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WEATHER

What happened during Germany’s ‘catastrophic winter’ of 78/79?

Weather experts have warned that the coming cold weather in Germany could resemble the 'catastrophic winter of 78/79'. So what exactly happened then?

What happened during Germany's 'catastrophic winter' of 78/79?
Historic photo shows Hohenlockstedt, Scheswig-Holstein in the morning following the first snow fall in 1978. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Signs hanging throughout the harbourside German city of Stralsund try to provide hope for getting through the pandemic.  “We managed the winter of 78/79,” they read amid a list of previous challenges overcome, including the Fall of the Berlin Wall, “Corona? We can also get through that.”

So just what was so bad about this winter at the end of the 70s to merit comparison to big societal shifts?

As any city such as Stralsund, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in northern Germany will recall, the months-long storm saw snow fall so fiercely that it kept people trapped inside of their homes, caused traffic accidents, and even claimed lives. 

Photo: DPA

And it’s the same historical event that meteorologists have been invoking this week, cautioning that the “catastrophic winter of 78/79” could repeat itself in the coming days – although it may not come to that.

However, due to a so-called weak polar vortex, they fear the damages from heavy snow storms about to strike Germany – in some regions up to 50 centimetres high and with temperatures dipping to -7C.

READ ALSO: Weird weather: Temperatures between -7 and up to 20C expected in Germany at weekend

So what happened in the winter of 78/79?

In the days before instant weather alerts on smart phone apps, few people could see it coming: on the morning of December 28th, 1978, the temperature was still a comfortable 10C above zero.

But then, abruptly, everything changed.

Over northern Germany, icy air masses were superimposed on warm, humid Atlantic air – similar to the phenomenon expected to occur this weekend.

READ ALSO: Why Germany is facing extreme winter weather this month

From the afternoon on, temperatures plummeted by up to 30C. Snow began to fall heavily, and quick northern winds led to storms stretching to Berlin. 

At the turn of the year leading into 1979, northern Germany was coated in snow which piled up several metres high. Countless roads were no longer passable and power shortages plagued many areas as falling snow tampered with wires.

But that wasn’t all. The snow and ice storm was joined on the Baltic coast by a severe flood, sweeping through entire neighborhoods in Flensburg, Schleswig and Lübeck, and damaging the port facilities in Sassnitz on the island of Rügen on the Baltic Sea.

Snow completely blocked roads, such as this one in Hohenlockstedt, Schleswig-Holstein, at the end of 1978. Photo: DPA

Matthias Reimer, who lived in the northern city of Lüneburg, recalled his amazement at the layers of snow outside of his home which reached two metres high. 

“I called my boss to tell him that I wouldn't be able to get to work that day,” he said to The Local. “And he told me that I wasn't the only one who wouldn't show up.”

Reimer and his family were trapped inside of their home over the days to come. Having learned to stock up with supplies following another intense snow storm in 1969, they already were prepared with a freezer and “an old wood oven in the cellar so we were able to cook and to heat,” he said.

After three days, the family was freed. “During that time my father tried again and again to break through the snow,” said Reimer.

“He suffered most from the situation. Not because he starved but because he was a smoker and ran out of cigarettes.”

East and West German armies and volunteers came to help

A disaster alarm was sounded in numerous districts and cities; in the northernmost state of Schleswig-Holstein, 80 villages were completely cut off from the outside world. 

Helicopters supplied people trapped in their homes from the air, and around 30,000 helpers from various organisations including the German Red Cross and the Bundeswehr. 

In what is now Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in the north of the GDR, the National People's Army came to the scene. With the help of tanks, among other things, they worked to make roads accessible again. Helicopters also supplied people trapped in their home from the air. 

The situation was also bad in Berlin. As traffic came to a halt in the streets of the capital, “volunteers shoveled away snow which had piled up on cars,” Rositha Lenz, a lifelong Berliner in her late 70s, told The Local. 

Snow piled up outside of Berlin's Alexanderplatz. Photo: DPA

Yet even the winter of 78/79 paled in comparison to previous winters, she said. Reflecting on her childhood in the post-war years in 1946 and ‘47, she said that it was “extremely cold” with no central heating and thin windows – “not the double layers we have today.”

“People carried coal to have enough heat,” said Lenz, adding that the decades which followed were not much better, with Fensterblumen (frost work) forming on the windows and coating roofs every year. 

She added: “Nowadays we have some really warm weather in the winter.”

Snow in some places until May 1979

For weeks to come, northern Germany was covered in a complete blanket of snow, and roads completely blocked. In Husum, a seaside town in Schleswig-Holstein, snow continued to fall until May 20, 1979.

According to crisis researcher Frank Roselieb, the exceptionally harsh winter cost the lives of 17 people in the-then Federal Republic alone, and several hundred in the GDR, according to recent findings. Exact figures were never fully disclosed.

Nevertheless, the experience of the extreme winter also had a positive side for many people. The common need welded neighbours together, with people helping each other where they could. 

“It was an incredibly friendly togetherness. People talked to each other more again,” said firefighter Johann Müller from the East Frisian town of Norden in an interview with public broadcaster NDR. 

“There was communal shoveling of roads. There was a sense of community that I remember fondly.”

