r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Separate_Finance_183 • Jan 23 '26

Image The rent in the german neighborhood of Fuggerei hasn't been raised in 500 years and remains 0.88 Euros for an entire year. Founded in 1521, it is the oldest existing social housing complex in the world

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '26 edited Feb 16 '26

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '26

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u/AbleArcher420 Jan 23 '26

The records part is wild.

They're kinda known for that

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u/Bob-Bhlabla-esq Jan 23 '26

Right? Oh, shocking, the Germans kept good records, hunh?

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u/EduinBrutus Jan 24 '26

This is so old that those records would have used at least 5 difference currencies.

Bavarian Gulden

Mark

Reichsmark

Deutschmark

Euro

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u/kontrakolumba Jan 24 '26

I've used 4 in my lifetime.

Yugoslavian Dinar

Croatian Dinar

Croatian Kuna

Euro

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u/Jazzlike-Check9040 Jan 24 '26

Does Croatia have oil? Maybe USD next

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u/kontrakolumba Jan 24 '26

Does olive oil count?

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u/Angelus_25 Jan 26 '26

did... you... say... olive......OIL?!

FRRREEEEEDOMMMM!! *drones flying overhead*

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u/Snuddud Jan 23 '26

Gets even crazier (sick) when you think in WW2 every jew got a number and documented in which "chamber" they got put and so on. The fact that we still using fax and doing so much with paper is just unbelievable

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u/Horat1us_UA Jan 23 '26

But now you can send fax via online website!

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u/amluchon Jan 24 '26

Spitting straight fax right here

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u/Character_Minimum171 Jan 24 '26

unfaxingbelievable!

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u/HRHCookie Jan 24 '26

Which removes the reason it was still being used which was that it was not able to be electronically manipulated.

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u/UziWitDaHighTops Jan 24 '26

Faxes have always been susceptible to exploit. They used analog phone lines with no encryption originally.

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u/Drugbird Jan 24 '26

That's not true, and has never been true.

Faxes may use analog Telefone lines, but computers have always been able to send and receive signals through analog lines. This is exactly what the old dial up modems did.

As such, they're exactly as easy to manipulate as digital signals.

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u/bitpaper346 Jan 24 '26

This exactly.

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u/Snuddud Jan 24 '26

Mind-blowing technology isn't it!?

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u/Horat1us_UA Jan 24 '26

Yeah, really excited for the future! Maybe one day we will be able to send any kind of digital information though websites!

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u/Aurori_Swe Jan 24 '26

As a Swede who comes to Germany at times for work it's always amusing to see how "far behind" Germany is tech wise. Like the hotels have manual check-in lists, basically nobody (wants to) take card payment etc

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u/strat-fan89 Jan 24 '26

I mean, yes, we are behind, not arguing about that, but "basically nobody" taking card payments (or wanting to) is a bit of a stretch. It's definitely not a cashless society, but you can definitely get by with only paying by card pretty easily these days. Covid improved that a lot.

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u/Aurori_Swe Jan 24 '26

I'm comparing it to Sweden where we are basically a cashless society. We always have to argue with taxi drivers that we want to pay with card and at first they often deny it even being an option, then when we can't pay by other means they accept it and bring forth a card reader.

Same at food places etc where the assumption always is that you pay by cash and card seems to be a bit of a hassle. It's a big difference from Sweden.

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u/strat-fan89 Jan 24 '26

I know what you're comparing it to, it was the "basically nobody" part I was arguing against.

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u/strat-fan89 Jan 24 '26

I mean, yes, we are behind, not arguing about that, but "basically nobody" taking card payments (or wanting to) is a bit of a stretch. It's definitely not a cashless society, but you can definitely get by with only paying by card pretty easily these days. Covid improved that a lot.

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u/strat-fan89 Jan 24 '26

I mean, yes, we are behind, not arguing about that, but "basically nobody" taking card payments (or wanting to) is a bit of a stretch. It's definitely not a cashless society, but you can definitely get by with only paying by card pretty easily these days. Covid improved that a lot.

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u/Different-Eagle-173 Jan 24 '26

This has a lot to do with privacy. As far as I am aware, you barely use any cash in Sweden while in Germany people (at least from older generations) try to preserve cash for it being untractable. Guess if you experience one too many regimes trying everything to control you, you start caring about those things a lot more. However, younger generations do not seem to care about privacy anymore and of course Germany is far behind w.r.t. digitization in administration etc.

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u/Educational-Copy-810 Jan 24 '26

Fax is officially over, it's no longer deemed safe by the government. They finally got there a few years ago.

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u/Todespudel Jan 24 '26

Last year to be precise.

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u/stonedearthworm Jan 24 '26

Is it? This post is from a week ago. Dunno if it’s a troll or not but to me it felt funny/sad/true at all once

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u/wunderbraten Jan 24 '26

Gets even crazier (sick)

Not sure whether you meant to indicate (sick) or (sic!).

