In November 2010, a 25-year-old officer cadet fell to her death from the rigging of the navy’s sail training ship Gorch Fock. There were also accusations that members of the permanent crew had harassed cadets. On 22 January 2011, Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg had the ship’s commander, Captain Norbert Schatz, removed from his command. He was relieved for the duration of the investigation. In March 2011, the navy’s commission of inquiry found that the accusations against the ship’s leadership were largely untenable. Its findings also cleared the commander. Members of parliament from both government and opposition then spoke up for him. The SPD’s Hans-Peter Bartels said he must be rehabilitated. The CDU’s Jürgen Hardt said: Ich kann der Marineführung nur dringend anraten, Herrn Schatz wieder in sein Kommando einzusetzen. I can only urge the navy leadership to put Mr. Schatz back in command.
politics
Hard Boards, Not Thick Ones
On 28 January 1919, in Munich, the sociologist Max Weber gave his lecture Politik als Beruf, politics as a vocation. It contains this sentence: Die Politik bedeutet ein starkes langsames Bohren von harten Brettern mit Leidenschaft und Augenmaß zugleich. Politics means a strong, slow drilling through hard boards, with passion and a sense of proportion at the same time. German politicians quote it often. Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier used it on 16 November 2015, when he presented the Federal Cross of Merit to two diplomats. In 2011 the writer Alexander Kluge called a book of 133 political stories Das Bohren harter Bretter, the drilling of hard boards.
In everyday speech the boards have changed. Many Germans say dicke Bretter bohren, to drill thick boards. A Protestant news site wrote in 2014 that many politicians describe their work as das Bohren dicker Bretter, and a FAZ review of Kluge’s book spoke of Webers Wort vom Bohren dicker Bretter. Weber wrote hard boards, not thick ones.
Back to Nine Years
In 2001 Saarland became the first western German state to shorten the Gymnasium, the academic high school, from nine years to eight. Most other states followed. The Abitur after only twelve school years got a nickname, the Turbo-Abitur. Then the states turned back. Lower Saxony returned to 13 years after the summer of 2015. Bavaria, Hesse and Schleswig-Holstein also decided to return. North Rhine-Westphalia began the change in the 2019/20 school year, and its first regular nine-year class takes the Abitur in 2027. An SPD education expert in the NRW state parliament said that politics had bowed to the pressure of business associations when it introduced the eight-year system. Pupils, he said, now needed more time for the development of their personality. The German Economic Institute estimated the direct cost of the return at about 1.2 billion euros nationwide. In Baden-Württemberg a parents’ initiative collected more than 100,000 signatures. On 29 January 2025 the state parliament passed a law to return to the nine-year Gymnasium from the 2025/26 school year.
Care Before a Quick Shot
In September 2022, politicians from the opposition and from the governing coalition pressed Chancellor Olaf Scholz to send tanks to Ukraine faster. Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann of the FDP, a coalition party, asked: Auf was um Himmels willen warten wir noch? What in heaven’s name are we still waiting for? Scholz described his course as besonnen und entschieden, level-headed and decisive. On 17 February 2023 he explained his approach at the Munich Security Conference: Und bei allem Handlungsdruck, den es ohne Zweifel gibt: In dieser entscheidenden Frage gilt: Sorgfalt vor Schnellschuss, Zusammenhalt vor Solovorstellung. For all the pressure to act, which no doubt exists, this rule applies: care before a quick shot, unity before solo performances. He added that support had to be set up from the start so …, dass wir sie lange durchhalten, so that it can be kept up for a long time. By then, Germany had also agreed to deliver Western battle tanks.
Many Steps and Many Stations
On 15 July 1963 Egon Bahr spoke at the Protestant Academy in Tutzing about the divided Germany. He said that reunification was ein Prozeß mit vielen Schritten und vielen Stationen, a process with many steps and many stations. His first conclusion was daß die Politik des Alles oder Nichts ausscheidet, that a policy of all or nothing was ruled out. He summed up his proposal in a formula: Wandel durch Annäherung, change through rapprochement.
Since Russia attacked Ukraine in 2022, this long, step-by-step policy toward the East has been disputed in Germany. A 2023 paper of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung notes: Seit dem Angriff Russlands auf die Ukraine wird in Deutschland über die jüngere sozialdemokratische Geschichte gestritten.
The Anti-Stress Ordinance
In May 2013 the Bundesrat, the chamber of the federal states, adopted a draft ordinance against mental stress at work. In August 2014 Labor Minister Andrea Nahles said: Es gibt unbestritten einen Zusammenhang zwischen Dauererreichbarkeit und der Zunahme von psychischen Erkrankungen. There is an undisputed link between constant reachability and the rise in mental illness. She had the Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health examine whether limits for stress could be defined. The press called the plan an Anti-Stress-Verordnung. The employers’ federation BDA rejected it. In 2020 the Left Party in the Bundestag was still calling for such an ordinance.
The Pension Reform of 1957
On 21 January 1957, after four days of debate, the Bundestag passed a pension reform with a large majority. 397 of 439 members voted for it. From then on, pensions were tied to the development of wages and salaries. Pensioners’ incomes rose by more than 60 percent on average.
The reform rests on the Generationenvertrag, the contract between generations. The young pay for the pensions of the old with their contributions. A sentence of Konrad Adenauer is often quoted in this context: “Kinder kriegen die Leute immer.” People always have children. It has not been documented to this day that he said it.
Economics Minister Ludwig Erhard and Finance Minister Fritz Schäffer considered the system risky, because it depended on a growing population.
First Count the Cash
Kassensturz, counting the cash. When German parties begin to negotiate a coalition, they often start with a full count of the public finances. In November 2017 the SPD and the CDU in Lower Saxony did this before anything else. The purpose was to find out which political wishes could be financed.
Minister-President Stephan Weil described the first meeting: “Das hatte heute nicht den Charakter einer Entscheidungssitzung, sondern eher einer ersten Lesung.” Today was not a meeting for decisions, but more like a first reading.
Assignments to Examine
German coalition agreements often contain Prüfaufträge, assignments to examine a question before it is decided. The 2025 federal coalition agreement announced 88 of them, together with 18 commissions and working groups.
Critics see this as a way to postpone decisions. In 2014 the Greens in Saxony called the new state coalition a “Prüf-Koalition”, a coalition of examining.
Stuttgart 21
Stuttgart 21, the new underground main station, sollte rund drei Milliarden Euro kosten und schon 2019 in Betrieb gehen. It was supposed to cost about three billion euros and open in 2019. In June 2026 representatives of Deutsche Bahn told the Bundestag transport committee that it would open at the end of 2031. The latest cost estimate is about 11.3 billion euros. The financing contract of 2009 had committed the project partners only up to a little over 4.5 billion euros. A court ruled that the railway must bear the extra costs alone.