A time of citizen protest, Olympic disappointment and political triumph

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31. Dezember 2004 

JANUARY

JAN. 1: A health care reform aimed at saving €10 billion ($13.6 billion) takes effect. The reform imposes new fees, including a surcharge of €10 that pateints must pay when they visit the doctor for the first time each quarter.

JAN. 24: The head of the German Labor Office, Florian Gerster, is fired after 22 months in office. His office had been accused of awarding two no-bid contracts worth slightly more than €1 million to the management consultant Roland Berger.

JAN. 31: The “Cannibal from Rotenburg,“ Armin Meiwes, is sentenced to eight years in prison. The defendant was accused of killing a man and then eating part of the corpse.

FEBRUARY

FEB. 6: In a major political surprise, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder decides to give up his position as chairman of the Social Democratic Party. Schröder says he wants to hand the position to the head of the party's parliamentary group, Franz Müntefering. The announcement comes amid growing party criticism about the social reforms introduced by Schröder's government.

FEB. 17: After months of problems. German Transportation Minister Manfred Stolpe cancels a contract with the company Toll Collect for a new road-toll system for trucks. The satellite-supported system was to have gone into operation in August 2003.

FEB. 18: A former Mercedes test driver, Rolf F., is sentenced in Karlsruhe to 18 months in prison for causing a fatal autobahn accident by racing up on the rear of a car. The driver of the vehicle, a 21-year-old mother, and her 2-year-old daughter were killed after the woman veered off the highway in an attempt to get out of the way.

FEB. 29: The Christian Democratic Union wins an absolute majority in elections in the city-state of Hamburg. In doing so, the party increases its total vote by 21 percentage points in a city in which Social Democrats once dominated the polls.

MARCH

MARCH 1: Toll Collect and the government reach a new agreement under which the operation of the new toll system will start on Jan. 1, 2005.

MARCH 4: Germany's Federal Court of Justice throws out the only conviction handed down in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the United States. The court says Mounir el-Motassadeq would have to be retried because a key witness was not heard in his first trial.

MARCH 4: After long negotiations, Germany's key opposition parties nominate Horst Köhler, the head of the International Monetary Fund, to become German president. Their decision virtually assures Köhler's election because the three parties - the Christian Democrats, the Christian Social Union and the Free Democrats - hold a majority in the chamber that elects the president. The national coalition, made up of the Social Democrats and Greens, nominates the professor Gesine Schwan.

MARCH 14: Germany tightens border controls and internal security in the wake of the March 11 bombing in Madrid that killed 191 people.

MARCH 21: Franz Müntefering is elected chairman of the Social Democratic Party, the senior partner in the national coalition, with 95.1 percent of the convention's vote.

MARCH 23: A terror warning causes German President Johannes Rau to cancel a scheduled visit to Djibouti.

APRIL

APRIL 1: Baden-Württemberg becomes the first German state to prohibit female teachers from wearing head scarves. The state's cultural affairs minister, Annette Schavan, had argued that the ban was justified because the scarf “can be seen as a symbol of cultural discrimination.“

APRIL 10: Two members of Germany's elite anti-terror force GSG-9 are reported missing in Iraq. Colleagues say they think both were killed in an ambush while traveling by land to the German Embassy in Baghdad.

APRIL 14: The Love Parade, Berlin's huge techno festival, is canceled because of financial problems. In June, the event's founder, Dr. Motte, announces that a new sponsor has been found and that the parade will definitely be held in July 2005.

MAY

MAY 11: One of the two GSG-9 members who were missing in Iraq is buried in his home region of Germany. The other is officially listed as missing, but is presumed to be dead.

MAY 18: Leipzig loses its bid to become the host of the Summer Olympics in 2012. The eastern German city is “definitely too small,“ the International Olympic Committee decides. London, Madrid, Moscow, New York and Paris remain possible hosts for the Games.

MAY 23: Horst Köhler, the former head of the International Monetary Fund, is elected Germany's new president during the first round of voting held by the Federal Assembly. Köhler will replace the 73-year-old Social Democrat Johannes Rau. In a short acceptance speech, Köhler tells the assembly: “After spending six years abroad, I am returning home with joy and gratitude. Germany has given me much, and I would like to give something back.“

JUNE

JUNE 6: Chancellor Gerhard Schrö-der becomes the first German leader to join Allied celebrations marking the Normandy invasion of June 6, 1944. Quoting a former German soldier, Schröder describes the invasion this way: “It was for all of us the beginning of a new, happier life.“

JUNE 9: A bomb blast injures 22 people in the western city of Cologne. Police still do not have a clear idea about the motive for the attack and have made no arrests in the case.

JUNE 13: Germany's Social Democrats experience their worst national showing, receiving only 21.5 percent of the vote during the election for the European Parliament. The party also suffers a setback in the elections held in the eastern state of Thuringia on the same day, picking up only 14.5 percent of the vote. Germany's other leading party, the Christian Democratic Union, suffers setbacks in the elections as well, but it retains its majority in Thuringia.

JUNE 30: The governing coalition in Berlin and the political opposition reach a compromise on a plan that will make sweeping changes in the country's system of jobless benefits. The new proposal will combine welfare and the assistance granted to people who are unemployed for more than a year. As a result, many long-term unemployed citizens will see the level of support fall after the law takes effect on Jan. 1, 2005.