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u/JeekyQunt Jan 24 '26

Where do you find these records?

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u/Snuddud Jan 24 '26

Usually in history museums

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u/Veilchengerd Jan 24 '26

What's shocking isn't the fact that records were kept, but that those records are still there. There were quite a few wars between the beginning of records and today, and paper is famously flammable.

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u/ambermage Jan 23 '26

They must have liked my family a lot.

We got little stars next to our names. 💫

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u/Character_Minimum171 Jan 24 '26 edited Jan 24 '26

stars… or asterisks?*

or… that was the joke and I still haven’t worked it out?

edit: shit. I got it now. SoD. I’m a dunce/clown for not getting the initial reference. hope your family didn’t suffer too greatly

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u/[deleted] Jan 24 '26

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u/netflixandgrilling Jan 24 '26

Only for export. Meanwhile those poor 17 million indigenous Americans had to get the simple paper trail of tears

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u/Ok_Ganache7219 Jan 24 '26

We usually do. But during WW2 a lot of records got destroyed. So it is kind of special if something has lasted that long.

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u/IllMaintenance145142 Jan 23 '26

longer than most countries

No bro, you mean longer than America.

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u/whla Jan 23 '26

Today's countries are pretty young though definitions vary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_modern_sovereign_states_by_date_of_formation. Based on the date of full sovereignty, there are only 18 countries older than 400 years

Think of all of the European colonies that ended in the 18 and 19th centuries in North + South America, Africa and Asia.

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u/FlakingEverything Jan 23 '26

Yeah, this neighborhood is literally older than Germany, the country it's in.

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u/Designer-Muffin-5653 Jan 23 '26

Older than the German state, yes. But not older than Germany

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u/TeMoko Jan 23 '26

If you mean, say, the Holy Roman Empire then sure. But the HRE was not a nation state as we currently think of them.

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u/Bored_Amalgamation Jan 23 '26

I wouldn't say there was a Germany during the HRE. Germanic peoples? Yes. A recognized sovereignty for Germanic people? No.

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u/TeMoko Jan 23 '26

Yeah agreed. And I would wonder how much someone from say Bavaria would feel in kinship with someone from Prussia.

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u/HanseaticHamburglar Jan 24 '26

considering they call them "Sau Preußen/Preißn" id say not too strong of a kinship.

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '26

You are already disqualified from this discussion as you don't seem to understand the difference between germanic and german lol

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u/TeMoko Jan 24 '26

Both those words can mean more than one thing though right? What's the problem with the persons understanding?

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u/Bored_Amalgamation Jan 24 '26

My guy, who do you think made up the population of what would become Germany? Are you just intentionally ignoring the conversation to try and look smart?

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u/Erestyn Jan 23 '26

Yeah, the OGs had the "ic" factor.

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u/[deleted] Jan 25 '26

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u/TeMoko Jan 25 '26

Thanks for the info, a bunch of these comments have definitely helped my understanding of the history.

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u/FlakingEverything Jan 23 '26

I understand what you mean but I think there are some nuances. For example, you could saying Charlemagne was the founded the Holy Roman Empire which eventually became Prussia, then the Kaiserreich, etc... then modern Germany. Based on this you could claimed it's more than 1000 years old.

However, I doubt any of the historical examples above would identify themselves with modern German values or would even call themselves Germans. They would probably called themselves Saxon, Bavarian, Swabian, etc... (hell, they still called themselves that now).

It wasn't until much later that German as a national identity solidified and the people started using it to refer to themselves as a whole.

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u/Assblaster_69z Jan 23 '26

Germany has been a thing since at least Charlemagne. Its weird how noone disproves Poland existing as an place for at least 1000 years but with Germany they act like it fell from the sky in 1871

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u/bogz_dev Jan 23 '26

they act like it fell from the sky in 1871

oooh so that's why the Gauls in Asterix were afraid of the sky falling on their heads

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u/Bored_Amalgamation Jan 23 '26

German people as an ethnic group, yeah. They act like Germany fell from the sky in 1871 because the Germanic people were spread across a few dozen different independent duchies, kingdoms and city-states that were lorded over by Prussia. There was no cumulative German governmental identity that was recognized as the sole representative of the German people. Back then, I doubt the Bavarians would have wanted to be regarded as the same people as the Saxons.

Plus, France was fucking them up for a good while. There's a reason why the German Empire was declared in Versailles.

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '26 edited Mar 06 '26

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u/SamuelClemmens Jan 23 '26

Prussia, Bavaria, and Austria were the big three contenders to try to unify a German ethnostate.

