by Marion Endt-Jones
The German language has not one, but two words for the quiet months of July and August, when schools are out for the summer, small shops are closed, companies operate on a reduced schedule with less staff, Parliament is on recess, and newspapers – for lack of “proper” news to report – tend to run peculiar headlines about sightings of strange beasts.
“Die Sauregurkenzeit” (“sour cucumber/gherkin time”) refers to the uneventful days of high summer, when the only event of note was harvesting and pickling cucumbers – whether the famous “Spreewaldgurken” or others.
The alternative term “das Sommerloch” (“summer hole”) was originally coined by journalists to describe the slow news season of parliament recess, but is now used more broadly to characterise the general change of pace the summer months bring to business, education and public life. You can, however, also drink Grauburgunder and Riesling from “Sommerloch”, in which case we are talking about the wine-growing village of Sommerloch not far from the Middle Rhine region in Rhineland-Palatinate.
“Sommerlochtiere”, a notorious annual occurrence in the German media, are runaway “monsters” that keep both locals and journalists on their toes for several days or weeks at a time. In the summer of 1994, caiman “Sammy” (pictured above) caused a splash when he escaped his owner and made his home in a local swimming lake near Dormagen in North Rhine-Westphalia. Similarly, brown bear “Bruno” made the international news in the summer of 2006 after crossing the border from Italy (where he had been part of an EU-funded conservation project) to Austria and then Bavaria. After weeks of Bruno hunting for sheep, chickens and goats and pillaging beehives, the “Problembär” was eventually shot near Spitzingsee in Southern Bavaria.
While “Sommerlochtiere” used to be ideal candidates for filling empty newspaper pages, global geopolitical crises – wars, heatwaves, droughts and wildfires – provide such a torrent of distressing news that headlines of a cow earmarked for slaughter, who keeps outwitting the authorities for weeks on end (“Yvonne”, 2011), provide a more than welcome distraction and reprieve.
From bearded dragon “Klausi” (2012) and snapping turtle “Lotti” (2013) to sheep “Shrek” (2006) and kangaroo “Skippy” (2015): Jeder Sommer hat sein Sommerlochtier. Meanwhile, the position of “Sommerlochtier 2026” is still waiting to be filled.