Articles about Good to Know

Development of Marriage and Divorces

Development of Marriages in Germany

As in most other industrialized countries, the number of marriages in Germany has been decresing for many years. The peak was reached in 1950 with 11 of 1000 citizens getting married per year (about 750,000 on the whole), nowadays there are only 4.6 of 1000 left (equals ca. 377,000).

Couples are also getting married later: In 1970 the average age at marriage (East and West Germany together) was about 25 for men and 22 for women, nowadays it’s 32.7 and 29.8.

The following graphic shows the development of marriages in Germany. There’s a rise in marriages in the 90s, because West and East Germany were united and before 1992 these statistics include only West Germany.

However, you also have to consider that German society is always getting older and therefore there are not so many people left who could still marry.

Statistics by Federal Statistical Office Germany

Development of Divorces in Germany

Divorces meanwhile have nearly doubled from 1950 to 2008.

The graphic shows the development of marriage in Germany, once again taking only numbers of West Germany before 1990, which makes it seem even more extremous. To be able to get the number of whole Germany before 1990 you have to add about 25,000–40,000.

Statistics by Federal Statistical Office Germany

The minimum in 1978 can be explained by a reform of the marriage law which lead to a temporary decline of divorces. However, already between 1980 and 1982 the old level was reached again.

Are Divorces Modern?

Some sociologists say the number of divorces was an indicator for the modernity of society. They claim it showed in how far society has dealt with the rights of women. Probably, in their eyes it’s also about “getting rid of religion”, but I cannot prove it.

The statement itself might be true, but in a positve way? In my opinion the number of divorces just shows our incapability of coping with problems. In modern society everything has to work perfectly, without much struggle; a part of society does not want to put any effort into their actions at all.

However this apathy when one should act stops love from developing at all. Love is something that has to grow and gets stronger with each problem you solve. Current world is spoilt by romantic hollywood movies showing a world through rose-coloured glasses. Movies and series also paint an image of marriage being the worst possibility ever, they pretend that the state of having butterflies in one’s stomach should last forever. Thus, not being able to reach this dream world, some people give up along the way.

Problems for parents and children

Moreover, divorces are in my opinion not good for the children. We have an increasing number of so called Patchwork-Familien (stepfamiles) consisting of one parent and some children of both families. However, the children still meet with their real mother/father often, which shows that there is still a strong relationship which cannot be replaced by the new family.

Some parents decide to raise their children alone, which leads to new problems, because their income is basically smaller and they do not have enough time to care for their children alone. There have been reports that the social help of the state for single mothers and fathers is far too little.

Future?

It will be interesting to see if this decline of marriages and rise of divorces will go on or there will be a return to long-time marriage again. Another interesting question is in how far the development would change if politics changed the fiscal law from having a special status for married couples to having a special status for couples with children—which is being demanded by some groups.

Another Year has Passed and the Apocalypse is yet to Come

Image taken by caruba

Everybody is talking about the past year and what will come next year. In 2009 you could have thought that the apocalypse, which was already missed at the millenium change from 1999 to 2000, would happen slightly delayed. And still we have not been taken by the mighty Lord, seems that we get some more time.

“Super election year”

Due to the mass of elections this year media and politicians—the latter ones probably copying the words of media—spoke of a super election year (lit. translated from Superwahljahr). These many elections must have turned political parties mad or made them confused.

Nowadays, we have a liberal party (FDP) which fought for less value-added-taxes for hotels, even though it said—I know, I know... this was before the elections—that subventions were bad. SPD lost a lot of votes and now they’re turning round and round. You can even follow their change of mind from one day to the other. Only CDU remains successful, which is probably due to their good relationship to the most read German news paper called BILD (their journalists lie even more than politicians).

PC games destroy our youth

Every few years there are school shootings in Germany and each time politicians begin arguing that the most important, if not only, reason for this were PC games. Children would become killing machines by playing ego shooters. Depressions and sadness cannot be exploited for politics, therefore they need another scapegoat.

People are always hysteric after such incidents, when there was another school shooting in Germany some parents did not even want to send their children to school. As if the chances of being killed in school were so high. Instead of giving real information about the reasons, everybody is just talking about the same aspects over and over.