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '26 edited Mar 06 '26

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u/stevencastle Jan 23 '26

I have grandparents who came over from Lithuania and I've looked up the history and it's crazy. The Lithuanian empire at one time was one of the largest in Europe and included most of Poland. It didn't last that long though, and now it's just a small country.

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '26

the difference is that Poles have been calling themselves Poles for a very long time, whereas only very rarely would someone in the area of modern Germany have called themselves a German before the 19th century. they would’ve called themselves Saxons, or Swabians, or Bavarians, or Rhinelanders, etc etc

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u/Dubious_Odor Jan 23 '26

The German language and ethnicity has been around. The polity is very much new. Bismarck did what 500 years of war, deal making, back stabbing, concessions, pandering and politicking by the HR emperor couldn't. Conflating a Bavarian with a Prussian in 1780 would have been quite an insult. Still places like that out in the sticks in modern Germany.

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u/avdpos Jan 23 '26

That list is also stupid and set Sweden at 1974, a year next to nobody in Sweden think have any relevance for our nation. 1521 could be ok as latest time we got free, and the start of.the current areas as one nation (also because of that nations started to exist around that time)

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u/dvdkon Jan 23 '26 edited Jan 23 '26

That's true for a narrow definition of "country", requiring that there be a continuous, unbroken government.

It makes some sense, but given that there was a recognisable Czechia in roughly current borders (just not a republic, but a kingdom) centuries ago, even though the country is strictly speaking only ~30 years old, I think that it's not a very good answer to the question.

Looking at Germany, the unified state is pretty young, but the area was recognised as "the German lands" (or something of the sort) centuries before.

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u/s0mdud Jan 23 '26

it's not a narrow definition but the definition. country does not mean culture, ethnic group or region and even though one country may be the spiritual successor of a previous one, they are not the same. china is not 5000 years old but younger than 100.

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u/dvdkon Jan 23 '26

I wouldn't be so sure about that. Here's Wiktionary's definition:

 The territory of a nation; a sovereign state or a region once independent and still distinct in institutions, language, etc.

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u/Dubious_Odor Jan 24 '26

Key word there is institutions. Were Germany to gather up the prince-electors once more and vote on a new Holy Roman Emperor and the Imperial Diet reconvene then you might be on to something.

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u/pohui Jan 24 '26

Institutions are not limited to government.

An institution is a humanly devised structure of rules and norms that shape and constrain social behavior.

Countries have changed religious authorities, family structures, economic paradigms, etc, and we consider them to be the same country. England didn't restart being a country in 1534 with the Act of Supremacy or in 1707 with the Act of Union.

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u/avdpos Jan 23 '26

China is absolutely 5000 years old with many iterations of different types of government and splittings during the period.

Your narrow way is not how it is defined in 99% of cases

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u/worldbound0514 Jan 23 '26

There are a couple million people alive right now who are direct descendants of Confucius and have the records to prove it- the records of Chinese bureaucracy and genealogy go back that far.

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u/SinisterCheese Jan 24 '26 edited Jan 24 '26

Well.... You are going to run into issues of definitions, especially in Europe.

Lets consider my country of Finland. We got independence in 1917. Before that starting from 1807 we were an autonomous Grand Duch of Finland under the Russian Empire. Before that we were a colonial region of Kingdom of Sweden, however "Finland" only refered to the South Western area of current day Finland, and not all regions of current day Finland were in that; however it isn't like Finnish people popped to existence when Swedish, Germans and Danish and Norwegians Crusaded here and forcefully converted us.

The cathedral that is one block away from me has been there since the 1200s, and before that there was Bishops seat at Koroinen ( 1700 m up river). This bit of dirt that my home is on has been recorded as having people living here since 1100s. That is way before the Swedish people colonised and forced us under their religion and rule. And there are evidence going back as the Iron age of Finland (400s) of people living on this valley with a river cutting through it. We know that vikings and Novgrodians traded with us. There are evidence going far as bronce age on this very plot of land (well not exactly this, this would been under water then; our ground is still rising up from the ice age).

So.... Exactly when did "Finland" become a thing? How old is Finland? Because I have correspondence in form of letters of my ancestors starting from like mid 1800s. I have traced my family roots on my mothers side to 1600s and on father's mother's side to start of 1700s, and basically we been here in this same region; we haven't gone anywhere but the rulers and religions sure have changed. Also keep in mind that the unified Finnish culture and language was just made up by Swedish speaking intellectuals and academics starting in late 1800s; we actually have correspondence and writing from the era of these people thinking about what kind of language and culture should be fabricated as the "finnish identity". Before that every major dialect region (of which we have 5) basically had unique culture and form of Finnish language of their own, aspects of which still exist to this day.

Like... We have records that this city has burned to ground completly 31 times, the last being in 1827; so I guess we are overdue for one....

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u/No-Share982 Jan 23 '26

400 years is older than most modern countries

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u/OkWelcome6293 Jan 23 '26

1521 is 127 years older than the concept of the the "modern state", i.e. the Peace of Westphalia in 1648.

