Hallo ihr alle,
Welcome to day number 4 of this year’s Advent Calendar. And today, I want to talk about a very common stereotype people have about Germans and Germany.
Germans “don’t do AC”
By AC I mean of course air conditioning and there’s the stereotype that Germans are not really into it.
Make sure to stay until the end of the article to find out if it’s true or not, but first…
… let’s go over some basics to waste everyone’s time and stuff the content with context key-words for Google and other search engines.
What is Air Conditioning or AC
Air Conditioning, or AC for short, was invented by a man called Willis Carrier in 1902 and has since taken the world by storm.
To truly understand what Air Conditioning does, we first need to understand temperature.
Temperature – What it is and why it matters
Temperature was invented by the Universe in 13,800,000,000 B.C. after pressure from The Bored to expand its operations, and it has been with us ever since.
And actually, temperature is one of the main reasons why you feel too hot or too cold in your apartment or office.
I’m kidding of course… I hate this type of content so much, you have no idea.
But enough of the nonsense.
Is the stereotype about Germans and ACs true?
The answer is yes! The stereotype is 100% true! Germans are not really into ACs.
Or in German – die Klimaanlage. The “climate device”.
It’s not like we don’t have hot summer days in Germany. We do have plenty and especially people from North America are weirded out by the lack of air conditioning in apartments as well as office spaces.
Some public spaces, like shopping malls and stores have had them for a while now, but overall, the AC density in Germany is super low.
Part of the reason might be that we’re a stingy people, and apparently, some people believe that it makes them sick, but I think the main reason for that is that it’s just not part of the common psyche.
And I’m the perfect example for that. I know what AC is, I recognize AC in a mall, but I don’t care.
And I would NEVER EVER come to the idea of having one in an apartment. Like… my girlfriend was thinking about installing one when she renovated her mother’s place in Sofia in Bulgaria and I was like “Why would you do THAT? You have windows.”
I’m not even kidding.
The idea of “installing AC for cooling” honestly seemed completely absurd to me. Like… I’d install a sauna, before it would occur to me to install an AC.
If I am in an apartment that has one, I usually don’t turn it on. I open the window and sweat into the couch or chair all day because sometimes I forget that the AC is even there. And if I am in a public space, like a library or a cafe or even a co-working space or a gym I pay money for – if they don’t have AC in summer, I won’t notice, and I find it completely normal. So, I’m not like “Wow, there’s no AC here.” Of course there isn’t. AC still is not really a thing in my mind.
Now, I’ve slowly realized over the last years that having AC is not some stupid luxury gimmick, but it’s actually kind of important for many older people or people who are sensitive to heat. I am not, I love heat, but my mom for instance, now that she is in her 70s, really has a hard time on hot summer days.
I think slowly, slowly, Germans as a whole are … ahem… warming up to the concept of ACs. So there’s hope for all of you!
And part of the reason for that is the recent rise of die Wärmepumpe – the heat pump.
Which is another entry on the list of “Germans being ridiculous about something”.
But I’ll tell you more about this very inglorious chapter in another calendar door.
For today, I think we can wrap it up.
I basically wanted to give you a little glimpse into my mind as an example for how many normal Germans think about AC and how we actually DON’T think about it at all.
We’ll get there. Just give us a decade or two :).
If you have any anecdotes about the lack of AC in Germany please let me know. And also let me know how the situation is in your country. I know that AC is more normal in many parts of Southern Europe, and of course North America. And by the way… why do y’all have to exaggerate it so much? Like … I need a puffer jacket and a scarf for that kind of “cool” and I do think I would get sick. But that’s the German talking :)
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this little cultural ramble. Love to read from you in the comments as always. Have a great day, und wir sehen uns morgen.
I live in Buffalo, NY – USA. Right now it’s 22°F/-5°C. We have long, cold and snowy winters. Our summer, however, are more like summers in the southern USA. 90°F/32°C with high humidity. Opening the window doesn’t do much. While I don’t have central air, I do have window a/c for the bedroom. The colder the better. We also have a large saltwater tank that requires a/c in the summer, or the water will get too warm. I hate the heat. . . Can we also talk about what seems to be the lack of window screens in Europe? I just have so many questions. :)
” Can we also talk about what seems to be the lack of window screens in Europe?”
Lol, never noticed that but yes… we often don’t have them :).
