What are some of the weird/hilarious/stupid things that are legal in Germany but illegal in other countries (and vice versa)?
What are some of the weird/hilarious/stupid things that are legal in Germany but illegal in other countries (and vice versa)?
My buddy and I were discussing the allowed blood alcohol content for driving (purely hypothetically) and how it varies across countries and then we stumbled upon the question in the title. Would be curious to hear if you guys know any good examples.
You can't be punished for breaking out of prison. If caught, you will have to finish your sentence though, and if you were eligible for early release before your escape, you surely won't be any longer. Furthermore, you can still be punished for crimes committed during your escape, like assaulting guards, or bribing them, or damaging property like doors or windows.
You forgot the unusually humane reasoning:
The law recognizes that the desire to be free is inherent to any human being, and an escape attempt can’t be punished as such.
Everything’s else you said applies however. If the escapee does any kind of damage to people or things in the process they can be charged for those. Just not for trying to break out.
The same is true about escaping from the police car if they try to stop you. You'll be charged for dangerous driving, but not for the pursuit itself.
A free jail-break attempt card
It's legal to trespass on other people's property (outdoors, but even if it's fenced in), while you're in pursuit of a migrating swarm of bees you own.
It's generally legal for everyone to enter any privately-owned woodland, and generally illegal to deny access to it or build a fence around it. The land owner is responsible for the safety of the paths. There are exceptions, like protected new growth, or especially protected nature reserves, but those are very few. In Germany, it's completely normal to be able to roam anywhere in nature, which in some other countries just isn't possible at all.This is more European thing. At least it’s same or similar in Poland and Scandinavia. In Poland you can own a forest but you’re not allowed to fence it nor deny entry and mushroom picking. Also in Poland it’s not even that easy to cut a tree. Even in your own backyard. Unless it’s a fruit tree.
In scandinavia its even more open than in Germany, as you are allowed to camp anywhere in nature as long as you keep 200m or so distance from any house (or something like that, if you go there, check it beforehand)
In the US, a few states have laws like this, for example in New Hampshire you can travel through privately owned wilderness. You are allowed to ban hunting or other activities on your land, though.
Hunting right is tied to the land ownership in Germany. If you own land open to the public, you have to (yes, you have to!) hunt yourself or lease this right (and obligation) to someone else.
Probably not exactly what you are looking for, but these are my personal go to examples for hilarious laws in good ol' Schermany...
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Per law, it's forbidden to detonate a nuclear weapon. It's at least 5 years in Prison.
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According to state law in Hesse, burglars could still be sentenced to death until 2018, but since this was already prohibited by federal law, the law was no longer applied for a long time. It has since been abolished, but it's still funny.
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Driving blind is forbidden.
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You're allowed to drive naked - getting out of the car however requires you to be clothed.
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If you fall asleep at work and injure yourself as a result, for example because you fell off a chair, it's considered to be an accident at work and the insurance is liable.
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In North Rhine-Westphalia, the following applies: If a civil servant dies while travelling on business, the business trip is deemed to have ended.
In North Rhine-Westphalia, the following applies: If a civil servant dies while travelling on business, the business trip is deemed to have ended.
In the rest of Germany they deal with zombie civil servants.
They have a looooong time to wait for you to fill out those forms.
Actually there is no law that specifically prohibits anyone from being naked in public
§183 StGB prohibits men from "exhibitionist acts", which is nowadays reduced to meaning "indecent exposure" but in the past was used to discriminate LGBTQ people. It is only prosecuted upon request though.
regarding the death sentence in Hesse: By law, a public vote had to be held. You could have voted against the abolishment of the death sentence.
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One thing you can do in Germany but can't in the US is "drinking in public". Bring your beer, sit down at the market, park or just walk around while drinking it.
A very common thing, specially in cities with a high amount of students or the like is the so called "Wegbier" (on-the-way-beer) where you go with friends from your house to i.e. a pub and on that way you have a beer to bridge the gap so to say.
I got stopped for this in Lithuania and Canada and basically learned the hard way that this is not common elsewhere.