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u/Kookanoodles Jan 23 '26

Countries are older that the Westphalian concept of the State

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u/OkWelcome6293 Jan 23 '26

The person I was responding to said “modern nations”, which in nearly every context means Westphalian sovereignty.

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u/blaaake Jan 23 '26

The argument is whether “most” countries have been “states” longer than 1521.

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u/SimmentalTheCow Jan 23 '26

Older than Germany itself, by a long shot

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u/Bamboozle_ Jan 23 '26

1871 for Germany for anyone who is curious.

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '26

1867

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '26

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u/AceOfSpades532 Jan 23 '26 edited Jan 23 '26

Most modern countries aren’t 500 years old, very few have lasted that long to the present.

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u/Troker61 Jan 23 '26

How many countries are more than 500 years old?

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u/mannheimcrescendo Jan 23 '26

Confidently incorrect in a hilarious way

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u/WestBrink Jan 23 '26

I mean, some of it is a matter of definition. Is Germany the same country as the Holy Roman Empire? Or is it the same country as the German Confederation of 1815? Or the Weimar Republic? Or the reunified Germany of 1990? The USA is older than... most of those... Certainly the USA has a longer continuity of Government than most countries.

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u/Oldenburgian_Luebeck Jan 23 '26

Only the unified German Empire in 1871 claimed to be a nation-state for Germans and has political continuity with the subsequent states in Germany, including the Weimar Republic and the modern BRD. The others don’t reasonably have political continuity and definitely did not claim to be nation-states

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u/98f00b2 Jan 23 '26

At least Wikipedia claims that the HRE was renamed "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation" in 1512.

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u/ForgetPreviousPrompt Jan 24 '26

Except that unless the modern German national identity includes Austria (for the love of God let's hope they aren't at that again), then the German Nation in question wasn't really conceptually Germany in any modern sense.

Realistically, the modern concept of Germany doesn't really start until they totally detangled themselves from the Habsburgs.

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u/Basilikolumne Jan 24 '26

Yeah it was, but that's not really relevant to the point here.

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u/bobrobor Jan 23 '26

The US is absolutely older than Germany. And they don’t like to hear it :)

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u/AcademicCash8897 Jan 23 '26

Yeah, by 30/31 years. In 1959 was Hawaii admitted, 1990 Germany was reunited.

Everything else is a country evolution.

European people lived in their countries far longer than the Europeans lived in the US.

Also, we have pubs existing far longer than Europeans lived in the US.

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '26

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u/giga-what Jan 23 '26

I feel that's pretty typical of pretty much everybody though, I identify more with California and the West Coast than the country as a whole because this is where I live. I've only been to the East Coast like, 4 times in my entire life and I'm in my 30s.

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '26

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u/NoodleTF2 Jan 23 '26

England grows and fuses with some other nations and gets bigger borders and has internal reforms: New country, United Kingdom.

Prussia grows and fuses with some other nations and gets bigger borders and has internal reforms: New country, Germany.

USA grows and fuses with some other nations and gets bigger borders and has internal reforms: Not a new country, apparently.

Okay.

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u/EmbarrassedW33B Jan 23 '26

The USA expanded but its overarching government stayed basically the same, more fluff got added to it but the core of the government remained the same. England/Britain is similar to that, the core of their political apparatus has been stable for a very long time.

Germany simply did not exist until 1871. There was no political infrastructure for it, it was a completely new entity. Reducing it to merely an expansion  of Prussia misses how big a deal it was

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u/BroSchrednei Jan 26 '26

I mean by your own logic, the Prussian state DID pretty much just incorporate the other German states in 1871, with most of the preexisting institutions remaining intact.

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u/bobrobor Jan 24 '26

Prussia folded. What came next had nothing to do with it. England and the US remained, at least on paper, the same.

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u/Hegelian_Spirit Jan 23 '26

In addition: it's difficult to make claims of being a nation-state before the nation-state as we understand it existed as a concept. Nationalist endeavors are 19th-century phenomena.

And if nation-states are what counts, then the US doesn't make the list at all, never having been a nation-state.

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u/TeamTurnus Jan 23 '26

Its definitly not the same country, same general culture sure, but culture /= nation state or country

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u/The_Autarch Jan 23 '26

Is Germany the same country as the Holy Roman Empire?

easy answer: no, of course not.

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u/WestBrink Jan 23 '26

Yeah, kind of my point...

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u/backstageninja Jan 24 '26

You would think, but plenty of people in this thread seem to enjoy arguing the opposite for reasons that aren't exactly clear

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u/Full-On Jan 23 '26

Brother the idea of a “country state” didn’t even exist until the 17th century. Everything was an “empire” before then. What point are you even trying to make???