A personal anecdote here: I have been thinking about getting a door screen for my balcony door now for two years and I never buy it, because I always think “If I want the door open, I want it OPEN.” These screen definitely do impede on the air flow, which for Germans is an issue. We love to “lüften” :)
komisch, aber es ist genau die gleiche Situation mit AC hier in Belarus (Weißrussland is an out-dated term, mind you)
Ups, sorry dafür, ich hatte das nicht richtig auf dem Schirm.
The article was fascinating to read as a non-Westerner. And I’d like to thank Emanuel, the team, and the sponsors for giving me this opportunity to join the community and learn these things. I’m really grateful to you guys.
Willkommen!
When I moved to Florida, it was essential to have an AC. Due to the humidity it was the only way to keerp mold from growing in the apartment. Later, it was also essential due to lung issues, removing humidity and outdoor irritants, as well as keeping level temps for medication storage. When I moved to Connecticut, we needed it due to the not so occasional forest fire smoke traveling down from Canada because opening the windows was insane. Think gray smog! And yes, living in an attic space with no overhead tree shade does get difficult in our current climate change.
When my wife and I lived in Wiesbaden, our apartment came with Rollladen, a rolldown barrier for the windows that is a common feature in Germany (at least the Frankfurt area). Ours were electric, but they’re manual in older homes, so you get a bit of a workout. We didn’t have AC, so we’d open the windows at night when it was cooler and close them up and roll down the Rollladen during the day to try to keep the cool in and the heat out. It worked pretty well, until August. I always thought the Germans were funny because they seem to have a Victorian-novel fear of drafts and chills. I’d be at the bus stop in the early morning and they’d be in hoodies or down vests even in summer when it would be way to hot to wear that stuff by 8:00am and they’d just be lugging it around for the rest of the day. I thought that global warming would eventually kill most of them: They’d dehydrate in 40 degree Celcius weather in parkas and boots for purely cultural reasons. Then around the summer of 2018 or 2019 a big puff of hot air from North Africa that usually gets blocked by the Alps made it over the Alps and it was just miserable. And all the sudden for about three weeks, all these German women were suddenly wearing crop tops and Daisy Dukes. I had no idea where those outfits came from because I had never seen them in Germany before. Bought on vacations to Florida? Sale at HMart? Then the heat wave broke and the hoodies and vests came out again. But at least I know you guys will survive whatever the weather throws at you!
My favourite experience this past year is when friends visited us from the US with their two sons, 7 and 9 years old. They stopped by our house on their way to their next city and had grabbed lunch to go. It was a warm, but nice day, and I asked if they wanted to eat on the terrace or inside. They asked, “is there AC inside?” and I laughed and said, “no” and they were so bummed :D It cracked me up.
I love that you laughed while smashing their dreams :D
Ich komme aus Rumänien und hier haben wir die schlechteste Bahn der Welt. Sie ist immer verspätet und zu langsam. Ich fahre ziemlich oft mit dem Zug, weil ich Studentin bin und ich habe bemerkt, dass die Klimaanlage immer am Anfang des Sommers nicht funktioniert. Das frustiert jeder sehr und jetzt, nachdem ich diesen Artikel gelesen habe, bin ich ein wenig überrascht, weil ich nicht verstehen kann, wie ihr ohne Klimaanlage leben könnte. Es ist so heiß, und manchmal hat man das Gefühl, keine Luft zu haben. Vielleicht sollte ich im Sommer Deutschland besser nicht besuchen. haha
Toller Artikel! Danke schön dafür
Ich bin letztes Jahr mit dem Nachtzug von Budapest nach Brașov gefahren und das war eigentlich ganz angenehm. Die Deutsche Bahn ist auf jeden Fall im Moment auch ein absoluter Müllhaufen.
AC is becoming universal in Australia, but nearly always Reverse Cycle , meaning they act as heaters as well as coolers. They are all heat pumps. These are heavily promoted to encourage the electrification on the energy system. If you do not use AC for heating, you need either gas, wood or (perhaps) oil or an inefficient electrical radiator. The use of heat pumps for winter heating is seen as a significant step towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but their overuse as coolers in summer works against that.
Never thought about this and I don’t think I have ever actually heard this brought up as an argument but it makes perfect sense to assume people who had no AC before installing a heat pump will definitely start using it in summer to cool their place. But then again, if the summer day is hot, chances are that solar is delivering a lot of energy to the grid that can be used.