JULY

JULY 1. Horst Köhler is sworn in as Germany's new president and vows to speak a clear language about the country's problems. “I mean what I say, and everybody should understand it,“ he says.

JULY 1: After four years of difficult negotiations, Germany's parliament approves the country's first law regulating immigration.

JULY 9: The second chamber in Germany's legislative process, the Bundesrat, approves the immigration law. The law that takes effect on Jan. 1, 2005 will create two forms of residency permits - limited and unlimited - and will make it easier for highly qualified people to work in Germany. It will also require foreigners to attend integration courses.

JULY 13: After five years of hunting by German officials, police arrest a former high-ranking military official, Ludwig-Holger Pfahls, in front of his Paris apartment. He is suspected of taking bribes in a high-profile military vehicle case in 1991.

JULY 20: Germany commemorates the 60th anniversary of a failed attempt to assassinate Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. Col. Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg is remembered for thwarted efforts to try to kill Hitler with a bomb.

JULY 29: The former Mercedes test driver Rolf F. successfully challenges his sentence in the deaths of a mother and her child on the autobahn. An appeals court overturns the 18-month sentence and coverts it into one year on probation and a fine of €12,000.

AUGUST

AUG. 12. Chancellor Gerhard Schrö-der visits the grave of his father, a German soldier killed in World War II, for the first time. Schröder never knew the man who is buried in Romania.

AUG. 17: Manfred Kanther, a Christian Democrat who once served as German interior minister, and two other defendants go on trial in Wiesbaden. The three face charges related to the transfer of a large sum of money that the branch of the Christian Democratic Union in the central German state of Hesse made to secret Swiss bank accounts in the early 1980s. The money was transferred to escape the requirements of a new party financing law.

AUG. 23: Thousands and thousands of Germans join marches each Monday to express their outrage about cuts in jobless benefits that will take effect at the beginning of 2005. The protest movement also gives life to an effort to create a left-wing splinter party from the Social Democrats, the senior partner in the national coalition.

AUG. 27: An unemployed teacher, Jens Ammoser, is sentenced to four months probation for slapping Chancellor Gerhard Schröder at a Social Democratic event in May. The 52-year-old said he had acted out of frustration. “I do not have a job, an income or goals in life,“ he tells the court.

SEPTEMBER

SEPT. 5: The Christian Democrats keep their absolute majority in the western state of Saarland. The right-wing extremist National Democratic Party of Germany snatches 4 percent of the vote, just 1 percentage point below the total needed to qualify for the state parliament, in its first campaign in the state since 1985.

SEPT. 19: Both the Social Democrats and Christian Democrats suffer setbacks in elections held in the eastern states of Brandenburg and Saxony. The National Democratic Party wins seats in Saxony's state parliament for the first time by grabbing 9.2 percent of the vote. Another right-wing party, the German People's Union, is
re-elected to Brandenburg's parliament.

SEPT. 27: German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and Polish Prime Minster Marek Belka pledge in Berin that they will work together against any compensation claims that may be filed by victims of World War II.

OCTOBER

OCT. 8: Ending a major dispute, state leaders approve an increase of €0.88 in Germany's broadcasting fee. As a result, anyone with a television set will pay €17.03 a month beginning on April 1, 2005.

OCT. 12: After years of legal wrangling, Germany deports the radical Islamic leader Metin Kaplan to Turkey. Kaplan, who had served a German prison sentence for inciting murder, is wanted in Turkey on charges related to a failed suicide attack.

OCT. 27: A German judge rules that TUI, Europe's biggest tour operator, may not be held responsible for the serious burns sustained by a 6-year-old German boy whan a Synagogue was bombed on the Tunisian island of Djerba. The family of the boy, who was burned on over 40 percent of his body, maintain that the company failed to inform tourists about the dangers on the island.

NOVEMBER

NOV. 5: The national government backs away from its proposal to shift Germany's “Day of Unity“ from Oct. 3 to the first Sunday in the month. The proposal was designed to generate additional tax revenues for the cash-strapped government.

NOV. 9: Germany remembers the 15th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

DECEMBER

DEC. 6: The chairwoman of the Christian Democratic Union, Angela Merkel, gets her lowest vote total ever from a party convention. Merkel is re-elected with 88.41 percent of the vote.

DEC. 15: Transportation Minister Manfred Stolpe announces that a reworked version of the toll-collection system will go into operation on Jan. 1. The delay in the introduction cost the government more than €3 billion in lost revenue.

DEC. 17: The German government approves a new law governing one-way drink containers. Addressing criticism raised by the European Union, the government created a plan that will require consumers to pay a deposit of €0.25 each on disposable containers filled with beer, water, soft drinks or alcopops, which are pre-packaged mixtures of soft drinks and alcohol. The plan takes effect on Jan. 1, 2006.

DEC. 20: The former deputy police chief of Frankfurt, Wolfgang Daschner, and an investigator, Ortwin Ennigkeit, are convicted of threatening to use violence on a kidnapping suspect in 2002. But the court in Frankfurt issues only a warning. In addition, the two will not have to pay fines in the case if they commit no other crimes in the next year.

DEC. 22: The general secretary of the Christian Democratic Union, Laurenz Meyer, resigns after questions are raised about money he received from his former employer. Meyer acknowledged that he collected DM250,000 (about $173,000) after he assumed a political position.
William Pratt

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