Punctuality, order and diligence.
Allegedly, these are the typical German virtues.
But is it true?
We were wondering what are actual German traits
and what we found is surprising.
A German is supposed to be punctual by minute.
He is supposed to be invincible in drinking beer,
love garden gnomes
and apparently wear slides over white socks.
But is that really typically German?
The Germans are conscientious.
That is not just a stereotype.
According to a study, almost 90% Germans claim to be so.
If the traffic light is red, we will wait,
even if no car is passing.
After all, it is forbidden to cross at a red light.
By the way, the longest red interval has a traffic light in Stuttgart.
Its waiting time is up to 5 minutes.
Almost every guidebook about Germany says:
The Germans are punctual.
At any rate, that is true of the trains.
95% of trains are punctual
or are less than 6 minutes late.
But they could be even more punctual:
In Japan, the trains are in average
only 6 seconds late.
Another stereotype: German bureaucracy.
Apparently, no other land
has so many rules and regulations as we.
Perhaps that's why our paper usage is so high.
Every year, we use 247 kg per person.
That is as much as one book with around 500 pages per day.
That is more than 25 times as much as India.
Bureaucracy and consequent paper war is thus typically German.
Considering food, in Germany it's all about the sausage.
♪ Yeah, the sausage is ... my reason for living. ♪
With 1,500 types of sausage, we are the front-runner of selection.
The same goes for bread: 500 types! Nobody bakes more.
Besides, according to international guidebooks
'Guten Appetit!' should always be said before a meal.
- 'Guten Appetit!' - Thank you.
It is the stereotype about us, the Germans:
We love beer, we drink it all the time and above all, a lot.
But that isn't quite true.
As in fact, the biggest quantity of beer is drunk by the Czechs.
A typical German virtue? Orderliness.
That is evident even in the most private of places.
While the Americans - for example - just scrunch up their toilet paper.
the Germans fold up theirs neatly
before they use it.
Bras band music and 'Schunkeln' (swaying),
is highly sought after among tourists in Germany.
The Germans, however, only rarely listen to the folk music.
It is on the penultimate place on the list of best-selling CDs,
Third place: classical music.
Second place: rock music.
And the most popular in Germany: pop music on the first place.
At home, the Germans love comfort.
Every year we invest in average 390 € for furnishing.
No other nation spends more.
The classics are: the wall unit,
the television unit,
the computer desk
and the rubber fig.
A German invention?
The garden gnome.
There are around 20 mio samples in Germany.
That's the number
of people living in Australia.
Although, every third gnome produced in Germany gets exported.
Therefore, an organisation called
'The International Association for Protection of Garden Gnomes' was founded.
We love receiving parcels.
Every year we spend in average 246 € for mail order -
more than any other country in the world.
We order products, test them
and if we don't like them, we simply send them back.
That also makes us the leading country in return ratio.
In Germany, it is the highest in the world.
When it comes to the payment, we are trustworthy.
We settle the unpaid invoices within 8 days.
In majority of other European countries, it usually takes at least 12 days.
Our collecting skills can't be defeated,
especially concerning the plastic bags.
Due to reluctance to dispose of something that can still be used
we re-use the plastic bags up to 6 times.
So each of us only uses 65 plastic bags per year.
The Italians use 6 times as many.
Finally, we don't just dispose of our plastic bags.
We repurpose them.
Exemplary! Just like our waste separation.
Over 90% of Germans separate waste.
Paper, plastic, residual and biodegredable waste.
Everything is diligently sorted and separately discarded.
Admittedly only,
when the containers are directly in front of our door.
If they are further, our enthusiasm for separation dwindles somewhat.
In the eyes of foreign tourists are the multicoloured containers
in Germany, an attraction worth seeing.
Back to our red traffic lights ...
For those, fed up with waiting:
In exceptional cases it is allowed
to cross even at the red light;
that is, when the light remains red
unusually long, due to a defect.
Legal experts advise, however, to remain waiting for at least 5 minutes.
Subtitles: Sandra P