It was such a tiring debate here about the heat pump and literally everyone in Denmark seemed to have one when I was there.
People here in Germany heat a lot with oil.
This explains a lot. I am 73 years old, born in San Diego, CA and of German parents. My dad even spent part of his childhood in the desert where it over 100 degrees Fahrenheit most of the summer. We never had AC. I still don’t. When it got too hot my dad would go to an ice company and by a block of ice. We’d set it in front of an oscillating fan and pull up a chair. When it only was in the 90s we just sweat. Other people had AC, but it didn’t even seem a choice. This Advent Calendar door may explain why my family was like this.
Get used to hotter temps, people. Evaporative systems work well up to 90 F. Heat pumps/AC after that.. All are electric systems with the energy being the real question for today’s tomorrow.
I’m from New Jersey and the entire East Coast has disgustingly hot, humid summers. I come from a frugal household where we keep both the heat and AC low (meaning we don’t put the thermostat too low in summer or too high in winter), but I couldn’t imagine getting through the whole summer here without any AC. Electric fans help 90% of the time, but for example if I want to exercise, I would pass out without AC, the humidity just makes it unbearable. I would never consider joining a gym that didn’t have it.
I was always a Sommermoffel, but in recent years I started noticing that my whole life I have sweat a lot less than other people. As in, barely at all until I am almost overheated (think intense exercise or outrageously hot/humid environment). I don’t have a diagnosable illness, but I think that could be one big reason I don’t tolerate heat very well.
I do have some anxiety about moving to Germany (Munich) this year. The longest I was there in the summer was about 5 days in mid-June. Somehow it was actually pretty cool most of the days and I was underdressed! But there was 1-2 very hot days and it was a bit hard to handle. But I’m sure I’ll adjust somewhat over time, and maybe I will have to quit exercising in the summer except in air conditioned gyms…
I think most gyms have it by now, don’t worry. The point was more that I wouldn’t notice if they didn’t, but all the ones I’ve been to in the last years had it :)
While it‘s still a rarity in homes in Germany, I find AC is standard in cars nowadays. In fact, when my father-in-law, one of those Germans who immediately catch a cold whenever they’re exposed to it, got a new car, he actually ordered a car WITH NO AIR CONDITIONING rather than take a car with AC that was on the lot! My mother-in-law was furious.
LOL, wow, that is extremely principled man :D
I live in Washington state and after the summer of 2021 when it got up to 106°F my husband, who is German, and I decided to get … yup … eine Wärmepumpe!! They are becoming more and more popular here :).
U.S. hier. Zwar Kalifornia. Hier ist es sehr heiss. 44 degree C (111F) is a bit much without A/C. But I totally think we overdo the AC especially in public places. I always take a sweater or light jacket with me even on a hot day to a restaurant or movie theater. I always think. “ gee this store could lower its prices if they would just save money by not running their AC so much.” if I walk into a place that does not have AC blasting away, I have a positive image of it – not a negative one. (unless it’s truly 44°. ). If it is just 38-40 (100-104) I could do without it – but I am a person that loves the heat and hates the cold. So I am probably in the minority.
I don’t mind the absence of AC at home but I wish Germans would discover the wonder of ceiling fans. A ceiling fan on low is virtually silent and can make me comfortable even on the worst days around here, in southern Germany.
At work, the office building only has passive cooling. The lab part is supposed to be “temperature controlled” but it doesn’t seem to be as stable as similar labs in the US, so we definitely see variability in measurements depending on the weather.
“The lab part is supposed to be “temperature controlled” but it doesn’t seem to be as stable as similar labs in the US, so we definitely see variability in measurements depending on the weather.”
Uhm… what?! I find this somehow very embarrassing for us as a country.
Good observation. Here in the US I have ceiling fans in every bedroom, and they are great.
And you now make me realize that the times that I lived in Germany, there were never any ceiling fans.
Neither of my apartments (Dűsseldorf and Műnchen) had ceiling fans. None in friends apartments or homes. None in hotels as far as I can recall.
They’re missing out!
Yeah, ceiling fans are even less a thing than AC. And I would be one those “They make me sick” people about those. I absolutely HATE drafts on my body when I try to sleep.