Das heißt Fußpils!
Pfui! Pils!
I thinh it's normal in central/west europe. We are lucky!
In the US it's not only drinking but even carrying an exposed bottle of alcohol. Which is why in some places liquor stores are called package stores (if I recall correctly), because they package the bottle in a brown bag.
It is legal to drink in an automobile in Mississippi, but not in any other state.
Let's get Mississippissed then.
Something that is practically not enforced is that it is a minor offense for barkeepers to give drunk people more to drink.
An important thing to differentiate is the youth protection laws compared with the US. In Germany it is not illegal for minors to be in the posession of alcohol or to drink alcohol. It is the responsibility of the adults around them, to not sell or give them alcohol as well as to prevent them from drinking.
And that is very important, because in the US the teenagers get punished by law for being caught with alcohol, which is completely wrong. The idea of these laws is that minors are not yet responsible enough for handling alcohol properly. So it is logical that it is societies responsibility to protect them from alcohol. But the minors cannot know any better, as is the spirit of the law.
It is completely wrong to hold someone responsible for something that you declare him to be incapable of being responsible for. I think this example illustrates well, how legal systems can focus on deterrence and retaliation or how they can focus on integration and rehabilitation. (It is a spectrum of course)
Bit of a misunderstanding. In the US if a minor is sold alcohol by a bar/liquor store the business will lose their liquor license. This is a huge incentive for adults to check who they are selling to before a cop finds out where they got it.
If a minor is caught drinking the majority of police will contact their guardian. If it’s repeated then they usually issue a small fine that can be offset if they partake in AA.
Idk about where you are, but in my state, you can lose your driver's license if you are under 21 and in possession of alcohol. Granted, I've never known of that punishment ever being enforced, but it is a possibility. That's why young cashiers have to call over someone else to scan my beer.
By law oxen are horses in Bavaria.
(There has been – or is, I don't know – a regulation regarding the use of horses for forestry work. Because of a forester who prefered to use oxen, rather than changing the complete regulation text they just added an article stating that "oxen are horses within the meaning of this regulation".)
Clever
I think BGB §18 was fascinating until it got revised/removed:
As far as I understood this, if you have to transport a corpse in Germany, you have to be a trustworthy person according to the German Civil Code (BGB). However, you do NOT have to be a trustworthy person to transport a skeleton. So if you see someone with a fresh corpse in the trunk of a car in Germany, you can rest assured. You can blindly trust this person. If, on the other hand, you see someone with a pile of skeletons in their car, then you should quickly take cover.I wonder how they define "trustworthy" here and why is trust so important for this task
Can you post the original text? according to this official portal the §§15-20 have been removed from the law
Oh, that's a sad loss of a fun law... Well, I don't have an original text, since I was just pointed to a snippet of it a long time ago. It stuck with me because of how morbid it was.
I do have some memories on other fun implications of laws due to how specific they are. I can post some from memory if you like. Something about lawnmowers and defective cars for example.
There's literally no general speed limit on the Autobahn. My car has winter tires right now and I'm legally required to have a small sticker on the dash that reminds me not to exceed their rated maximum speed of 230 km/h.
I should have thought about that one, of course
Wegbier
Is that a thing in whole Germany? I didn't know this when I was still living in Lower Saxony (where I've seen this doing it by the youth at weekends) but learned that it's totally normal for everybody / everyday in North Rhine-Westphalia.
Ja
Wegbier
Is that illegal anywhere except the US?
Just learned about this today)
I'm from NRW, born and raised, and only heard about it after moving from my hometown to Bochum. Seems to be a thing in the Ruhrgebiet, not in the whole state. Have heard it later when I moved to Berlin, in Rheinland-Pfalz and Saarland I heard Fußpils, but never Wegbier.
The classic: In Germany it is not illegal to escape from prison.
But you can and will be prosecuted for damage to the building or hurting anyone on the way out. Only a total clean getaway won't impact your sentence (if caught). What I'm not so sure about is if it has an impact on a scheduled early release with probation.
Accompanied drinking of beer and wine at the age of 14.