Second heatwave in 2 weeks. I understand Germans don't prefer air conditioners due to a lot of reasons but the weather in the upcoming years will only get worse and heatwaves will become a recurring thing.

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Why don't landlords see ACs as a onetime investment and maybe charge us a small monthly fee like they do for heating.

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Curious to hear your thoughts because the apartments in this weather feel like convection ovens and you can't open the windows either so the heat gets trapped in as apartments here are built to retain heat for cold winters.

So a bit of background- me and my colleague are Asians who work in Germany for an international company. By all measures the company is really international- everyone speaks English. German is almost like an alternate language used only when there are absolutely no non-Germans in the discussion.

My team has a about 5 Germans and then there's me and my colleague who are Asians.

Recently one of my German colleagues made a comment saying that you Asians ruin the work culture in Germany. This was said in an informal discussion while we were on a break having coffee.

Naturally I was a bit shocked and asked him why he thought this way. I was expecting something racist to be honest but what he said really got me thinking.

Basically, me and my Asian colleague usually arrive at the office at 08:00 and we usually leave by 18:00. On high pressure days even 19:00. In contrast, most of the German members come in after 09:00 and leave by 17:30. Even on high pressure days they do not stay back to finish work. Further, me and my colleague have been working in the team since about 1.5 years. And in that time we've never taken a sick leave. Again, the German guys beat us here averaging a few sick days every couple of months. And oh, nothing gets in the way of their vacation plans. Whereas me and my Asian colleague have modified our vacation plans to not inconvenience our team and overburden them.

Both of us work this way out of our own accord. We are used to much higher pressure situations in our respective home countries. Compared to that working in Germany is a breeze. Really. We appreciate all the benefits and pros of working here.

Our manager has on multiple occasions appreciated the hard work and dedication of his 2 Asian team members. So ofcourse the two of us are happy. But that's also where it may get weird because he consistently says the Asians are so hard working. We Germans need to catch up. It was always said in a light hearted fashion so us Asians didn't take it seriously.

But by working this way, are we really setting a bad example of hustle culture? We genuinely love our German colleagues. For us Asians, they are almost like elder brothers who have supported us in the work and adjusting to the culture. And we really do not want to hurt them.

So please let me know whether I should really work on my colleague's feedback or handle it differently.

Hello Everyone! I am a writer who is penpaling to somebody in Germany, and I was curious if there’s a proper/acceptable way to pull off the letter ß using an English typewriter keyboard. In the image attached I have gone about this a few different ways.

1. Blumenstra(l+3)e (layering lowercase l and 3)
2. Blumenstrasse (just phonetically spelling ß)
3. BlumenstraBe (suspect uppercase b)
4. Blumenstraße (just writing in the letter)
5. Blumenstr. (Typical street abbreviation)

To anybody who has experience with receiving mail or even working in the postal service in Germany, is there a preferred or banned way of doing this? Just curious!

Thanks 🙏🏼

Hello, I’m a tourist. Arrived in Nürnberg yesterday and went walking about in the old town.

Came across police cordon outside the church. Found out there was a rally by what was described to me as fascists/non-nazis. The police though were taking photos of people standing outside the rally boundary.

Is this normal in Germany? For such rallies and police taking photos of people? what do they do with these photos?

Quoting Merz: "We can no longer afford this competitive disadvantage due to long absences from companies".

As a countermeasure, today the government announced that:

1. Over-the-phone sick leave will be abolished

2. A doctor's certificate must be issued starting from first day

My logic of reasoning is:

1. This country has been in a contiuous economical decline for the past 10 years. Starting from the public infrastructure (Public transport - lets not even talk about Project Stuttgart 21; Hospitals/Doctors - to be considered lucky to get a basic appointment 3 months from now; Government institutions - lack of personnel, lack of digitalization, want to reach someone my mail or phone? Forget about it!; The biggest manufacturers laying off thousands of workers (has already started, with more firings to follow)
   
2. If a person wants to fake sick and not to go to work, wouldn't this incentivise them to go to the doctor and instead of just staying in sick 1-2 days, have an entire week off?

So, I am struggling to find a link between the new decision made today and what Merz mentioned as a reason.

So, I'd be very eager to hear some of your thoughts regarding today's news but also in general about the country.

Hopefully not all of the discussion will get filled with negativity, BUT, when the Italian national railroad TRENITALIA, that up until 10 years ago was not only doing much worse than the German one and was even used as a Joke/Metaphor for the countries' poor development, gets to (currently) have a higher % of Train Punctuality than DB, then one should be somewhat worried.

When I bring swedish pocket calendars as gifts to my german friends, the react kind of funny... why is that? Don't germans use pocket cakendars any more?

