Tightly stacked wooden cords line the side of a couple’s home in southern Germany, while another family further north has lined their basement with shelves stocked with pasta, rice, cooking oil and cans of chickpeas, lentils and tomatoes.
In central Germany, a man long wary of relying on the government has left him without power or heating for weeks; he’s stocked his attic with coolers to store food in, along with a camping stove, gas bottles, and solar-powered equipment to keep the lights on and stay connected online. Others brave the chilly waters of a local lake for a daily swim and forego a hot shower at home.
In Europe’s largest economy, people stock up and make their move. Even as authorities publish lists of essential items to prepare for blackouts or natural gas rationing, many Germans are taking matters into their own hands to ensure they have a warm home and food on the table through the winter.
According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, a majority of Germans, as much as 60 percent, trust their government. But with a seemingly endless barrage of Russian-fired missiles falling on Ukraine, sending energy and food prices skyrocketing at home, many Germans have decided that if they face the worst, they may be on their own . They want to be prepared.
Leo Bäumler spends his afternoons splitting logs he fells in a forest owned by his sister, near his home near Weiden, in the southern state of Bavaria. He piles them up in his woodshed until he throws them into the stove in the kitchen of the low house where he grew up.
While thousands of people across Germany have reopened closed fireplaces and installed wood stoves to avoid burning natural gas, which has doubled in price over the past year, Mr. Bäumler heats his rooms, boils water for his morning coffee and bakes pizzas with its wood stove as always.
Years ago, he recalls, his father refused to install a gas-fired central heating system when the first pipelines reached his home region, connecting the Siberian gas fields to what was then West Germany, across the Iron Curtain. For decades, natural gas piped from Russia was plentiful and cheap. Half of the homes in Germany use gas for their heating.
Even before the Russian army invaded Ukraine in February, Russian gas flows began to dwindle, causing the wholesale price to more than double. But German leaders, citing reliable supplies since the Soviet era, refused to believe that President Vladimir V. Putin would deprive Europe of gas in retaliation for the European Union’s support for Ukraine. However, many Germans, whose bills had already started to rise at the end of 2021, began to prepare.
By the time Russia first cut gas supplies in late spring, the government had begun to spread the idea that the Germans might face rationing in the winter. That caused many people to go to heating stores to buy wood stoves, and since then the price of cords made of wood and wood pellets has increased by more than 87 percent compared to 2021.
But Mr. Bäumler did not notice.
“Since I live in the middle of the forest in Eastern Bavaria, surrounded by trees,” he said, “I don’t have to worry about running out of wood.”
The ice bather
While some Germans are preparing for an eventual blackout or gas outage, others are focusing on ways to save energy. Economy Minister Robert Habeck became the butt of jokes over the summer when he encouraged Germans to take shorter, cooler showers.
Gregor Ranz and his friends didn’t need the encouragement. Every morning between 8 and 9, they get together to take a skinny dip in a lake in the Wedemark district, north of Hanover. They keep their morning ritual well before the energy crisis – even when the temperature drops below freezing.
While the gathering is also social, Mr Ranz said it made more sense once the energy crisis started. Nude bathing – common in much of Germany – every morning served as an effective way to push the cold shower approach to its limits.
“I shower once a week, when I go to the sauna,” he said. “Of course I have a shower at home, but I don’t use it. A washcloth works fine.”
Make connections
Bernd Sebastian has relied on a 25-year-old gas oven to power the boiler that provides hot water and heating for his home. When the price of gas started to rise, he upgraded his furnace, but he also plugged in his wood stove to heat the water in his main boiler.
“We sit in front of our fireplace every day, and it heats the water in my boiler and the heating draws from that,” he said. When the fireplace is out, the gas heater turns on.
He said he was considering purchasing a heat pump, which extracts heat from the air. “That would be ideal, but that runs on electricity and with electricity prices rising it wouldn’t save me any money unless I installed solar panels, which is another expense.”
Mr. Sebastian collects wood from a nearby forest managed by a friend who alerts him when trees have fallen or been cut down. Then he collects it and brings it home to be split and stacked.
Since last year, he’s been stocking up and piling it up anywhere he can find in and around his house, including some outdoor space used by his wife, Roswitha. At age 76, he worries that he may not be able to keep enough of the ground beef and ready to keep their fireplace going and not use gas.
“I had to steal two flowerbeds from my wife,” he said. “And the third is up for debate.”
Just left it
Bernward Schepers did not wait for the government to start urging citizens to stock up on non-perishable food and 20 liters of water per person. For months he collects supplies and turns his heating and power away from fossil fuels.
“Thank God I bought a wood stove years ago,” he said. Last year he purchased an electric heater and a large battery with movable solar panels that can be folded out to generate energy.
In 2022, more and more Germans were attracted to solar energy. The amount of power generated by solar panels increased by a third in the first part of the year amid fears of potential blackouts.
“If we were to lose electricity, we could at least power some of the little things and prevent the food in the fridge from spoiling,” he said. “I also bought a small stove with a gas bottle so we can cook if necessary.”
When he first spoke about preparing for the worst, Mr. Schepers’ son, Bastian Schepers, rolled his eyes. For a time, his family mocked his preparations. Not anymore.
He has also shared his knowledge with colleagues and friends, who have asked him for advice.
“You just have to make sure that you always have your food supplies in order, that you have enough there,” Mr. Schepers said. “Then you’ll be fine, no matter what.”
The Stockpilers
It was the first Covid lockdowns that put the Arndt family in preparation mode. “It started with toilet paper,” says Lars Arndt, who lives at home with his parents, brother and grandfather in Johannesberg, southeast of Frankfurt.
That’s when his mother, Claudia Arndt, decided they needed to turn their basement, where the family had stored a variety of things, including some non-perishable items like jams and canned vegetables, into a storage space. As the lockdowns in Germany progressed in 2020 and 2021, the family began stocking up on more items, adding flour, pasta and a tank of 100 liters of drinking water.
They also changed the way they heat the house. After years of relying on a gas-fired oven for central heating, they have returned this winter to their main wood-burning stove, which only heats the dining and living rooms on the ground floor of the house. The other rooms are unheated.
“We’ve been thinking more and more,” he said, about “what we can do to make sure we’re able to take care of ourselves.”
“We don’t want to depend on others for what we need,” he added. “But to be able to take matters into their own hands.”
