THW: Germany′s army of volunteers for disaster relief
Little known fact (maybe): Emergency services in Germany is largely handled by volunteers.<p>Police is always paid, no volunteers there.<p>Paramedics are often paid (&quot;Regelrettungsdienst&quot;), but there are lots of units working on voluntary basis which take care of festivals, larger events and more and are somewhat on stand-by in case the Regelrettungsdienst gets overwhelmed with work.<p>Firefighters are the most and they are almost always volunteers, the so called &quot;Freiwillige Feuerwehr&quot;. As a member of the Freiwillige Feuerwehr you&#x27;ll have some kind of pager or app to alarm you and people will then leave work and rush to the fire department and man the trucks. Only large cities (&gt; 100k residents, I think) need to have paid firefighters.<p>Firefighters and Paramedics are also among the jobs with the highest trust&#x2F;respect with the people in Germany. (Sadly, attacks on those groups from bystanders are steadily climbing...)<p>These days thousands of people have left their work (your city will pay your employer for the time you had to leave, although most employers don&#x27;t bill that time) to help take care of the aftermath of the floods, either as Paramedics or Firefighters.<p>Usually there&#x27;s no compensation for this work, next to getting something to eat and drink and the equipment.<p>This is probably quite unique compared to other countries.<p>Update: Seems like it&#x27;s not unique to Germany. I appreciate that, thanks for letting me know.