned. The Hamburg banker Christian Olearius kept diaries. Prosecutors seized them in their investigation against him. When entries were published, they revealed meetings with Olaf Scholz, then mayor of Hamburg. Scholz had at first denied the meetings. A review of his calendars later showed that he had received Olearius at city hall, the last time on 10 November 2017. On 30 April 2021 Scholz testified before the investigating committee of the Hamburg parliament. He was asked about what Olearius’s side had argued at the meetings. Zwar könne er dazu aus eigener Erinnerung nichts sagen, he could say nothing about it from his own memory, he said. He denied any influence on the tax decision.
politics
Said Only in the Vote
At the SPD party congress in Berlin in June 2025, Lars Klingbeil was re-elected co-chair with only 64.9 percent of the votes. Only Oskar Lafontaine, with 62.6 percent in 1995, had received less. Klingbeil called it ein schweres Ergebnis, a hard result.
He also spoke about how the criticism had been made. According to ZDF, he would have wished that one or another delegate had voiced this displeasure in the debate as well.
Answers That Would Unsettle the Population
On the evening of 17 November 2015, the football match between Germany and the Netherlands in Hanover was canceled at short notice after a terror alert. At a press conference, Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière said: Ein Teil dieser Antworten würde die Bevölkerung verunsichern. Part of these answers would unsettle the population. The next day the Green politician Konstantin von Notz said that the minister must make clear statements and darf nicht diffus über Bedrohungen orakeln, must not speak vaguely about threats like an oracle. Dietmar Bartsch of the Left party called it very problematic when a minister unsettles people with hints. De Maizière defended his restraint. Wir können nicht jeden Hinweis dieser Art in der Öffentlichkeit diskutieren. We cannot discuss every tip of this kind in public.
The Non-Word of the Year
Since 1991 a jury has chosen the Unwort des Jahres, the non-word of the year. Horst Dieter Schlosser started it. Until 1994 the Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache, the Society for the German Language, made the choice. Today an independent jury of volunteers in Marburg decides. Its permanent members are four linguists and a journalist, and each year a guest member joins them. Anyone can send in a proposal. Among other things, the jury looks for words that are beschönigend, verschleiernd oder irreführend, glossing over, concealing or misleading. On 13 January 2026 it chose Sondervermögen, special assets, for the year 2025. The jury said that the word hides its real meaning, which is taking on debt.
An Evening for the Coalition
In August 2025 the coalition of CDU, CSU and SPD was quarreling. Jens Spahn, leader of the Union’s parliamentary group, told the magazine Focus that the members should also meet outside regular politics. He suggested einen gemeinsamen Abend, quasi als Teambuilding-Maßnahme, a joint evening, more or less as a teambuilding measure. His SPD counterpart, Matthias Miersch, said: Wir versuchen, miteinander eine gute Vertrauensbasis aufzubauen. We are trying to build a good basis of trust together. Spahn stressed that trust needs time.
To Trust Someone to Do It
German builds two different verbs on trauen, to trust.
jemandem vertrauen
To trust someone.
jemandem etwas zutrauen
To believe that someone is able to do something.
Traust du dir diese Aufgabe zu?
Do you think you can handle this task?
das Zutrauen
Confidence in someone’s abilities.
Opinion polls use the second verb to ask about competence. In the ARD-DeutschlandTrend of September 2021 the question was: Welcher Partei trauen Sie am ehesten zu, die wichtigsten Probleme in Deutschland zu lösen? Which party do you think is most able to solve the most important problems in Germany? The statistics portal Statista files the answers under the party with the greatest competence.
One Person, One Word
In January 2025, before the federal election, the Greens campaigned with posters of their candidate for chancellor, Robert Habeck. The slogan read Ein Mensch. Ein Wort. One person, one word. It adapts the old saying Ein Mann, ein Wort, one man, one word. On a Friday evening in early January, a company that said it was working for the Greens projected Habeck’s portrait onto the Siegestor, the victory gate in Munich. Under it stood the words Bündniskanzler. Ein Mensch. Ein Wort. Alliance chancellor, one person, one word. The police stopped the projection. A few days later Habeck defended it in a video podcast of FOCUS online. Natürlich ist das eine gewisse Provokation. Of course it is a certain provocation.
Top Grade, Then Disqualified
Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg’s doctoral thesis had received the top grade. Both reviewers rated it summa cum laude. When the plagiarism became known, the University of Bayreuth did not lower the grade. Its own explanation: Verstöße dagegen führen nicht zu einer anderen Note, sondern wie hier zur „Disqualifikation”. Violations of the rules lead not to a different grade but to disqualification. The university withdrew the doctorate on 23 February 2011. For this it did not need to decide whether he had cheated on purpose. It was enough that the title had been acquired unlawfully in objective terms. Guttenberg admitted that he had not worked correctly. He denied any intent to deceive. A commission for self-regulation in science then examined that question separately. On 6 May 2011 it found that he had die Standards guter wissenschaftlicher Praxis evident grob verletzt und hierbei vorsätzlich getäuscht, evidently and grossly violated the standards of good scientific practice and deceived on purpose.
The Toll Without a Risk Assessment
After the German car toll failed, the federal government had to pay the operators 243 million euros in damages. In 2023 the Federal Transport Ministry had lawyers examine whether it could make former minister Andreas Scheuer pay. Their opinion looked at how he had decided. He had signed the operator contracts at the end of 2018, noch bevor endgültige Rechtssicherheit beim EuGH bestand, before the European Court of Justice had given final legal certainty. The lawyers found: Es habe keine entsprechende Risikobewertung gegeben, there had been no corresponding risk assessment. A claim would still have needed gross negligence. Einfache Fahrlässigkeit dürfte daher, so das Gutachten, nicht ausreichen, simple negligence would probably not be enough. The burden of proof for gross negligence lay with the federal government. There were no signs of intent. Federal law also has no liability rule for ministers. In December 2023 the ministry decided not to sue. It added: Unabhängig davon bleibt es bei der unbestrittenen politischen Verantwortlichkeit von Bundesminister a.D. Scheuer. Regardless of this, the undisputed political responsibility of former minister Scheuer remains.
The Last Three Reactors
On 15 April 2023, Germany switched off its last three nuclear reactors: Emsland, Neckarwestheim 2 and Isar 2. The Federal Agency for Civic Education wrote that this sealed an exit planned for more than twenty years. On 30 June 2011, the Bundestag had decided that the last reactors should be shut down by the end of 2022. Russia’s war against Ukraine raised doubts about energy security, and on 11 November 2022 the Bundestag voted to let the three run until 15 April 2023. The final shutdown remained disputed. The CDU and CSU wanted the plants kept in reserve so that they could return to the grid in an emergency. On 10 November 2023, the Bundestag rejected an AfD motion to reactivate the plants, with 550 votes against and 69 in favor. It also rejected an AfD bill to stop their dismantling, with 535 votes against.