Editor’s note: This article was first published in July 2014. The figures and claims it cites are from 2014, including Germany being ‘already out of the crisis’, average annual working hours (OECD), and Germany’s position as EU leader in recycling.
What makes Germany a great nation? Why do German products have such a strong reputation that a car brand’s slogan only needs to say that “the car is German, and that says it all”? Quora users answer this question with some curious facts. Since I have never been to Germany myself, if anyone wants to refute anything below, or add something else they think gives Germany that great reputation, feel free to do so.
1. Understanding German products.
The user Neel Kumar, who describes himself as a traveller who has lived and worked in four countries, tells a story that will set your imagination flying and that perfectly describes part of the German mindset.
A man I knew travelled from India to Germany in 1937. In Berlin he bought a watch for his fiancée. They got married. In the late 1970s the watch stopped working, but instead of throwing it away, the wife kept it. Years later, the mother gave the watch to her son as a keepsake. When his mother died, the young man went into a shop in Berlin to have the watch repaired, since it was a memento of her. By chance, the shop was run by the children of the people who had sold the watch to his father almost half a century earlier. Once the watch was fixed, the young man asked how much he owed for the repair. The shop assistant told him: “Nothing, it’s covered by the warranty.” Stories like this show the well-deserved reputation of German products.
2. Handling the crisis.
James-F-Logue, a novelist, refers to his admiration for the way Germany has handled this crisis. While many countries had no idea what was going on, the Germans (government, business owners and society in general) quickly began to prepare. According to this novelist, the German priority was: “In Germany, nobody is left without a job”. Mini-jobs were quickly adapted so that workers would work shorter days or three days a week, while the German government compensated workers for the days not worked so as not to hit the pockets of the working, consuming class too hard. At the same time, business owners were looked after and helped so that they would not need to resort to layoffs.
That prevented chaos in the streets, or at least reduced it, and that is why Germany is already out of the crisis.
Of course, the German recipe for its own country clashes sharply with what it recommends for the countries of southern Europe.
3. Recycling.
Germany leads the whole European Union in recycling. But that’s not all: to encourage recycling, they pay you for it. As another user explains, there are machines where you drop off bottles or cans, and they give you money back for the empty containers you return.
4. Leaders in renewables.
Germany accounts for 35% of the wind energy produced in the world. Across much of its landscape you can see gigantic “plantations” of solar panels, even though it gets very few hours of sunshine compared with countries like Spain, where we lead in hours of sunshine but lag at the bottom in solar and wind energy.
5. Innovation and research.
Germany is still a great land of innovation and of people passionate about science and technology, with an enviable focus on research, which has led to a constant increase in patent registrations, at the top of Europe.
It is one of the largest exporting countries in the world, with cars and chemicals as its main products. The “Made in Germany” label is associated with products of real quality.
6. Work.
Germany ranks second among the countries where people work the fewest hours, beaten only by France, which has the most productive workers, according to the OECD. In Germany people work an average of 1,379 hours a year, well below the OECD average, yet they are much more productive than most countries in the European Union, where people work more, in worse conditions, and produce less.
7. Respect.
Almost everyone talks about the same thing: German respect. Germany is a country with no speed limits on its roads, yet it has one of the lowest accident rates. Likewise, people say Germans are respectful in every respect: before a pedestrian even sets foot on a zebra crossing, drivers have already stopped. They are punctual, and there are not many areas of doubtful safety.
These small and large details are possibly what make Germany such an enviable nation.
Featured image: Donald Trung Quoc Don (Chữ Hán: 徵國單), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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