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What a German work email expects, and how little of it is about you
German work email is shorter, flatter and more formal than the Anglophone equivalent, and the things it leaves out are as characteristic as the things it includes. It leaves out warm-up. There is no I hope this finds you well, no how was your weekend before the request. A German email states the matter in the first sentence, and doing so is read as respect for the reader's time rather than coldness. Equally it leaves out enthusiasm: no exclamation marks, no capitals for emphasis, and any of the effusive closings common in English will read as odd. What it does include is a subject line that says the thing — Rückfrage zur Grafik, Termin am 3. Juni, Unterlagen für den Antrag — and a clear ask with a deadline. If you want something by a date, name the date. German colleagues generally do what the email says and no more, so an unstated expectation stays unmet. Two habits worth copying. First, the confirming email, which lesson 60 introduced: after a phone call or a corridor conversation, a three-line email restating what was agreed. Nobody reads it as mistrust; it is simply how German working life records things, in the same way a meeting has minutes. Second, cc discipline. The Verteiler is taken seriously — putting someone's manager in cc is a move with meaning, and doing it accidentally sends a signal you did not intend. Finally, hours. An email sent at eleven at night is visible, and in a company with a works council it may even be discouraged; several large German employers have policies about out-of-hours mail. Nobody expects a reply in the evening or at the weekend, and sending into that silence looks less like diligence than like poor planning. If you write late, schedule it for the morning — and expect the same courtesy back.