I wouldn’t have minded the lack of AC on hot summer days on a recent hotel stay in Frankfurt except for the window that only opened a tiny crack at the top. It would have been refreshing to feel the cool breeze off the Main in the morning, instead the room only had a tiny Ventilator that barely did the trick.
Oh wow, that’s bad. If they won’t let you open the window, they really should have AC.
So glad this was not an article about the history of air conditioning
I come from a subtropical climate in America where the air conditioning is psychotically over-applied… the summer is very hot and humid, but you DO have to take scarfs and light jackets in these months, because the AC is insane.
It pisses me off because if we hadn’t imported over a frigid European sensibility of building and clothing traditions, and hadn’t cut down all the trees, and instead had worked with the climate instead of against it, none of this would be necessary. But it’s like we have to make an alien planet hospitable through totally artificial means, and we live our entire lives this way, and feel ENTITLED to it.
When I lived in a northern state, we rarely used the air conditioning at home, even on the hotter summer days.
Having said that, last August when I was in Vienna, they were having a heat wave and temperatures were basically comparable to what I experience in Alabama… except there was nooooo Klimaanlage – except in the university building I had dropped out of, which also had a really loud hum in it that was almost as unpleasant as the heat… and in the mcdonalds, and I think maybe the Ströck in the u-bahn stations had it.
It was actually an insane experience. I call myself a “lizard” around here, implying I am cold-blooded, in pleading with people to negotiate temperature with people – but something has to change if Austria is going to keep getting heat waves. Nothing was possible. The only thing I could do was lie in front of the window with the fan on, and even this was unbearably hot. Or I could go to mcdonalds with the horrible music. I eventually fell into a cadence of getting out of bed and starting my day around 16h, and the tourist attractions all closed at 17-18… I remember I actually made it to the natural history museum, and was sweating so miserably in that ancient building, and just as things started to cool down and get bearable it closed.
I also remember one desperate day, needing to get somewhere air conditioned, taking the subway to a station I knew had an air-conditioned ströck, sitting down with my laptop… and they were lifting a young girl away in a stretcher, who had collapsed from heatstroke.
Restaurants were crazy. Eating outside was a task, because vienna was covered with wasps, because the winter had not killed them that year. It was also hot as hell. BUT, eating inside was like eating in an oven.
And the public transportation was insane. The Ubahn was under construction near my flat, so I was always on the S-bahn, and everybody smelled. Which is fine… humans have scent… and it was Ok on the cars that had klimaanlage, but that was only about half of them. On the others it just wasn’t really workable.
It was a weird month. Also that was when the terrorists made that threat about the Taylor swift concert that got cancelled so there were also disappointed hollow-eyed swifties thronging the streets and batting away wasps
Anyway… something has to change. I understand not wanting to forcibly regulate air temperature in apartments that haven’t needed to do that for centuries. But the climate is changing. Berlin is further north and has loads of trees, so it’s probably different, but I would say Vienna needs about 6x as many trees and 1/5 the amount of cars as it currently has. And it needs to adapt a Spanish-style siesta culture in the summer if it wants tourists to be able to spend money.
Sorry about the essay, I’m not very concise :)
Nice post – enjoyed your “essay”. Hope you post more often.
I get so cold with AC in public areas here in the U.S. and hate it. I live in a 160 year old farm house with lots of big shade trees around it. I’m actually cold in the summer and need to use an afghan:)
I came over 11 yrs to Germany from Australia (and a northern part therefore really really hot!) and have never felt like AC would be needed! Never been in 42C plus 90% humidity in Germany… perhaps it is simply not really needed so much here?
Hallo,
The typos I found:
“occur to me to install and AC” (occur to me to install an AC)
“about this very inglorious chapter another calendar door” (about this very inglorious chapter in another calendar door)
AC hasn’t been a thing in Northern Europe really, until climate change made a large chunk of the year too hot… I still remember temps of 27 in the UK making it to the papers, like front-page news… so, why would people install AC that they’d need less than 10 days a year? Nowadays we can get temps over 30 for days in a row and it’s very, very uncomfortable…
Bis morgen!
Ah, that’s interesting. I don’t have a similar experience in Germany, in that I remember summers as being generally warmer and I am always disappointed now, because I love heat and rarely ever get the real deal. Summer 2006 was a beast. One month or so over 34 every day. How is it with malls and other public places in England? Are they cooled in summer? Like, what about busses and trains?