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Time change in Desden: Artist Florian Dombois elevates the "won" hour to a work of art and plays a melody on the porcelain bells at the glockenspiel pavilion of the Zwinger
Photo: Matthias Rietschel / dpa
In Germany, winter time applies again - according to the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, there were no problems with the changeover in the night to Sunday.
"Corona does not play a role for us," said Dirk Piester from the authority in Braunschweig, which is responsible for spreading the legal time in Germany.
At 3 a.m., the clocks were set back by one hour from the previous Central European Summer Time (CEST) to Central European Time (CET).
The night was lengthened by an hour.
After switching to winter time, it will be light earlier in the morning and darker in the evening.
Experts from the institute ensured that all radio-controlled clocks, station clocks and many industrial clocks were supplied with the signal via a long-wave transmitter near Frankfurt / Main.
The process is programmed in detail beforehand.
Managing the time change completely from the home office of an employee of the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, however, is not feasible, said physicist Piester.
On March 28, 2021, the hands will be turned forward one hour again.
The time change should actually be abolished next year, at least the European Parliament decided in 2019. That this will happen is more than questionable because there is not a sufficient majority among the 27 member states as to which time should apply in future.
A Europe-wide impact assessment is currently lacking, according to the German government recently.
A patchwork of different time zones among neighboring countries should be avoided.
The time change was introduced in 1980.
Back then, the goal was to be able to better utilize energy resources and the daylight after the oil crisis.
With permanent summer time, it would get light very late in winter in the west of the continent.
With a constant winter time, the sun would rise very early in summer in the east.
Icon: The mirror
wit / dpa / AFP