The Wahlamt is an office, usually located in the town hall, that is responsible for organising elections.

It splits a town up into Wahlbezirke and sends out the postcards that tell the people who live in the town where and when they can go to vote.

The office is also the place to go if you want to apply for a postal vote, or if someone is ill on the day of the election and sends someone else to collect their ballot paper.

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As promised in yesterday’s podcast, here is a sample transcript of one of our German Words Explained episodes.

The transcript is a PDF file that can be printed, but not modified in any way.  To download the file, click HERE.

You can hear the podcast about the Arbeitsamt in our archive.

We are considering producing a transcript for future episodes of German Words Explained, so if you find it to be useful or have any suggestions on how to improve it, please let us know by leaving us a comment on the blog or in the German Words part of the AllThingsGerman.net forum.

It’s up to you – if you like being able to follow the text, or if it just makes the faster podcasts easier to understand – then let us know!

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Das Standesamt is an office, usually located in the town hall, where births, marriages and deaths are registered.  The office also issues the relevant certificates for these occasions.

The civil part of the marriage ceremony takes place at the Standesamt itself, often in a room specially decorated and set aside for this purpose.

Some towns have rooms, dedicated as a Standesamt in other buildings, such as the Kaiser-Friedrich-Bad in Bad Homburg or the Brauhaus in Oberursel.

If either the wife or husband is not a German national, or if one of the parents are not German, then the application to marry or to register the name of a child can get very complicated.  The non-German half may be required to sign away their right to use their national laws, eg. in naming their child, in order to simplify the situation.

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The Auswärtiges Amt is a term that is used to refer to the German Foreign office. It is a term that is often heard in films and news items, the proper name being Außenministerium.

Currently it has offices in both Berlin and Bonn and is responsible for the 145 embassies and 59 consulates in other countries around the world.

In crisis situations such as hostage dramas, the contact to the families in Germany is maintained via this part of the German government.

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The term Bauamt is the name given to a set of offices in local and area governments which have a wide variety of responsibilities.

One part is responsible for the maintenance of public buildings, but the part that most people will come into contact with is the part for giving planning permision (“Baugenehmigung”) to new buildings or changes to existing ones.

They also make sure that buildings are built to plan – and within the time allowed.

On arrival in Germany you are less likely to come into contact with this office, unless you are building a new house or extending an existing property.

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