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The culture that is German, a continuing series
Economic protectionism, linguistic protectionism, status protectionism, or all three?:
Americans with PhDs beware: Telling people in Germany that you're a doctor could land you in jail. At least seven U.S. citizens working as researchers in Germany have faced criminal probes in recent months for using the title "Dr." on their business cards, Web sites and resumes. They all hold doctoral degrees from elite universities back home...Violators can face a year behind bars.
Here is the full story. And get this: "A male faculty member with two PhDs can fully expect to be called "Herr Professor Dr. Dr. Schmidt," for example."
Update: They just changed the law. I guess I should have titled this post "The earthquake that is Germany," etc. Sadly there is no medium for telling The Washington Post that their front page story this morning is wrong but of course we have a very keen reader willing to leave comments.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on March 14, 2008 at 07:29 AM in Law | Permalink
Comments
When I attended a German university for a semester, I was very, very careful about using the correct title. Addressing my emails with "Sehr geehrter Herr Professor Doktor So & So" made me feel like I was announcing the arrival of a king to court, however.
Of course, academics in Germany go to school much longer for their degrees (compared to their American counterparts) and for virtually no financial premium, so that allows me some sythmpathy for their salutory sticklerism.
Posted by: Jeff Holmes at Mar 14, 2008 8:14:57 AM
Last two words should be "salutation sticklerism."
or maybe "salutationist sticklerism" to make up two words at once.
Posted by: Jeff Holmes at Mar 14, 2008 8:22:02 AM
"Herr Professor Dr. Dr. Jingleheimer Schmidt,
His name is my name too...."
Posted by: Tom T. at Mar 14, 2008 8:24:12 AM
Wow, thanks for the safety tip! When "simple folk" in the US would ask me, "So you're Dr. Murphy?" I'd get embarrassed and clarify, "Not a medical doctor!" But I never had to worry about jail time.
Even so, this guy's quote in the article amused me: "Coming from the States, I had assumed that when you get a letter from the criminal police, you've either murdered someone or embezzled something or done something serious," said Baldwin, a molecular ecologist. "It is absurd. It's totally absurd."
Has he heard about the lady in Chicago who was arrested for leaving her toddler parked in the car while she walked her other kids over to drop money in a Salvation Army box?
Posted by: Bob Murphy at Mar 14, 2008 8:49:33 AM
Strange that those who get a PhD but go to work for industry or a pure research academic position (often called "research associate" or "research scientist") are entitled (...er...pun intended) to neither "professor" nor "doctor".
Posted by: billb at Mar 14, 2008 8:52:14 AM
'And get this: "A male faculty member with two PhDs can fully expect to be called "Herr Professor Dr. Dr. Schmidt,"'
Being German, I don't understand what's so funny about that.
Two Ph.D.s = Dr. Dr.
Makes sense, no?
But if you want more in terms of German's touchiness about their academic titles, get this true story:
I once wrote a letter to my father which did not include "Prof. Dr." in front of his name. I got a complaint call the next day, he was pretty p---ed off and uttered the now-classic sentence "I didn't do my Dr. for nothing."
In fairness, it cuts both ways. I've received letters addressed to "(name), M.A."
But Austrians are even worse in this respect. Anyone with a degree can expect to be addressed as "Herr Magister". Except for females, of course.
Posted by: LemmusLemmus at Mar 14, 2008 8:55:10 AM
As a German with a Ph.D. from an American university I know this problem. But fortunately, just this week, this regulation has been changed! One can now use the title Ph.D. See this article (in German).
http://www.zeit.de/2008/12/C-Seitenhieb-12
Posted by: SR at Mar 14, 2008 9:07:09 AM
Whatcha wanna bet that this law was originally passed on the theory that foreign academics might turn out to be ... gasp ... Jewish?
Posted by: Anderson at Mar 14, 2008 9:19:36 AM
Silly me, all this time I thought Herr Professor Dr. Dr. Schmidt was Siamese twins.
