Paperkrieg
Paperwork permeates modern life. Whether it’s doing taxes, proving your identity, buying a car, buying a house, applying for school, or any number of other activities, there’s likely a stack of paperwork involved. If there’s one German stereotype that, at least in my experience rings true, it's that Germans absolutely love their paperwork. Here stacks of paperwork turn to mountains and most every larger process involves some piece or pieces of paper getting exchanged back and forth. I’ll explain some of the larger paperwork processes you might encounter when moving to Hamburg, in the hopes that you’ll be better prepared than I was when I first got here.
The first piece of paper you’ll have to obtain upon your arrival will be your German residence permit or “Aufenthaltstitel.” In order to do so, you have to go to the “Ausländeramt”, or “foreign national’s office” in English. All non-EU foreigners in Germany wishing to obtain a residence permit must go there. The staff at these offices do the best they can, but despite their best efforts, these offices (at least the three that I visited) are generally soul-sucking, with their pale fluorescent lighting casting a sickly glow on sterile tables and chairs. The first of these offices I visited within a few weeks of my arrival. I sat in the waiting room for about two hours before my number was called, only to be turned away for not having the proper amount of paperwork. I don’t remember how many times I had to come back before I finally had enough paperwork with me, it must have been at least three or four. You could say it was a bit of a paperwork battle, which there is actually a translation for in German: “papierkrieg.” Eventually though, after enough paperwork flew back and forth, I obtained my first German residence permit.
The paper battles likely won’t stop with your residence permit however, and one of the next larger ones you might encounter will be renting an apartment. Like many larger cities, competition for affordable housing in Hamburg is steep. It is quite common, almost standard, for potential renters to prepare a “Bewerbungsmappe” or application portfolio. This application portfolio typically includes a small picture of and letter about themselves, the last three pay stubs of the person or persons who will be renting the apartment, any letters of reference from previous landlords, and a SCHUFA certificate. A SCHUFA certificate serves a similar purpose as a credit report in the US. Unlike the US however, you don’t need to build up credit in order to have a good credit report. In Germany, you start with a clean slate, and only through financial improprieties does your credit report sour.
Along with securing an apartment, you might be interested in finding a job. This too, involves paperwork, and here again, it is quite common to not only send a CV or Resume but rather an entire application portfolio with all certificates, degrees, a picture of yourself, and so on. One particularly peculiar (at least for me) piece of paper involved in German employment is the “Arbeitszeugnis.” It translates to employer reference, but at least in my experience as an employee in the US it’s not something that existed.
Whereas in the US, a prospective employer might ask to call one of your former bosses as a reference, in Germany when you leave a company they issue you an Arbeitszeugnis. This is a document that lists the job title you held with that company, indicates how long you worked there, and explains how well your employer thought you did your job. Upon receiving a job offer, you will be asked to sign a work contract, which must be done by hand, as opposed to digitally. It is not uncommon for work contracts to be ten to twelve pages in length. Germans take their employment contracts quite seriously.
So you’ve settled into life here, you’ve got an apartment, a job, a budding social life, all your paperwork squared away. One day you decide you want to switch internet providers because you found out you could save some money each month. You call up your provider and say you want to cancel, only to find out you can’t, you have to write a cancellation letter and send it via snail mail. That’s right, most any contract you want to cancel in Germany must be canceled by way of a physical letter sent in the mail. Whether it’s quitting your job, terminating your lease, or something as small as switching internet providers, you have to send a letter. This was quite surprising to me when I first got here, and in a way it felt like going back in time a few years. Though after a while, you get used to it and don’t really even think about how strange it is that you have to send letters back and forth to cancel contracts.
I hope now you have a small glimpse into a few of the paperwork battles you might face should you decide to move to Hamburg, or anywhere in Germany. It can be frustrating at times, but it is definitely doable. Although each paperwork battle can feel quite large, looking back the time I spent and occasionally still spend on paperwork is tiny when compared with the time I spend living my life. Don’t let paperwork, no matter the amount, get in between you and an adventure.