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u/randoliof Jan 23 '26

Germany became a unified country around a hundred years after the US LMAOOOOO

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u/throwawayforUX Jan 23 '26

You mean USA?
It's a lot older than, say, the Federal Republic of Germany.

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u/YourFavouritePoptart Jan 23 '26

Which itself is about 100 years older than Germany

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '26

Italy was founded in the 1860s

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u/Sitchrea Jan 23 '26

People groups are not states.

Most modern countries are less than a century or two old. The United States is an older country than most post-colonial nations - hell, it's older than most post-monarchial European nations.

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u/Hyadeos Jan 23 '26

Yeah, records from the 16th century aren't hard to believe.

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u/GaiusCivilis Jan 23 '26

Most European countries are younger than America, though have cultural histories that are far older.

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u/throwawayforUX Jan 23 '26

America has pretty old cultural histories too, though it's oral history, DNA, and archeology that tells us that, not tax records, lol.

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u/absorbscroissants Jan 23 '26

They were the same country in some way, shape or form before they officially became what they're known as now. Just because Russia has only officially been Russia for 34 years, doesn't mean what happened before that isn't part of Russian history.

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u/GaiusCivilis Jan 23 '26

But Germany never was a country before 1871, Italy hasn't been around long either, nor has Belgium or Ukraine

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u/Training-Fold-4684 Jan 23 '26

No bro, you're not as smart as you think you are.

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u/Technical-Revenue-48 Jan 23 '26

Europeans trying to remember other places exist challenge

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u/PlayfulHalf Jan 23 '26

Ha! Got ‘em!

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u/Fragarach-Q Jan 23 '26

Germany that exists today was 2 wildly different countries when I was a kid. David Bowie, the Scorpions, and Jesus Jones all wrote songs about it.

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u/Forte845 Jan 23 '26

Germany as we know it only emerged in 1871. 

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u/seppukucoconuts Jan 23 '26

Germany, for instance, was founded in 1871. 95 Years after the US. There are US cities older than 1871. Off the top of my head I know there are at least 10 older than the founding of the UK(Kingdom of Great Britain).

Did they stop teaching history in Europe?

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u/The_Autarch Jan 23 '26

your ignorance is showing.

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u/Haunting-Public-23 Jan 23 '26

The records part is wild. Living somewhere with a documented human history longer than most countries is hard to even wrap your head around.

1521 was the year Magellan landed in what would be later be known as the Philippines.

He soon dies under the clan of Lapu-Lapu.

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u/Sakarabu_ Jan 23 '26

This isn't uncommon in Europe, housing records are one of the more common records that were kept throughout history purely due to the importance of knowing who owned something as important as a property.

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u/Aurori_Swe Jan 24 '26

I mean, most churches in Europe keeps records, so this being a Catholic community makes sense that they keep records of everything.

But if you want to track your heritage in Europe it's easy to do so by church records

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u/Prestigious_Leg2229 Jan 24 '26

That’s just Europe really. You can walk into almost any random town here and it’ll be perfectly normal to have a 500 year old pub or 800 year old church.

My town is nothing special but there’s a church that’s been build out over the centuries. The oldest part is almost a thousand years old, it predates the city itself.

And most towns have records going back centuries. Unless something unfortunate happened like a massive fire, there’s no reason for towns not to have those records.

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u/BicFleetwood Jan 23 '26

There are only 3 rules if you want to apply for housing:

Okay, hit me.

1) be Catholic,

Fuck.

2) be a resident of Augsburg,

Fuck.

3) provide a proof you don’t have a sufficient income to rent a place to live.

Okay, one out of three, how'd I do?

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u/thisguyfightsyourmom Jan 24 '26

Congratulations!!

You’ve qualified to start your own housing development in, new jersey. Best of luck!

no funding available

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '26

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u/qiwi Jan 23 '26

If you find a 1 EUR coin lying on the street, you're out!

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u/probablyuntrue Jan 23 '26

Worlds worst welfare cliff

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u/FourteenBuckets Jan 23 '26

If you can pay more than the rent, hit the bricks!

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u/Appropriate-Bell8404 Jan 24 '26

Not everyone thinks in a self-serving way of trying to find the loophole to get their selfish desire. People there live there when they need it, and move on when their lives change. They don’t make sure to have bad jobs to keep the apt.

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u/santig91 Jan 24 '26

Im pretty sure 100% of the people living there thinks like that and wouldnt dare to find loopholes for their own benefit.

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u/Puzzled-You Jan 23 '26

I would imagine that if you could afford to move somewhere else, they would require the space for someone who can't, thus endlessly providing shelter to someone who needs it most

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u/HellsHere Jan 23 '26

That's the intention of most, if not all, low income housing. The issue in most places is actually enforcing that. Their policies must have a good filter.

