There’s a joke in Germany about a person applying for a job at the Deutsche Bahn. They show up for the interview half an hour late — and the interviewer says, “You’re hired.” 

It’s a joke, but also no joke. The Deutsche Bahn ranks last in reliability among 27 European rail companies. In September, nearly half of the Bahn’s long-distance trains were late, a new low. That leaves passengers —10 million of whom travel long-distance with the Bahn every month — a lot of time to think up wisecracks. 

Signs on a long-distance platform at Munich’s Hauptbahnhof train station show train delays. Nearly half of Germany’s long-distance trains run late, making the national railway, Deutsche Bahn, a target of jokes.Valerie Hamilton/The World

In a country not known for its sense of humor, joking about the Deutsche Bahn has become a kind of national pastime. Germans joke about the Bahn’s ancient infrastructure, some of which dates back 100 years. Social media celebrates its lamest excuses, like wild boars on train tracks or a train driver who got “lost.” Above all, Germany is yukking it up over train delays. Like in a cartoon from a public TV kids’ show, where punctual Swiss and Japanese trains mock a dopey-sounding German train that seems like it’s early — but is actually late from the day before. 

When a train can’t leave because it’s “out of toilet paper,” said comedian Caroline Bungeroth, the jokes write themselves. In her touring cabaret act, Bungeroth roasts the Bahn and has audiences sing along with a chorus of “Oh, man, Deutsche Bahn.” Afterward, people come up to the stage and vent their Bahn horror stories.

“You can only laugh,” she said.

The Deutsche Bahn wasn’t always a punchline. As Europe’s largest railway system, it used to be a source of national pride. But after German reunification in the 1990s, the state railways of East and West Germany merged to form a state-owned, but profit-driven, global logistics company, Deutsche Bahn AG, with more than 500 subsidiaries. Passengers, tracks and trains fell by the wayside, along with the investment and maintenance to keep them moving. By the time the Bahn admitted it had a problem, in 2019, the jokes were already flying. 

Indeed, these days even the Deutsche Bahn tells Bahn jokes.

On Instagram, the company’s bio reads, “admit it, you’ve been waiting for us.” Its TikTok features memes like an unhappy cat waiting on a train platform, yowling curses at the Bahn. In October, the Deutsche Bahn launched a glossy new web comedy series about the frustrations of rail travel, starring a high-profile German comedian, Anke Engelke, as a hapless train manager soothing angry passengers with ASMR and spilling coffee in slapstick stumbles through malfunctioning doors.

Not everyone thinks it’s funny. 

Passengers walk past platforms at Munich’s Hauptbahnhof train station. Ten million passengers a month ride the Deutsche Bahn’s long-distance trains.Valerie Hamilton/The World

Volker Thoms, editor in chief of the German corporate communications trade magazine KOM, said the Deutsche Bahn’s laugh-with-‘em media strategy won hearts and minds for a while, but now even fans are running out of patience.

“Many people have realized the situation is too bad,” he said. “You shouldn’t make fun of your clients, customers and passengers. You need to solve the problem.”

The problem is bigger than running the trains on time. To meet its 2030 climate goals, Germany needs to cut transport emissions by getting more people to leave their cars behind and opt for the train, but negative news about the Bahn is driving them away. And as German politics wrestles with the far right, Thoms said, it’s not a good time for a symbol of national pride to turn into a state-owned national joke.

A Deutsche Bahn Intercity Express (ICE) train in Munich’s Hauptbahnhof train station. In theory Germany’s fastest trains, ICE trains are frequently delayed or canceled, leading to unfavorable comparisons to the high-speed rail services of Switzerland, Japan and even Italy. Valerie Hamilton/The World

“It has an impact on … how we trust the political system,” he said. “You get the impression nothing works in Germany, and the Deutsche Bahn has become a symbol for that.”

Germany’s new government is trying to change that, with a planned investment of 107 billion euros in the Bahn and the appointment of a new CEO, Evelyn Palla, in September. Palla has vowed a “fresh start”, tackling the infrastructure, bureaucracy, delays and billion-dollar losses that have made the Bahn a laughingstock.

But a recent afternoon at Munich’s central train station showed a snapshot of the challenge: about half of long-distance trains were delayed, and passengers expressed little hope for change. 

“It’s supposed to get worse before it gets better,” said Arlette Robert-Vassy, who was catching a train to Berlin. For her, Palla’s reform plans for the Deutsche Bahn inspire another Bahn joke – one with a grain of truth. 

“A good joke about the Deutsche Bahn is the woman that’s been hired to make the trains run on time,” she said. “That is literally her job post.”