Wolfgang Schnur was a lawyer who had defended East German dissidents. In 1990 he led the new party Demokratischer Aufbruch, Democratic Awakening. Helmut Kohl campaigned with him and saw him as a possible East German prime minister. On 5 March 1990, reports came out that Schnur had worked for the Stasi as an informant. He said the files could not refer to him, and on 8 March he rejected the accusations again. Then a former Stasi officer said that Schnur had been a top informant under the cover name Dr. Schirmer. Schnur resigned in mid-March, days before the Volkskammer election of March 1990. In 1993 he lost his license to practice law. In 1996 a Berlin court convicted him.
politics
Damage to the Party
On 22 December 1999 the CDU’s general secretary, Angela Merkel, published an article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung about the former chancellor Helmut Kohl. Die von Helmut Kohl eingeräumten Vorgänge haben der Partei Schaden zugefügt. The actions that Helmut Kohl has admitted have damaged the party.
She gave her reason in one sentence. Nur auf einem wahren Fundament kann die Zukunft aufgebaut werden. Only on a foundation of truth can the future be built. Her conclusion followed: Die Partei muss also laufen lernen. So the party must learn to walk.
A Banker’s Diaries and a Mayor’s Calendar
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.
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.
Thirty Hours
On April 6, 1933, the U.S. Senate passed a bill by Senator Hugo Black for a 30-hour work week. The vote was 53 to 30. President Franklin Roosevelt turned to a different recovery plan, and the bill was dropped. The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 required overtime pay after 40 hours, but did not cap hours.
On March 14, 2024, Senator Bernie Sanders introduced the Thirty-Two Hour Workweek Act, for what news reports called “a standard 32-hour workweek with no loss in pay.” He said, “Moving to a 32-hour workweek with no loss of pay is not a radical idea.”
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.