Saturday, March 25, 2017

Sommerzeit

Tonight....I will be traveling through time....putting one hour onto my household clocks here in Germany.   It's always two weeks behind the US switch to daylight savings time.

This is a topic which comes up twice a year, and generally gets very negative criticism by most Germans.  I'd say roughly 80-percent are fully against daylight savings time (Sommerzeit).

Roughly a hundred years ago (one year into WW I), Sommerzeit was introduced (forced) onto German citizens.  To be honest, it was a joint deal with the Kaiser and the Austrian Empire agreeing to do this.  The year was 1916.  Within twelve months, the UK....opposing Germany....had oddly agreed also to daylight savings time.  The US?  It would not be until 1918 that they went to the idea.

If you went to the general German public and asked them (not the politicians) to align priorities and ID things to fix....then dumping Sommerzeit would likely make it into the top ten issues.  The only discussion would be if you just went forward with normal time, or with the Sommerzeit option as the permanent fix.

Odds of this ever becoming a Bundestag discussion item?  Less than ten-percent chance (my humble opinion).

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