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S-Bahn in Berlin
Photo: Christophe Gateau / dpa
The most important consequence of the "turning point" does not seem to be supporting the Ukraine as energetically as possible, but rather the fact that most Germans are now switching to the regional express.
Contrary to all rhetoric, Germany is in 14th place behind the USA, Estonia, Latvia and Poland in terms of military, financial and humanitarian aid for Ukraine, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.
But it doesn't matter, we're going on a trip now!
Few things have excited Germans more than the 9-euro ticket over the past three months.
Newspapers report record sales, as did the advances of the Ukrainian army.
By Wednesday, the Berlin BVG had already sold 210,000 monthly tickets in addition to the regular subscriptions.
That means the number of customers has increased by 25 percent in three days.
The media publish “the best destinations” (“FAZ”), “dream destinations from Berlin” (“T-Online”), “unknown destinations” (“Geo”).
Apparently, journalists are so excited to finally be able to ride the regional express that they post pictures of their personalized tickets on social media.
If you read the posts on Twitter, you could get the impression that the 9-euro ticket is already tackling two of the major crises: poverty and climate change.
“It's good for the wallet and good for the climate.
I'll get that," said SPD chairwoman Saskia Esken.
The transport service of the Bundestag is happy, although the SPD politician with her monthly salary of around 25,000 euros is perhaps not the most needy.
The rush is huge, because the three-month special offer satisfies two very German needs: cheap shopping (»Geiz ist geil«) and travelling.
There is also an intense desire to be on the road again after Corona and the war, to experience something - and to distract yourself.
Off to the train, maybe towards the Baltic Sea, and listen to the new Rick Astley, Harry Styles.
As he says in his new hit »As it was«: »In this world/ it's just us /You know it's not the same as it was.« There is only us in this world.
The 9-euro ticket euphoria fits in with what the Rheingold Institute in Cologne found out: Germans are becoming war-weary after three months, is the result of a depth psychological study that was published this week.
"The Germans are trying to suppress the war collectively," says Birgit Langebartels, head of the study.
She calls the feeling that people have after three months »war tinnitus«, a background noise of the horror reports.
To suppress the "war tinnitus," watch less news, avoid the topic in private, or listen to experts who put the war into perspective.
And unlike the Ukrainians, who continue to have to endure bomb alerts, existential fear and violence, the Germans are able to flee.
Interestingly, the typical German desire to travel probably also stems from their wartime experience.
It was Heinrich Böll who once said that the enthusiasm for travel originated in World War II - and in the destruction of the country that the Allies used to force Germany to surrender in May 1945.
The widespread bombing of German cities made millions of people homeless, they went looking to the most remote villages, moved on, withdrew, in search of relatives or salvageable owners.
So these escape movements could have been a preliminary exercise for what the Germans later turned into a virtue: their mobility.
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It is doubtful that the 9-euro ticket will change anything in the long term, i.e. that there will be a massive switch to local public transport.
What is missing is a sustainable expansion of the routes and infrastructure as well as cheaper prices in the long term.
»For a long-term shift in traffic flows, we not only need low prices and, above all, no limited discount campaigns.
We need more trips, better timing, more stops and short access routes," says traffic researcher Christian Winkler from the German Aerospace Institute.
When you see how difficult it is for politicians to reduce subsidies for cars, you get the feeling that you still have to be very patient for a real turnaround in transport.
Incidentally, the trains that travel from Berlin to the Baltic Sea or to the large lakes in Brandenburg, for example, have been so packed in recent years that passengers often couldn’t get on, even without a saver ticket.
According to railway information, fifty more trains are to be used, which, given the 22,000 regular regional trains daily, has little effect.
It will probably be similar to the introduction of the 15-mark ticket in 1995, with which five people could use all regional trains at weekends.
A lot is repeated.
Even then there were these grotesque fears about the island of Sylt, which was said to be overrun.
Oh well.
Since then, the number of cars has increased from around 40 million to 48 million – a German record.