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PROPERTY

Why it’s hard to find an apartment with air conditioning in Germany

When temperatures start to get up to 30C or more in Germany, a familiar debate begins. It often starts with a simple question, asked by a new arrival to the country: “Why don’t German homes have air conditioning?”

Why it's hard to find an apartment with air conditioning in Germany

The tendency to avoid air conditioning (A/C) is not uniquely a German trend. Europeans tend to use A/C less than residents in the US, and some countries in Asia.

But as temperatures have crept slowly upwards due to climate change, and the number of hot days has increased, Europe has seen an increase in demand for air conditioning. Across the continent A/C use has more than doubled since 1990.

But A/C is used much more commonly in countries that see higher temperatures like Spain, Italy or France, whereas it is still uncommon in homes in Germany.

So why does Germany tend to lack air conditioning, and why aren’t more Germans interested in installing it?

It’s not a ‘hot’ country

Ask a German why air conditioning is so rare in the country, and you’ll probably hear some version of “Well Germany is not such a hot country.” Which may be true generally, but is a less than convincing explanation if you hear it on a sunny summer day when it’s 35C outside.

But it is worth keeping in mind that while Germany does have warm summers, often with at least a couple heat waves, super hot days are few compared to warmer countries, like those in southern Europe. 

Given Germany’s weather can really only be described as hot for a few weeks out of each year, and considering the costs of installing and running air conditioning, most Germans figure it’s not worth it.

attic with sliding window

A sliding attic window is designed to help tenants cool off, but it won’t help to open windows during the hottest part of the day. Photo: pa/obs LiDEKO | LiDEKO

This isn’t only reserved for homes, but extends to plenty of public spaces including office and government buildings, and to some public transportation as well. 

In fact, schools and workplaces do occasionally call it quits during hot weather spells in an event called hitzefrei.

READ ALSO: Ditching AC for ‘Hitzefrei’ – Taking on the German summer as a Californian

Air conditioning is energy intensive and expensive

The other side of the argument against air conditioning is that both installation and operating costs can be expensive. Air conditioning tends to be energy inefficient, so using it can significantly increase your utility bill.

From an environmental point of view, all the energy used for air conditioning, if Germany was to start installing A/C at scale, would add to the country’s energy demand and greenhouse gas emissions – both of which Germany is already struggling to cut down year after year as part of its climate goals.

It is an ironic feature of traditional air conditioning that it creates a negative feedback loop: More people rely on air conditioning to stay cool as weather warms, but weather continues warming in part due to emissions from air conditioning.

That said there are cases where access to air conditioning can save lives. In particular elderly people and those with health-risks are prone to heat sensitivity. So while it’s probably good that not every house in Germany has A/C, it’s important that hospitals and some other buildings in a given city do.

READ ALSO: How German cities are adapting to rising temperatures

‘Cold air makes you sick’

Along with the reasonable (if debatable) reasons for the lack of A/C in Germany, there are also cultural factors.

On the social media website Reddit, a user posted the question, “Will more places in Germany start using air conditioning?”

One of the top comments read, “Don’t you know cold air makes you sick….says Oma (the German word for grandma). 

While that comment comes off a bit tongue in cheek, it touches on a real and deeply-ingrained belief that persists among parts of the German population: That exposure to cold, or even maybe a cool breeze, is bad for your health. This includes a draft in your house, called a Durchzug in German.

For this reason, the German Red Cross felt compelled to debunk the Durchzug health myth in a hot weather warning they issued in 2019.

a heat pump is installed

An employee inspects a heat pump in front of a newly built residential building. Heat pumps are also effective for cooling. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Bernd Weißbrod

What can you do about the heat?

Regardless of where you stand on the air conditioning debate, if you don’t have a personal A/C unit at home presently, the best way to endure the hottest days of summer may be to take a few tips from the locals.

During my first summer in Germany, I took to leaving the windows open throughout the day, thinking that the occasional warm breeze was the best relief I could hope for at home. But one day my landlord came by and asked me why I was suffering in the heat with the windows open.

He recommended that I instead leave the windows open at night or in the early morning to get some fresh cool air inside, and then keep all the windows closed through the heat of the day. I tried this strategy the next day, and immediately felt that he was right.

Compared to homes in the US, for instance, German homes tend to be very well insulated. This can be equally important in the summer as it means that the interior tends to stay cooler than the outside (as long as you keep it mostly sealed off).

On extremely hot days, you might even keep your shutters down to shade the windows and prevent the sun from shining through.

Of course the effectiveness of the strategy depends on having a home that’s well insulated, including double paned windows and well-sealed doors etc. If you feel that the inside of your house is getting as warm or warmer than the outside, then it’s probably time to open up the windows or go outside and sit in the shade.

Fans are also useful. Best is a ceiling fan designed to rotate counter-clockwise to push air downward, which can maximise wind chill within a home, but floor fans can also help.

Ironically, in the longer term it may actually be heat pumps that help Germany to modernise its cooling infrastructure. 

Heat pumps maximise the efficiency of heating systems by moving warm air around a building, and they can also work with cooling systems. Many heat pump systems on the market today are already built to support both heating and cooling functions, and they are much more energy efficient than classic air condition systems.

READ ALSO: Who can apply for Germany’s new heat pump grants for homes?

Unfortunately for tenants with no heat pump and no A/C, the best you can do for now is take notes of cool places in your city where you can relax in the shade or in the water during the hottest hours or the hottest days.

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