Posted by: at Mar 14, 2008 9:22:05 AM
My father (PhD Animal Science) likes to tell the story of going back to his quite rural home town after getting his PhD and running into a local.
"So where have you been these last few years. Haven't seen you around as much as we used to."
"I went off to get my Doctorate"
"That's great. We've been having to drive all the way to Manchester to see a doctor. Having a doctor in town will sure help folks."
"Well, I'm not exactly a medical doctor"
"Then what did you study?"
"Animal science."
"A vet then. That'll be great." (most of the folks there were cattle ranchers)
"Well, I'm not a vet, either"
"Then your doctorate ain't good for nothing then, is it?"
Posted by: Jody at Mar 14, 2008 9:24:30 AM
Here is the full story. And get this: "A male faculty member with two PhDs can fully expect to be called "Herr Professor Dr. Dr. Schmidt," for example."
So *that's* what the Thompson Twins were singing about!
...can't you see I'm burning, burning.
Posted by: Mike Moffatt at Mar 14, 2008 9:27:25 AM
People with Doctorates should not apologize for not being sawbones. The root meaning of the word "doctor" is "teacher", and it has been used by professors for at least 800 years. Physicians stole the term less than 200 years ago in order to add a little bit of respectability to a field that relied upon leeches, bleedings and barber-surgeons to remedy our ills. I say we start a movement to take the term back from the quacks.
Posted by: bartman at Mar 14, 2008 9:28:16 AM
I think the whole idea of mandatory honorifics (which sounds like a portmanteau of "honor" and "terrific") is patently absurd. Authority should always be questioned and never automatically deferred to, which is what mandatorily recognizing someone for their degree(s) multiple times amounts to.
Posted by: Christopher Monnier at Mar 14, 2008 9:30:16 AM
Same problem, and even more disturbing because the university system and tittles are identical, with a Swiss Dr. in Germany. Don't mention it!
Posted by: Student at Mar 14, 2008 9:52:07 AM
Same ridiculous custom in my homecountry of Austria, though I'm not sure if there's a similar law there as well. Anyway, this even goes beyond doctoral and professoral titles. Masters titles also give you the right to use "Mag." in front of your name, plus there are some technical degrees such as "Dipl. Ing." for certain types of engineering degrees, among others. So if you have multiple titles you may combine them at will. I've met people with 6 masters degrees, and 2 or 3 doctorate degrees. Conveniently, they sometimes use the abbreviation "DDr." or "Mmag." to denote their multiple degrees. It gets really pedantic. Especially when you consider that at least in Economics, it usually takes two or three years of work in Germany/Austria, while American PhDs require at least four years and are usually more demanding in other ways too. I believe all of this has some form of monarchical roots.
Posted by: Diego at Mar 14, 2008 9:54:01 AM
Overfocused
This was a fun article, necessarily overfocused.
No-one should read this article,
then conclude this is the tone of all German activity.
Remember, Germany was the primary country pushing European Union,
which was costly since Germany agreed to elevate other European countries currency when converting to the Euro.
In Germany, if you walk up to anyone, that person can probably answer your question in English.
In the U.S., no other language besides English would get you an answer, although Hispanic immigrants can answer in Spanish.
Indeed, the typical "modern" American would tend to demean others for their poor English,
while they themselves know no foreign language.
The tone of the article and comments implies Germany is fascist.
I know of no other country whose people have the magnanimity to teach past faults.
Other nations put forth only a pretense,
largely telling half truths about how their country always had reasons for their actions.
The Japanese would never confront incidents like my Chinese wife's aunt,
who while her powerless husband looked on from afar,
was forced to kneel on glass in front of her home
and was then killed.
The world would be far more balanced if every nation
gave some mention of its faults
rather than giving only glorious history.
I'd say the use of "Dr." is reversed in the U.S.
There are so many second rate degrees (eg, in the social sciences) and second rate "universities" in the U.S.
that about the only people I meet using the title "Dr."
are glib but otherwise have no more abilities than a high school graduate.
In particular, I expect a person using "Dr." on a nameplate has fewer math abilities than a typical high school graduate.