When Bastian B. published a suicide note in 2006, police even censored everything and took down his website. If other people had not copied it before, nobody would have known his criticism of society. Moreover, some news papers have even censored the criticism of media in his letter. While the real reasons are deeply beyond all understanding, both politicians and media are searching for a scapegoat just to attract voters or viewers.

Stop abusing our children, stupid Internet!

Mrs. von der Leyen, a German conservative politician, has established the image of an evil Internet which is only waiting to rape children in the heads of many people. I am sure she never uses the Internet, and still she was really sure that there were markets transfering millions or even billions of dollars (I think she never mentioned a period) with child pornography. She only somehow must have forgotten to give some valid arguments for her thesis... A German lawyer, who already fought for people accused of the possession of child pornography, however made clear that his clients never paid even one cent for their material.

Von der Leyens masterplan against this “cruel” market was internet censorship. She even managed to ignore a petition of 130.000 people against the censorship and an association of abused people against the censorship. According to her it was also a security measure for ourselves, because we could just meet child pornography somewhere in the evil Internet while planning our next journey.

In the end the politicians made a mistake, not passing the law to the European Union fast enough (or some other rule...) and it was not passed in the past legislative period, anymore. Nowadays, since Mrs. von der Leyen has left her position as family minister, nobody wants to have the law anymore, even though the majority of the current coalition voted for it. And guess: the law is not passed yet, I never came across child pornography and we are still alive.

Spoilt for choice

While the financial crisis has already been known for some time, there was a new disaster in 2009: the so called swine flu (also known as H1N1 by a small circle of the more intellectual) arrived. People now had the problem that they did not know which one to worry about: either economic crisis or swine flu.

The decision fell on the swine flu endangering not only our material prosperity, but also our physical condition. TV stations and news papers were reporting about new incidents very deliberately, each death was analysed. Due to the massive information the government felt like having to do something (maybe they also felt like having to do something against the economic crisis by helping pharma industry) and bought millions of vaccination doses. However, when people were able to get the vaccination it already seemed to late: Only few really took one.

Were they already dead? Why did nobody go to the doctor to get the vaccination? I did not hear that cities became smaller, however I also did not hear anything about swine flu anymore. Seems like the interest has sunk and it does not behave noticeable different than a normal flu.

Climate Summit failed

When there was a chance to change the Climate, politicians of countries all over the world could not agree on fixed aims, instead they tried to rescue the whole summit with a document which only mentions that the temperature should not rise more than 1.5°C (or was it 2°C).

Europe and Japan are trying to get a clean record by demanding high CO₂ reduction rates which is obviously a good target, however nobody of them mentions that this is only industry based. Germany and Japan both have very good industry for renewable energy, so that’s why Merkel always fights for a reduction of CO₂ emissions. If we were a developing country as China, Merkel would fight for looser rules.

We will all die in airplanes

“Yet another” terror attack has happened, a terrorist tried to blow up an airplane to America but was stopped by other passengers. Only watching the media you could think that terrorists blow up planes every week, but—regarding the statistics—there have been only 6 attacks on airplanes within the past 10 years, of which only 4 were “successful”.

In Germany hysteria about terrorism is beginning to rise now and the discussion about stricter personal search was started once again. I didn’t even hear one TV station mention that the aim of terrorism is to make us afraid—why otherwise would it be called terror (latin fear). Instead, media spreads the fear that we are all going to die in airplanes if no new security model is established—yeah, even people who never use an airplane could be killed by terrorists in an airplane.

In the end it’s elementary particles which destroy the universe?

The LHC in Switzerland, a physical scienctific station for the analysis of elementary particles (smaller objects than atoms) and research about the big bang, has been started again this year. When it was started for the first time, some people were worried whether the earth could collapse if the tests were continued. The only thing which has collapsed yet, was the technology of LHC itself. It took many months to repair it and now we can be curious what will happen (Has the Large Hadron Collider destroyed the world yet?).

Will we be able to gather new information about the big bang, will we see a bing bang reverse ourselves when the world collapses? Maybe you know something? I can only say that the apocalypse is yet to come.

Why are School Holidays not at the Same Time throughout Germany?

Some people have asked me why school holidays in Germany were not at the same time everywhere.

The reason for this is the federalism we have in Germany. While nations like France have a centralised system *, Germany is based upon the single member states (like Saarland, North Rhine-Westphalia and 14 others). The member states then pass some fields of authority to the whole nation, in my case the Federal Republic of Germany.