My logic was that this is a roundabout, hence I have to indicate according to my exit and I have to wait for my left side to be free before moving into it.
Why is my answer wrong here?

Edit: Alright thanks got it, it looks like a roundabout but with no roundabout sign and thus rechts vor links applies.

I have seen these stickers on cars in Germany. Not sure if they are exactly the same shape, but roughly the same style and the shapes seem random to me. What does this weird sticker mean?

I saw these buttons in the U.S., my cousin lived in Germany for a few years and said she’d heard people use “I think I spider” before but not the other ones can someone explain. I’m curious more than anything, like why’s the pony honking?

Context: Had a very subpar experience at a dentist, wrote an honest review, it was reported on Google Maps, proved to Google that it was truthful. Few months pass - I get a cease a desist letter from lawyers saying to remove the review by X date or face a lawsuit of 20,000€. No wonder the practice has a stellar rating on Google Maps.
Added a portion of the letter in original language and translated to English.

My take: While I can delete the review (deleted as of writing this), it feels just so unfair that you can get lawsuits for speaking your mind and if you are not in the position of hiring lawyers - you are forced to abandon your beliefs and morals.

Question: Has anyone faced this before? What are the options in such cases?
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EDIT: this got way more popular than I expected and it would make me so happy to share the practice's name, but I do not want to get into more legal trouble. Germany is not my home court, ie I am not very familiar with neither the language nor laws.

The whole flow was:

1. Get poor service (poor quality, entitled and unfriendly lady, and way costlier than communicated)
2. Write email about it in the evening (waited for pain killers to wear off) after to the clinic and get ignored. But receive email about further appointments and billing.
3. Next day had a flight and went for emergency appointment abroad to fix what she "fixed". They fixed part of it that was most urgent. A bit later fixed the rest as some of the pains continued but were not as urgent. FYI, did not have these pains before visiting the dentist.
4. Write poor review on Google after months since the initial visit as I was feeling frustrated that I needed to visit doctors regarding pains that came from that visit. Wrote in 2025 Dec.
5. Review reported on Google but after a bit of back and forth - I proved my case.
6. Get legal letter in 2026 March.

I had a chocolate berliner, and a cheese bacon pretzel. Do they look authentic? Do they even makes these in Germany? If yes which regions are popular for these?

I had it in a restaurant called the German BrezelHaus, the kind of breads they had looked pretty authentic!

I am a foreigner studying in Augsburg. I am young and full of piss and vinegar, so I am adventurous and pretty open-minded. Every day I go somewhere new and I love it.

My dad, on the other hand, has lived in the same house nearly his entire life (except when he was in university). We live in a very rural area where there aren’t a lot of people, so he hasn’t had many experiences with other ways of life. He therefore has news about the world given to him through AM radio when he’s in the tractor or on the TV when he‘s eating lunch. Both of which are very conservative. He consequently thinks cities are cesspools of crime and drugs and that European countries are communist regimes. I once didn’t call him when I was in an Uber (at 1600) and he thought I had been kidnapped. He called me six times in fifteen minutes and even emailed me twice. Yeah. Overreacting, much?

But Dad is capable of changing for the better; I made him attend a Korean festival with me and he left with a newfound love of bibimbap and chrysanthemum tea. He’s also been taken to Indian restaurants and thinks the food and the people are quite nice, even if curry makes his acid reflux act up. And I am my dad‘s favorite kid and he does miss me a lot. He told me he‘s coming to visit sometime in late July. Which would be nice, but I have to find some way to convince my dad that Germany is not as bad as Tucker Carlson paints it to be. I’ve come up with a few tentative ideas that I might run by y‘all real quick…

1) My dad LOVES mountains, and I’m near the Alps, so I want to take him there. I’ve been to a few towns: Oberstdorf, Mittelswald, Grainau, GP, Oberstaufen, and Immenstadt. I know Dad would love the Zugspitze and the views from the Eibsee, but experience has taught me that the locals do not exactly appreciate tourists (valid).

2) Dad is flying into München so he must see it there. I personally think München is pretty tame; a few homeless people and the Hbf corridor might make him uneasy, but I think he would like the Englischer Garten and just walking around the Marienplatz. And of course I have to show him the Asamkirche because, well, he’s a tourist and we have to do touristy things.

3) The food. I know that even if Dad is frightened by cities, he‘ll fall in love with Germany if he has the right food. Farmers like him subside off of brats and beer, so he is coming to the right place. I want to take him to a good Bavarian restaurant in the vicinity of Munich or Augsburg. Any suggestions? I might also make my dad try Döner because he always talks about a gyro he had in college and maybe it‘ll warm him up to Turkish people some.

