Hands Down

The ritual begins with a swift mutual thrust of converging palms, which grasp each other in a crushing grip and pump each other up and down like a frantic seesaw. It is accompanied by a snappy bowing of the head--almost as if to show that the participants have not paralyzed each other. It is, of course, the German handshake, a social act of such importance and frequency that it sometimes seems to dominate German life. More than any other people, the Germans firmly believe that a man's handshake shows his character, and they go through life grasping at hands to prove that their character is both gracious and vigorous.

The German shakes hello and he shakes goodbye, even if he has seen you only ten minutes earlier. He shakes the hands of his fellow workers when he arrives at work in the morning, and again before he goes home. He shakes before lunch and he shakes after dinner.

Some German personnel managers figure that their employees spend a minimum of 20 minutes a day on the job just shaking hands. Every social gathering or business meeting that a German attends bristles with outstretched hands, and a foreigner stumbling into a roomful of Germans can be practically disabled by the unaccustomed exercise of pressing palms if he has not previously prepared himself for the Teutonic rite. In fact, one of the first social lessons the newcomer to Germany must learn is: if it moves, shake it.

But even the Germans are beginning to realize that they have gone too far, and compulsive handshaking is finally on the wane. A recent poll showed that 23% of all German adults are against handshaking as the normal way to greet people. Germany's largest tabloid daily, Bild Zeitung, recently denounced handshaking in a front-page story, declaring that "not only is handshaking unhygienic and impractical but it also wastes too much valuable time." West Germany's unquestioned arbiter of social grace, the Expert Committee for Good Manners (a branch of the German Dancing Teachers League), has joined the anti-handshaking campaign. The committee recommends that Germans keep a tight grasp on themselves rather than on each other. Says its report: "Exaggerated handshaking is unappreciated, and in fact often makes personal contact more difficult to achieve. It is sufficient to shake hands the first time you meet."

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