Practice test 10

Correct answer: Equal treatment

Refusing entry because of skin colour violates the right to equal treatment under Article 3 of the Basic Law and §19 of the AGG. Discrimination in access to publicly offered services entitles those affected to damages.

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Correct answer: all MPs who do not belong to the governing party/parties.

The opposition consists of those MPs whose parties are not part of the government. Its core role is to scrutinise the government and offer political alternatives to it.

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Correct answer: the government may lose its majority.

Under Article 38 of the Basic Law, MPs are bound only by their conscience and may switch parliamentary groups. If the governing majority is lost as a result, the government can be paralysed or even fall.

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Correct answer: Asylum

The right to asylum under Article 16a of the Basic Law applies only to politically persecuted foreigners; Germans do not need it in their own country. It was a deliberate response to the experience of Nazi-era refugees.

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Correct answer: the victims of National Socialism

Since 1996, 27 January has been Germany's day of remembrance for the victims of National Socialism. The date marks the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp by the Red Army in 1945.

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Correct answer: the seat of the Bundestag in Berlin

The seat of the Bundestag is the Reichstag building in Berlin, with its glass dome by Norman Foster. Parliament has met here since 1999; the building was completed in 1894 to plans by Paul Wallot.

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Correct answer: has committed a criminal offence and is charged with it.

A criminal trial takes place when the public prosecutor charges someone with an offence and the court admits the indictment. Until a final judgement the defendant is presumed innocent, a core rule-of-law principle in German criminal procedure.

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Correct answer: Planned economy

The GDR operated a centrally planned economy: the state owned the means of production and set output quotas and prices in five-year plans. Private ownership of businesses and free competition were effectively absent.

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Correct answer: Christian holiday.

Pentecost is a Christian holiday celebrated 50 days after Easter, commemorating the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles. Pentecost Monday is a public holiday in all federal states.

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Correct answer: a place in a kindergarten.

Since 2013, every child has had a statutory right under §24 SGB VIII to a daycare place from their first birthday until school entry; from age three specifically to a kindergarten place. Municipalities must provide enough places.

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Correct answer: Basic Law

Germany's constitution is called the Basic Law (Grundgesetz) and came into force on 23 May 1949. The name was deliberately chosen to signal a provisional character until reunification; since 1990 it applies in all of Germany.

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Correct answer: can express my opinion in letters to the editor.

Freedom of expression under Article 5 also covers publishing one's views, for example in letters to the editor, demonstrations or online. It ends where general laws, youth protection or the personal honour of others would be infringed.

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Correct answer: Konrad Adenauer

Konrad Adenauer (CDU) was the first Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1949 to 1963. He shaped West Germany's integration with the Western alliance, its close ties with the United States, and the founding of the EEC, forerunner of the EU.

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Correct answer: 1949 to 1990

The GDR existed from 7 October 1949 until 2 October 1990. It was proclaimed in the Soviet occupation zone after the founding of the Federal Republic and ended with reunification.

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Correct answer: Employers and employees

Social insurance contributions are generally split between employer and employee. Each side pays roughly half of the contributions for health, pension, unemployment and long-term care insurance.

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Correct answer: Directive

The three branches of state power in Germany are the legislature (lawmaking), executive (administration) and judiciary (courts). A "directive" is merely an instruction or guideline and is not an independent branch of state power under the Basic Law.

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Correct answer: judicial power.

Judges belong to the judicial power (rechtsprechende Gewalt). Article 20(2) of the Basic Law divides state power into legislative, executive and judicial branches – Montesquieu's classic principle for guarding against the abuse of power.

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Correct answer: to the Warsaw Pact

The GDR belonged to the Warsaw Pact, the Eastern Bloc military alliance founded in 1955 under Soviet leadership. The Federal Republic was a member of its Western counterpart, NATO; the Pact dissolved in 1991.

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Correct answer: 1961

The Berlin Wall was built on 13 August 1961 by the GDR to stop the mass flight of its citizens through West Berlin to the Federal Republic. It stood for 28 years, until the fall of the Wall on 9 November 1989.

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Correct answer: Unity and justice and freedom ...

The German national anthem begins with the words "Unity and Justice and Freedom." Since 1952 only the third stanza of Hoffmann von Fallersleben's Deutschlandlied (1841) is sung, set to a melody by Joseph Haydn.

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Correct answer: denying the Holocaust

Denying the Holocaust is anti-Semitic and a criminal offence under Section 130(3) of the German Penal Code (incitement to hatred). Publicly denying, approving or trivialising the Nazi genocide can be punished with up to five years' imprisonment.

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Correct answer: the members of the European Parliament

In the European elections, voters choose the members of the European Parliament. Germany currently sends 96 of the 720 total MEPs.

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Correct answer: Process

A procedure before a German court is called a Prozess (trial or proceedings) – in criminal law a Strafprozess, in civil matters a Zivilprozess. The term covers the regulated path from the lawsuit or indictment to the judgement.

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Correct answer: 17 June

On 17 June 1953 workers and citizens in the GDR rose up against the SED regime; the uprising was crushed with the help of Soviet tanks. Until 1990, 17 June was a public holiday in West Germany called Day of German Unity.

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Correct answer: It can remove a child from the family if it is being beaten or is starving.

If a child's welfare is acutely at risk, §42 SGB VIII allows the youth welfare office to take the child into care and remove it from the family. A longer-term separation must then be decided by the family court.

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Correct answer: 27

Since the United Kingdom's withdrawal on 1 February 2020, the EU has 27 member states. The most recent enlargement was Croatia in 2013.

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Correct answer: 5 %

Under the so-called five-percent threshold a party must win at least 5 % of nationwide second votes to enter the Bundestag. Alternatively, securing three direct constituency seats (Grundmandatsklausel) under Section 6 of the Federal Election Act is enough.

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Correct answer: in Berlin, because the Federal Chancellery and the Bundestag are located there.

Since the 1991 capital decision, Berlin has again been the seat of government; the Chancellery and the Bundestag are located in the government quarter around the Spree bend. The Chancellor therefore works mainly in Berlin.

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Correct answer: the secrecy of correspondence

The secrecy of correspondence is guaranteed by Article 10 of the Basic Law and protects the confidentiality of written communication. Deliberately opening someone else's mail is a criminal offence under §202 StGB.

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Correct answer: unconstitutional.

Parties seeking to abolish the free democratic basic order are unconstitutional under Article 21(2). Only the Federal Constitutional Court can ban them, as it did with the SRP in 1952 and the KPD in 1956.

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