However, school system in Germany is part of the member states' authority. This means each state is able to set holidays on its own. Sometimes the states also negotiate about the holidays to avoid major traffic jams (especially in summer holidays). Yet, there are already traffic jams when holidays start only in some regions at the same time.

* however, they have three zones for different school holidays

German Constitution (Grundgesetz)

The German constitution is not called "constitution" which would be "Verfassung" in German, but instead it has its own name: Grundgesetz

Historical background

As you might now, Germany was separated after World War II and there have been four different zones: a French zone, a British zone, an American zone and a Russian zone. While Russia wanted to keep contact with Germany from the East, the Western countries aimed to make Germany democratic.

The three Western states together with the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg decided to form a German state again. The first step (in 1948) was the creation of a new currency, our former D-Mark (Deutsche Mark). One year later, in 1949 a constitution for the new German state was proposed and accepted by all Western state parliaments. The Grundgesetz became effective on May 24, 1949.

First article: Human dignity

The Grundgesetz is not structured by paragraphes (like others laws), but by articles. At the moment, there are 146 articles in our Grundgesetz, the first one ensures human dignity for every human. Moreover, the third section of article 1 introduces the whole Grundgesetz and assures that the Grundgesetz is law.

The introductory position for human dignity is a reaction on the horrible deeds in World War II. The Grundgesetz is to ensure that something like this will never happen again and that nobody is discriminated against.

Why not call it constitution?

The German Grundgesetz was not planned as a real constitution, but instead it says that the German people could vote for a real constitution:

Article 146 [Duration of validity of the Basic Law]

This Basic Law, which since the achievement of the unity and freedom of Germany applies to the entire German people, shall cease to apply on the day on which a constitution freely adopted by the German people takes effect.

When East Germany joined the Federal German Republic a special law about the adoption of the law in the Eastern countries was created. Since the union of both parts of Germany, the Grundgesetz is our real constitution and not just a transitional one.

Oktoberfest in Munich started

The Oktoberfest traditionally starts with the mayor of Munich tapping the beer keg. Other tents will be informed by twelve shots so that they can serve beer to their customers. Even though the economic situation is not so good, all tents have been sold out a long time before the official beginning and have already been filled before beer was allowed to be served.

Image taken by StrudelMonkey

The Oktoberfest has a very long tradition for its beginning, e.g. there is a very decorated procession in the last hour before the beginning.

The Oktoberfest takes place for the 176th time this year. It is attended by 6 million people from all over the world each year, the same amount of beer is being drunk. Both people from America and people from Asia celebrate together on the Oktoberfest with fun rides, beer and pretzels (in German Brezeln).

Image taken by StrudelMonkey

I have visited the place of the so called Wiesn (the casual term for the Oktoberfest) one time, but it did not take place then. Yet, it is a very large area and the tents are not really tents like you know them from small festivals, but rather houses (they have wooden walls).

Image taken by digital cat

The typical German in the eyes of foreigners

The usual image on the Oktoberfest by the way also is the usualy prejudice about German people. People from abroad sometimes think that we all run around with Lederhosen and drink a lot of beer. However, this is - of course - not the case. Most people only wear Lederhosen when they go to the Oktoberfest and then put them away for one year.

Discussions about photography rights

The organizers of the Wiesn have put some restrictions on photographers. They are not allowed to take pictures of drunken or (partly) undressed people. News papers have protested that this was censorship to ensure only positive images from the festival. The organizers reply that they do not want photographers to publish images from people who cannot refuse it anymore (because of being drunken).

Interesting details about the Oktoberfest

There is not only beer served on the Oktoberfest, but also wine can be bought. This is due to the fact that the monks in Bavaria have grown a lot of wine in the past.

The organizers were afraid that the Oktoberfest would develop in a bad direction, so they have imposed a rule that tents are only allowed to play traditional music until 6p.m. This rule shall keep up the traditional feeling of the Wiesn. From 6p.m. on tents are allowed to play pop music.

The call for the opening of the Oktoberfest is "O’zapft is!". The mayor shouts it when he has tapped the keg.

There are bets on the number of hits the mayor needs until he has opened the keg. His record was two hits.

The Minister-President of Bavaria will be allowed to drink the first beer, at the moment this is Horst Seehofer.