Which do you prefer:
a "Dr." in Germany that you know represents real education
(although doesn't account for all such people)
or a "Dr." in America that could be from Bugus University
selling diplomas for $2000?
What this article might have mentioned was that, in whatever profession, the typical German
is better educated for that German's profession
than the typical American is educated.
For example, the German manual laborer gets extensive education.
Nonetheless, Germans are sticklers about degrees;
eg, a German might spend 6 years studying in the computer field,
not learning some computer programming language required in an industry, yet a German employer seldom considers the degreeless person adept in the computer programming language required in that industry.
Posted by: jamesonburt at Mar 14, 2008 10:05:49 AM
Maybe it's necessary to mention that monsters like "Herr Professor Dr. Dr. Schmidt" usually are limited to formal letters. That doesn't make them less funny in the view of Non-Germans or Non-Austrians, though.
Posted by: Rayson at Mar 14, 2008 10:15:12 AM
Rayson: a place I worked at had collaboration agreements with a couple of Austrian and one German university, and we had a visiting prof from one of them who insisted that he be referred to as Prof. Dr. Dr.______ in conversation. Needless to say, he was a source of much mirth and object of much derision for the rest of us.
Posted by: bartman at Mar 14, 2008 10:33:46 AM
While we're at it, why not another anecdote from The Land of Poets and Thinkers:
A friend of mine once met a few friends of her colleague's and one of them intoduced himself as "(name), lawyer"
To which she, quite cleverly, replied: "(name), Dipl.-soz, Dipl.-crim."
Posted by: LemmusLemmus at Mar 14, 2008 10:36:00 AM
*jeez* what kind of german people do you know??
hardly anyone at my university is insisting on titles... a simple "Herr" or "Frau" - and when you're being very polite, it's "Professor" - is enough.
but yeah, i guess, beware of the germans - bad people, all of 'em.
Posted by: Finja at Mar 14, 2008 10:46:08 AM
I doubt if much of the Germen academic world was aware that foreign degrees were not supposed to count. For example, a secretary specialising in protocol once asked me - in excellent English - if I should be introduced at an academic conference in Munich as Herr Professor Doktor or as Herr Professor Doktor Doktor. She was completely nonplussed when I insisted that I was neither Professor nor Doktor, though she was aware that it was almost my first trip to Germany.
Posted by: David Heigham at Mar 14, 2008 10:55:47 AM
I did my post-doc in Germany back in the late 1980s, and I had no idea that there was a problem with my degree "not counting". I was introduced to my landlady, for example, as an American with a doctoral degree, which made me a better catch as a tenant. And I was told by my labmates to keep that "Dr." title ready to haul out when needed, although we certainly didn't stand on so much formality inside our "Arbeitskreis".
I did find the German emphasis on such things odd, though, although I was prepared for it. And the comments above are correct, in my experience - however crazy the Germans may be about official titles, degrees, and so on, the Austrians are even crazier.
Posted by: Derek Lowe at Mar 14, 2008 11:17:38 AM
A perhaps apocryphal story relates that an American consultant who helped people set up American corporations received a request from a German company for a corporate name in the form "XYZ Corporation Doctor". He set it up but asked a German friend why in the world anyone would want such a funny name for his company. The friend said this was not unusual. The head of the company probably did not have a doctoral degree but wanted to be able to answer the phone by saying, if his name was, say, Johann Schmidt, "XYZ Corporation Doctor ..." slight pause "Johann Schmidt" so that callers would think he had a doctoral degree. Note that he didn't try this in Germany.
Posted by: Robert Speirs at Mar 14, 2008 12:04:16 PM
What's wrong about calling a Magister a Magister? It takes four years to get that title.
Posted by: Magister from Austria at Mar 14, 2008 12:14:34 PM
I don't think the Post story is wrong. It refers at the end to the same decision by state education ministers that the story from Die Zeit is talking about; it just describes it as a recommendation (to the Bundestag, I guess), not the final word.
Posted by: Justin Fox at Mar 14, 2008 12:20:45 PM