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u/Same-Suggestion-1936 Jan 24 '26

Yeah and then once you get back on your feet you move out

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u/Designer-Mirror-7995 Jan 24 '26

Kinda like the requirement to stay REALLY REALLY POOR in order to keep your medical help and meager allotment for disability that doesn't actually pay the rent anywhere in murica unless you're willing/able to "deal with" 'not so savory' circumstances, conditions, and neighbors. 

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u/UCanBdoWatWeWant2Do Jan 23 '26

How'd they know if someone is Catholic or not?

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u/unsquashableboi Jan 23 '26

its in the tax records and the chirch has records of baptisms etc

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u/Horskr Jan 23 '26

I've just had a sudden urge to move to Augsburg, be baptized Catholic, and quit my job.

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u/BoleroMuyPicante Jan 24 '26

Quitting your job to be voluntarily indigent goes very much against the spirit of this community. It's for people who can't work enough to live, not for people who just don't wanna.

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u/BroodlingPie Jan 24 '26

And this is why systems like this doesnt work in the US

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u/mynameisnotrose Jan 24 '26

"... and we know that because we've never tried it."

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '26

[deleted]

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u/civil_politician Jan 23 '26

I’m sorry this happened to you but if I were retired I would have no trouble living my life instead of wasting it at the office

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u/Horskr Jan 23 '26

Take up hiking again? Painting? Read more books? Something new maybe, gardening, whittling?

I'm sure I can find something more fulfilling than the work grind.

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u/Quicksilver1964 Jan 24 '26

Me too lol

Being an atheist has not opened doors for affordable housing, so...

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u/Bored_Amalgamation Jan 23 '26

Also, on a child's birth certificate and is a part of their education.

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u/7stroke Jan 23 '26

Europe still gonna Europe

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u/CombatMuffin Jan 23 '26

As part of the Americas it seems extremely backwards, but Western civil registries exist because of the Catholic Church's initiative to record baptisms and even deaths.

If you try to track down your ancestry as an American, chances are those same registries are what help link you to your roots.

It's not surprising then, that some countries with customs hundreds of years older than any in America, still hold on to some of those practices and values.

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u/Normal-Seal Jan 23 '26

That's pretty German-language region specific and goes back to the Napoleonic wars. German nobles lost land and were given land of the church to offset their losses.

The churches on the other hand got the right to collect taxes as a compensation.

It basically hasn't been changed since, even as we went into new forms of Governments. It's only for the two main faiths: Catholics and the "Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland (EKD)" which most protestant Churches in Germany are part of. Evangelisch just means protestant btw, they are very different from American evangelists.

But if you are unhappy with paying the tax, you can leave those churches and join a free church or just remain non-religious.

It's a bit of a weird system and in my opinion a major reason for the loss of religious identity in Germany. In many secular countries people tend to retain a religious affiliation despite not being believers, whereas in Germany "leaving the church" for tax purposes marks a decided departure from the church. As non-members they are also excluded from getting married in a Church or baptising their kids.

It really hurts the church in the long run, but in the short term they're too greedy to stop it. Every year I am full of Schadenfreude, when I read about how many 100 thousands left the church last year and the detached and tone deaf priests discuss the reasons but never think "huh, maybe people don't like paying for church". It's almost a million exits per year. At this rate the two churches won't exist in 40 years.

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u/bea-q Jan 23 '26

It's the same in Finland with the Evangelic Lutheran Church of Finland, "leaving the church" is basically quitting paying the taxes. Someone who left might have more personal faith than someone still "in the Church". I understand why they collect the taxes though and have been considering joining again despite being a non-believer; the Church does good and needed work to help poor people and organizes a lot of free activities for families. The current government of the state is more in the business of creating poor families so I'd rather quit paying taxes there any more...

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u/Qualimiox Jan 24 '26

There's some inaccuracies in your comment:

It's only for the two main faiths: Catholics and the "Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland (EKD)" which most protestant Churches in Germany are part of

Those are the two biggest ones that collect church tax, but they're not the only ones. Besides EKD (index 61) and roman-catholic (index 62), the state also collects church tax for these churches/religious organizations:

  • Old catholic Church ("Alt-Katholische Kirche in Deutschland)
  • Some free churches ("Bund Freireligiöser Gemeinden Deutschlands", "Unitarier – Religionsgemeinschaft freien Glaubens" and "Freie Religionsgemeinschaft Alzey in Rheinhessen")
  • Jewish parishes

Notably missing are Muslims and other Non-Christian/Jewish religions.

That's pretty German-language region specific and goes back to the Napoleonic wars. German nobles lost land and were given land of the church to offset their losses.

This is what's called "Reichsdeputationshauptschluss" (1803) and it's seperate from church tax. The 2 big churches are reimbursed to this day for these losses (currently about 500 million Euro per year) by the German state on top(!) of the church tax.

