The German government has decreed that office temperatures should be limited to a maximum of 19 degrees C. But was this overhasty? It’s already clear that many employers and office workers need to turn the heating up.
In the southwestern German city of Ludwigsburg, the thermometer has recently been registering just 6 C (42.8 F) in the morning. But it isn’t a whole lot warmer inside the local branch of the savings bank.
Here, in this town of 90,000 just north of Stuttgart, the bank clerks are serving customers in a room heated to a bracing 19 C (66.2 F), the temperature that, for several weeks now, has defined German working life.
Since September 1, the whole country has been turning down the heating to save energy. Measures will remain in place until February 28, and people are getting creative in order not to freeze. This Ludwigsburg bank equipped its 500 employees with gray fleece jackets; black woolen gloves complete the look for the well-swaddled bank cashiers at the counter … Welcome to Germany’s new winter reality.
