Germany Culture & Language

Germany is genuinely federal: the sixteen states set their own school systems, holidays and cultural policy, and regional identity — Bavarian, Swabian, Saxon, Rhenish — is strong and good-humouredly asserted.

Bread and beer are regional rather than national. Germany recognises hundreds of bread types and its baking tradition is UNESCO-listed; beer is brewed to local styles, with Kölsch, Alt, Weissbier and Pils each belonging somewhere specific.

The classical music tradition is more than heritage — Germany has more publicly funded orchestras and opera houses than any other country, spread across small cities as well as large.

Vergangenheitsbewältigung, working through the past, is a real concept: memorials are placed deliberately in everyday spaces, and the brass Stolpersteine set into pavements outside victims’ former homes now number over a hundred thousand across Europe.

German is the official language. English is widely and well spoken in cities, among younger people and in tourism, less so in rural areas and the east.

The formal Sie and informal du distinction is real and observed: use Sie with anyone you do not know unless invited otherwise, which is a more conservative rule than in most neighbouring countries.

Guten Tag, bitte, danke and Entschuldigung cover most needs, and greeting on entering a small shop is expected.