1.

1 ABSOLUTE BEGINNER

Culture Tips
C Culture

German Cuisine

A significant part of German cuisine is "bread," in German, Brot. There’s basically no breakfast or supper without it.
Germans consider bread necessary for a healthy diet. About six hundred different types of breads and more than
one thousand types of pastries and bread rolls are produced every year. For that reason, Germany is considered
to be THE "Bread Country." The importance of bread is illustrated by words such as Abendbrot (literally, "evening
bread" and meaning "supper"), or Brotzeit (literally, "bread time," meaning "snack").

Bread types range from "white wheat bread" (Weißbrot) to "gray wheat bread" (Graubrot) and "black bread"
(Schwarzbrot). The most popular bread types include: white bread, wheat-rye, toast bread, whole-grain, multi-grain,
sunflower seed, pumpkin seed, and onion bread.

Very popular are "bread rolls," known as Brötchen, Semmel, Schrippe, or Weckle, depending on the region. The
typical serving is a roll cut in half, then spread with butter or margarine. Meat, cheese, fish, honey, or jam are then
placed between the two halves, or on each half separately.

Bread is rarely used as a side dish for the main meal. Traditionally, the main meal of the day has been
lunch. Dinner has always been a smaller meal, typically consisting of bread, meat or sausages, and
cheese and vegetables, but over the past fifty years, dining habits have changed. People eat only a small
meal during the day and have hot dinners at home with their families.

If you were to look at the average German lunch dishes, besides popular fast food restaurants and their
standardized dishes, pizza, Turkish Döner kebab, and sausage snacks, you would find three very common dish
combinations:

Potatoes or french fries with meat, usually Schnitzel, steak or beef roll, and mixed vegetables.
Noodles with ground meat and tomato sauce.
French fries or rice with breaded or fried fish.
Common side dishes include hot vegetables (sauerkraut, peas and carrots, or cabbage) and cold vegetables (a
broad variety of salads and dressings), while popular desserts are ice cream, puddings, and Quarkspeisen.

Family life

The traditional German family is considered to have a working dad who financially supports the family, and a
stay-at-home mom who cares for the kids. This family picture, drawn by conservatives over the past century, was
rapidly falling apart with the sexual revolution of the late 1960s. Swapping over from the United States, the flower
power movement was met with approval in Western Europe and especially in Germany. This led to a revolution in
social habits and people changed their general attitude towards founding a family and marrying. Along with this
development, gender roles were changing, too.
Since the 1970s immediate families tend to be a bit smaller compared to those of other countries. It is not uncommon
for German parents to have only one or two children. This affects German society today. People are less willing to settle
and are choosier about their partner. A lot of young women these days value their career, and in some cases, getting
married will hinder advancements in their career plans.

Instead of needing approval from their parents, nowadays, young people are free to meet and marry whom they
choose, but marriage is not the only option. Forty percent of couples between the ages of eighteen to thirty-five live
together without being married. People are waiting until they are older to get married. It’s a fast growing trend. And
in urban areas, single parents are accepted. Children born outside marriage have the same rights as children born to
parents who are married, and the single parent has no disadvantages to fear. Some couples only choose to get married
because they will receive tax benefits by doing so.

In urban areas, both moms and dads work, mainly because this is the only way they can afford the lifestyle that they
want. In rural areas of southern Germany, you may still find families with multiple generations living together, but this
is not common in urban areas or farther north. There are different reasons for that. Houses are too small to include
grandparents and other relatives outside the immediate family. And for many young families it just doesn’t feel right to
live together with the older generations under the same roof. Even in smaller cities and rural areas, you can see this
trend to nuclear families with only the parents and children living together.

A few problems have recently been plaguing German family life and society. The one with the most impact is the falling
birthrate. Fewer and fewer children are being born each year. It’s gotten so bad that if this trend continues, Germany’s
population will start to shrink in a few years. And the government can’t do much about it. They try to reverse this trend
for the sake of Germany’s future with family development plans and welfare programs for mothers-to-be and young
mothers. But the lack of immediate support and benefits for parents with children makes the decision to have children
an undesirable one in the eyes of many young people.

Work Culture and Economy

Germany has a lot of strong industries, such as motor vehicles, foods, electronics, chemicals, and so on. Germany
also is the world’s top exporter. Some major well-known companies from Germany include Mercedes, Volkswagen,
Deutsche Telekom, Adidas, and Bayer.

In Germany, the dominant work culture is quite different from what foreigners would expect. Many foreigners need some
time to adapt to the German attitude towards work. People don’t tend to work long hours; in many offices, especially
in the public sector, the day ends at around four pm. But it’s not that Germans are lazy. There is a strong emphasis on
efficiency and people use their working time to be very productive. This means there is little or no time spent socializing
or chatting. Exceptions are during break periods, like forty-five to sixty minutes for lunch.

The German management culture is hierarchical to a certain degree, but just for logical, decision-making reasons.
Outside the office, subordinates don’t need to be extremely servile towards their superiors. Germans love to work
on well-thought-out plans and make factually based decisions. Meetings are well scheduled and thus punctuality is
expected while lateness is not tolerated.

While Germany might be Spitzenreiter in the export sector, the domestic economy has some serious problems. Even
though the social security system is one of the world’s best, Germany suffers from a high unemployment rate. In times
like these, temporary work is very common. This way, companies don’t have to pay if those temporary employees are
sick or go on vacation. They can hire and fire people at their leisure and expect momentary profits. There is also an
increasing number of people that get just part-time positions. Some even work multiple part-time jobs. This contradicts
the old concept of lifelong employment, where people stay with the same company until they retire. Twenty years ago, if
you got a full-time job, you might have gotten that job for life. But this has changed drastically as more and more people
are changing jobs mid-career.
Generational Trends

German society is changing in a lot of ways. Generally speaking, the older and younger generations tend to do things
differently and hold different ideas about things. The older generation tends to have a strong sense of loyalty to their
company and place of work, and family is high on their priority lists. The younger generation, however, is not averse to
changing jobs if there is something that they are not satisfied with, or to have to change careers midway due to a fast
changing globalized market. It surely is a lack of loyalty if the younger generation changes their companies, friendships,
and relationships every so often, but on the other hand, the older generation never had to deal with a globalized world
economy and its opportunities, as well as the negative effects on the domestic labor market.

Times are changing and keeping up with the newest trends seems to be the ultimate goal of the younger generation.
They have more of their own interests in mind. Going back to the marriage trends that we talked about earlier, they’re
waiting longer and longer to get married and a lot of them don’t have children partly because they have their own
interests in mind and partly because of a lack of immediate support and benefits for parents with children. Members
of the older generation might see these developments as being selfish, though, but it will be interesting to see how
German culture and society will change along with the generations."