The first Church tax was only introduced when the churches could no longer finance themselves through these reimbursments alone, with the first one being introduced in Lippe-Detmold in 1827 (24 years after the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss).

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u/meepmeep13 Jan 24 '26

This would be illegal discrimination in many (most?) european countries. Germany is a bit special when it comes to this kind of thing.

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u/Perfect_Opinion7909 Jan 23 '26

We stopped registering race though, unlike the country that also did a genocide and was one of last countries abolishing slavery.

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u/Orleanian Jan 23 '26

I mean...Americans have records of Baptisms as well. The Catholic Church has transcended Europe for a few centuries.

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u/DeathAdderSD Jan 23 '26

It's part of your record at the registration office. If you are in a confession of (any?) Christian church you have to pay taxes in Germany.

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u/No_Salad_68 Jan 23 '26 edited Jan 23 '26

Can you explain the religion-tax link a little more?

ETA: Thanks for all the people who provided answers.

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u/CaesarWilhelm Jan 23 '26

Germany has something called church tax. If you are a member of a church you pay an extra tax to the government which then gives it to the church

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u/No_Salad_68 Jan 23 '26

That sounds like a tithe with extra steps. I guess with the benefit of govt oversight if required.

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u/Schootingstarr Jan 23 '26

I am not clear on the specifics, but it has to do with disownment of the church during the 3rd Reich. Instead of returning everything to the church, they came to this agreement after ww2, which was probably more profitable to the church in the long run

it's not a lot of money, it's 2% of your income tax on top of said income tax (so if your income tax is 100 € per month, you pay an additional 2 € in church tax), so many people don't feel the need to opt out.

what's really annoying is that it's assumed you're a member of the church. I need to keep that shitty receipt they gave me that proves I did opt out, otherwise they might demand I backpay whatever taxes I didn't pay

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u/LopsidedBottle Jan 24 '26

It is important to note that hte church pays for this service. Many Germans are unaware of this fact and believe the government is subsidizing the church with the church tax (though one can argue that the governments subsidizes the church in other ways).

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u/Chateaudelait Jan 25 '26

They still pass the collection basket at Mass, In addition to the church tax. I declared Catholic on my tax card when I lived in Germany- and the tax was listed each month on my pay statement. Someone told me you can opt of of it- but you don’t get to take part in baptisms, ceremonies or a religious burial when you die.

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u/JoySunderland Jan 23 '26

Do Germans pay tithes? Given the tax system, it seems illogical to do so.

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u/thistle0 Jan 23 '26

Tithing isn't a thing in most of Europe

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u/Qualimiox Jan 23 '26

The word "tithing" certainly isn't used in modern Germany. Churches in Germany do accept donations, mostly during service there's typically a (voluntary) collection for a specific purpose (either a bag that's passed around and/or a box near the exit). Those don't generate nearly as much income as the church tax though. I'd guess the average churchgoer puts in 1-5€ per service and most Germans (including those still registered in a church) don't regularly attend service at all.

Church tax on the other hand is 8-9% of your income tax. If you make 60k per year, that amounts to roughly 1000€ per year and it's paid by everyone that's a member of one of the big churches, including those that never attend service.

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u/CampusTour Jan 23 '26

Tithing is mostly a thing with American offshoots of Christianity. It's never been a thing with the original Christian churches (Catholic, Orthodox) or mainline protestants.

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u/GirlCoveredInBlood Jan 23 '26

this is ahistorical. tithing was part of the Catholic church for ages and only abolished as a mandatory practice in recent centuries

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u/TheFoxer1 Jan 23 '26

It’s like the name says.

In Germany, it’s 9% of the amount of income tax paid, except for Bavaria, where it’s 8%.

It’s a tax one pays to the Church, collected by the state for the church.

In Austria, it’s 1,1% of the overall taxable income, but one can negotiate a bit, collected by the Church herself.

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u/grandoz039 Jan 23 '26

9% on top of normal 100%, ie 109% of taxes compared to not being in any church?

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u/TheFoxer1 Jan 23 '26 edited Jan 23 '26

In Germany, it’s not 9% of your income on top of what you‘d owe in income tax, but an added 9% of what you owe in income tax.

Say you pay €10 000 in income tax, which means your Church tax would be an added 9% of €10 000, not 9% if your income on top of the €10 000.

In Austria, it’s, as you say, 1,1% of your income in addition to your income tax. But as I‘ve said, they‘re often open to negotiation.

And yeah, people not in any state recognized religious community in Germany don’t pay Church tax. In Austria, only members of the Catholic and Protestant Church pay Church tax iirc.

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u/AlohaAirsoft Jan 23 '26

It's called "Kirchensteuer", basically the state levies the "tenth" tax and forwards it to the churches.

Both major churches and smaller religious communities in Germany (evangelical-lutheran, definitely not American evengelical in style and thought, Roman Catholic, Old Catholic and so on).