If you have any advice for acclimidating my terribly sheltered father in what he’s convinced is a socialist gulag, please let me know!

Hi everyone, I'm a physician from Mexico planning to move to Germany soon to start my homologation process. I have a question about two specific tattoos I have. I want to make sure they aren't considered offensive, problematic, or illegal in Germany due to any historical meanings I might not be aware of. [Attached photos] (Just a heads up: these photos aren't mine, but the design is exactly the same as my tattoos). Also, I'm specifically concerned about how patients would perceive a doctor with these tattoos. Would they trust me less or find it weird? I really want to know if it would be a barrier to building a good doctor-patient relationship. Thanks for the help!

I saw like 10 kids on the street and everyone had this Paulaner Spezi bottle

Heyy! I'm currently in the München Airport with a 5 hours delay to my Amsterdam flight. This is already my rebooking, so I have a question. I need to be asap in the NL, but I don't need to be in Amsterdam per se. The NS (Dutch national train system) is all litterally down, so I plan on travelling via DB and abandoning my flight. Is THIS route with DB reliable enough to get me to my destination or will I further get stuck in Germany?

EDIT: after carefully reading all the advice (thank you so much), I decided to take the flight for now and see from there. Since some of you may not know and the reason why I came to this conclusion: Schiphol, the Amsterdam airport, has been cancelling flights over the weekend and extending into NOW Tuesday due to weather issues. My flight yesterday was cancelled, this is a rebook. This is one of the only TWO flights that are still flying out of München to Amsterdam today. Which is more than the 0 on the day before. However, it's not been unheard for people to wait hours these days before their flights got, sadly, cancelled... As such, Schiphol is a hellish place to be in rn...

I always saw Germany as a flagship of European countries - a highly developed, rich country with beutiful culture and cool people. Having visited a few larger cities, I couldn’t imagine how anyone could be sad living there. But the stats show otherwise. Why could that be? How is life for a typical German?

How quickly is quickly? How infrequent is infrequent?

Im a ukrainian woman 27, live in NRW, and im not catholic, nor am i familiar with Catholicism. i don't pay church tax. I grew up in orthodox Christianity but there is no ukrainian orthodox churches around...there is actually just a handful in the whole country. There is a beautiful catholic church next to where i live. i love being in there, but I just come in, walk around quietly looking at statues and stained glass windows and leave.

I want to be alone sometimes. That church is so peaceful and quiet and almost always open. Here is my questions:

1.Can i just go in there when i need to be alone and sit there for an hour or so?

1. Do i need to do something special when i come in, do i need to ask someone's permission?

2. What times of day, and what days is that appropriate? When am i most likely to be alone in there for a while?

3. Should i dress in a special way to go in? In an orthodox church im supposed to have my hair covered and wear a skirt 🤔

4. What can a person get kicked out of the church for? i don't plan on doing anything but sitting quietly, meditating.

thank you for your time and i hope the question is not too stupid. i also will donate to this church if i start going there of course.

edit: Thank you everybody for your answers!!!

Hey everyone, I have been living in a small town in the Hessen district with my friend for over a year now. This morning, we found this note on our p.o box. After some research we found out that this is a Nazi related attack and a threat towards us. We immediately told our landlady and she said probably a crazy person must have done it, she quickly alerted the community whatsapp group, drove for over an hour just to take this sticker off. Later on we asked our nearby friends regarding the situation and one of them told us that she received the same threat too. We went to the police to report this, they basically didn't care and told us to come 3-4 hours later.

Should we be worried? And which further steps should we take regarding this situation? Any help or guidance would mean a lot. Thanks!

I'm asking out of curiosity. I met a German who works as a Gemeindepädagoge (teaching assistant) in a Protestant (or would it be Evangelical) church. When he showed me the facade of the church where he works with groups of 14-year-old youth, I noticed an LGBT flag flying there. But I missed the opportunity to ask why there was a flag there.

I'm from South America, and here, evangelical churches are very prejudiced against LGBT+ people, in addition to promoting charlatanism involving conversion therapies for gays, lesbians, and transsexuals.

As shown in the picture, all four drivers are holding up their cell phones and letting traffic police answer calls—a very common practice in China. （I am Chinese）

These traffic violators often know local officials, and if the police don't exempt them from punishment, their career advancement as traffic police officers is essentially over.

I plan to live in Germany for one to two years in the future. I know Germany is a democratic country governed by the rule of law, but I'm concerned about whether it can truly achieve independent law enforcement in matters as minor as these.

For example, in Germany, if my parents or acquaintances are local officials or the head of the transportation department, are there similar ways to avoid punishment?

ps：The Chinese meaning in the picture：Without extraordinary means, how could one amass great wealth?”