The battle over how to address people in German

As the formal 'Sie' falls out of fashion some people are unsure of how to address people

Photo by Constantin Wenning on Unsplash

Dear Reader,

A couple of days ago I was taking a walk through an estate that once belonged to the Prussian monarchy when a young boy came panting up the hill on his bicycle.

He stopped in front of me and asked: “Entschuldigen Sie, können Sie mir bitte die Uhrzeit verraten?”

The phrasing of his question was so antiquated that I felt like I had literally stepped back into the Kaiser era. In English, it would sound something like: “excuse me, would you be so kind as to inform me of the time of day?”

In Berlin of all places, the boy’s exquisite manners stood out like a sore thumb.

The German capital is a place where people are almost proud of the coarse, direct way they talk to strangers. Born-and-bred Berliners are legendary for their skill in anmotzen (biting your head off). And anmotzen just doesn’t work as well if you are addressing someone with the formal Sie instead of the colloquial Du.

Scolding someone on the street who doesn’t get out of the way quickly enough with a “haben Sie all Tassen im Schrank?!” just sounds wrong.

West Germans who’ve moved to the capital quickly adapt to the local preference for duzen. It’s not uncommon to see a 50 year old dressed in sneakers and a hoodie calling the barista in his local cafe Du as he tries to throw off the deferential language of the province.

Then there is the Berlin start-up scene, in thrall to all things Cailfornian, where bosses have a clear “duz mich bitte” policy. This invitation to be on first name terms is believed to establish “flat heirachies” and make everyone in the company feel valued.

Sie-zen is in fact so rare in Berlin that the best way to get under someone’s skin is to loudly address them with the formal pronoun. Because the only people who are given a Sie are the elderly, your conversation partner will eventually grumble about “not being that much older than you!”

Much of this behaviour is still quite foreign to people from the rest of the rest of the country, where using Sie and surnames is still the norm in the workplace or out on the street.

But, what is fashionable in the capital almost inevitably spreads into the province.

Thus, uptight German companies looking to give themselves a cosmopolitan image are increasingly telling their staff to start calling bosses by their first names.

A few years ago furniture company Otto made a big splash by announcing that it was reacting to years of financial losses by allowing staff to use Du with the company board. Company CEO Hans-Otto Schrader called the move “culture shift 4.0” and insisted that staff call him “Hos.”

Despite the slow death of the formal Sie, an inappropriate use of Du still has the power to shock, especially in political life.

A recent example came in a Bundestag debate in March in which Olaf Scholz was defending his decision not to supply Ukraine with cruise missiles.

Norbert Röttgen, an experienced CDU politician and a fierce critic of the chancellor, asked him to explain his position. As is standard in the Bundestag, Röttgen used the formal Sie in addressing Scholz.

Scholz’ response raised eyebrows less for what he said than for the pronoun he used to reply to Röttgen. “What annoys me, dear Norbert, is that you (Du) act like you (Du) know everything and communicate with the public as if you (Du) have access to classified information.”

The general consensus afterwards was that Scholz had been extremely rude and had broken a basic rule of etiquette. One newspaper even asked the Bundestag administration whether using Du was permissible in its house rules.

In truth, Scholz’ reply betrays the fact that modern German manners are a muddle.

The two politicians worked closely when their parties were in a coalition during the Merkel years and they probably use Du when talking in private. Thus, Scholz wasn’t necessarily trying to put Röttgen in his place, he may have been reminding him that he once considered him a friend.

There was a time, even in the recent past, when such a faux pas couldn’t have happened because Duzen simply didn’t happen in the workplace.

Helmut Schmidt, chancellor in the 1970s, was famous for sticking to Sie even with colleagues he had worked with for decades. When, late in life, he offered a younger man the colloquial Du it was such a rare event that it made the national news.

Using Du in the workplace brings a whole lot of complexity.

A fundamental rule is that the more senior person offers the Du and it is then up to the junior person to accept it. What takes priority though, age or seniority in the company hierarchy?

Look around online and you will find detailed advice columns on the ‘does and don’ts’ of when to Duz and when to Siez.

A favourite article that I found offers advice to dentists. It warns that a poorly deployed Du can have all sorts of unintended consequences.

“A dentist should always ask for consent when using Du with staff,” the article advises. “If you do it without gaining permission you could humiliate your staff. Patients are finely attuned to such things and, in a place where many are already nervous, such missteps can put them on high alert.”

Another issue is that the introduction of Du into the workplace is open to exploitation. Most companies neither explicitly demand nor forbid it. But this allows senior staff to pick and choose.

Imagine your boss has started to use Du with all your peers, but still gives you a formal Sie. The humiliation! I’ve heard stories of bosses who almost sadistically hand out and withhold Dus to cause jealousy and division in the junior ranks.

On the other hand, being too liberal with a Du can also cause upset. Surveys show that many Germans still feel more respected by a boss who gives them a Sie. That’s not that surprising: for most of German history the only people outside of close friends and family whom one addressed with Du were children.

In summary, this muddled etiquette is a veritable minefield.

Personally, as a member of the Anglo-Saxony world Germany is trying to mimic with this conversion to less formality, I can only say: be careful what you wish for!

I came of age in Britain when Tony Blair tried to free the culture of its stuffy Tory past. One of his first acts as prime minister was to tell his cabinet ministers to “call me Tony.”

A column in The Guardian at the time offered an excited commentary on what the move would mean. “Names are an extraordinarily potent starting point for any cultural revolution,” the article gushed. By dropping formal modes of address, Blair was demolishing structures that exist “in order to maintain networks of deference and support the mystique of authority.”

Since those heady days, Tony “cultual revolution” Blair left politics to work as an advisor for Central Asian dictators. We’ve then had Dave “chillax” Cameron and the most notorious first-named buffoon of them all… B-o-r-i-s.

Pass me the sick bucket. And please be so kind as to address me with Sie when you’re doing it.

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