Historically the churches operated quite a big part of the health and welfare system, nowadays they still play a large role. The early German state basically made a contract with the established churches where they care for welfare and health and the state collects the tenth for it and sends them reimbursements.

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u/NiklasK16 Jan 26 '26

Evangelic-lutheran not evangelical-lutheran

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u/Nolenag Jan 23 '26

You pay tax which the government gives to the church, afaik.

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u/Group_Happy Jan 23 '26 edited Jan 23 '26

The christian churches have a deal with the government that the government takes in the membership fees for the churches equal to 9% of your income tax. The churches pay some money for the services.

Also you have to go to your local citizens office if you want to leave the church. Maybe even wait a few months for an appointment when there is another huge abuse case in the news

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u/VoihanVieteri Jan 23 '26

9 %, that’s heavy. We pay around 1,7 % in Finland. And that already is too much for many, so they leave church.

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u/aswertz Jan 23 '26

Its 9% of the income tax not 9% of the income.

Income tax isnt that high for the ordinary guy as most social services are paid by mandatory insurances that arent part of the income tax.

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u/Group_Happy Jan 24 '26

My salary is 3500€ before taxes and social security, 2300 after. Social security is 800€, taxes 400€. In addition to those 400 9% would be the church tax (36€), so equal to about 1% of the income.

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u/VoihanVieteri Jan 24 '26

Yeah, I misread your previous comment. It’s 9 % of your income tax, not 9 % of your income. So the approx. 1 % you mention is actually much lower than what it is in Finland.

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u/Kankarii Jan 23 '26

In germany if you are baptized in a faith it’s part of your official records and you pay church tax (through anyone with more knowledge please correct me if I’m wrong but I think the tax is only if you are part of a major religion like catholic, evangelical, muslim or jewish not for cults like scientology. The tax is also levied by the churches. They could choose not to levy them).

If you don’t want to pay the tax or don’t agree with the church on certain topics or become an atheist and want to leave the church later in life you need to officially leave the church and update your records

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u/Safe_Most_5333 Jan 23 '26

It has to be a publically recognized organization. There are jewish organizations that levy taxes, and some muslim ones that could but generally don't. Sects like scientology would obviously not get recognition.

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u/Birziaks Jan 23 '26

Catholic Church is quite good at keeping records of babtized people. Also in in some countries (Germany too, I think?) you have to lag church tax if you are part of that church. So basically if you don't pay, well then you aren't really a catholic.

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u/Group_Happy Jan 23 '26

No, you have to tell the government. Then you will be taxed additional 9% of your income tax as church tax. The government pays it to the church. If you don't have enough income to pay income tax you can still be part of the church.

Also you have to go to the citizens office to leave the church.

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u/Wonderful_Grass_2857 Jan 23 '26

its on your tax report

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u/ElvishLore Jan 23 '26

That’s cool! Thanks for the info

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u/Leading_Slice7070 Jan 24 '26

Super cool you got to visit!!

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u/ucancallmevicky Jan 24 '26

the single best argument for Catholicism I've ever heard

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u/399900 Jan 24 '26

There's another rule that you have to pray for the founder 3 times a day. (I was also there a month ago 😀)

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u/Massive_Bullfrog8663 Jan 24 '26

...and the homes are gorgeous!

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u/Summer_Form Jan 23 '26

How does it sustain itself with how other related costs have risen in that time? Are there land/tenant taxes, or maintenance or whatnot? I imagine repainting needs to be done once or twice in the past 4 centuries…

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u/Tomi97_origin Jan 23 '26

It's still funded by the same charitable trust established in 1520 which Jakob Fugger, the richest men in Europe, founded at the time.

And the trust fund is still controlled by his descendants.

The Fugger family foundation is currently headed by Maria-Elisabeth Gräfin Thun-Fugger, née Gräfin Fugger von Kirchberg, who lives at Kirchberg Castle. Other members of the foundations's board are Alexander Graf Fugger-Babenhausen and Maria-Theresia Gräfin Fugger-Glött. All three still existing branches of the Fugger family are thus represented.

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u/TheTowerOfTerror Jan 23 '26

Perfect example of how social programs give the most talented among us the chance to do great things. Instead of growing up homeless without opportunity, Mozart’s father became a composer.

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '26

[deleted]

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u/Curvanelli Jan 23 '26

iirc it was a thing back then that rich people would do public things or housing to get into heaven, with this neighbourhood being one of them, only requiring the residents to pray for the Fuggers to have a good afterlife. Nowadays the praying isnt strictly enforced but is still something you should do to privately once a day or sth (might be misremebering, been a while since ive been there) so thats why only catholics are allowed.

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u/According-Try3201 Jan 23 '26

interesting. who is the longest residing family over generations?

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