German Business Review connects national statistics with company and project-level evidence. It does not treat the Mittelstand as a simple employee threshold, or describe infrastructure announced for a future year as capacity available today.
Destatis, Deutsche Bundesbank, Bundesnetzagentur, DPMA, KfW, federal and state authorities, municipal statistics and company filings are preferred sources. Business surveys are useful measures of reported conditions and expectations, but they are not substituted for output, investment or employment data.
Primary-source hierarchy
Sources are chosen according to the subject and the claim being made. The following source types normally receive priority, with the most specific underlying document preferred over a general summary.
- Destatis national, sector and enterprise statistics
- Deutsche Bundesbank financial, credit and economic research
- Bundesnetzagentur and other federal or state regulator documentation
- DPMA, KfW, municipal statistics and public research institutions
- Company annual reports, filings, investor material and project announcements
Core research rules
Mittelstand and SME definitions
A statistical SME threshold and the broader German Mittelstand ownership model are not interchangeable. Articles state which definition they use. Family ownership or private control is not presented as proof of quality, resilience or innovation.
Industrial and company evidence
Orders, revenue, backlog, capital expenditure and cash flow belong to different periods and accounting concepts. Company guidance is kept separate from reported results. Supplier exposure and customer concentration require evidence rather than assumptions based on industry labels.
Infrastructure and data centres
Announced, planning, permitted, under construction and operating projects are separate stages. MW, MVA, investment programme value and long-term campus potential are retained in their original units rather than added into a false total.
Cities and regional clusters
Municipality, metropolitan region and Land statistics are kept separate. A company or research institution can belong to a wider cluster without being physically located inside the named city.
Dataset and permanent-reference rules
German Data Centre Tracker
Projects require a German location and credible operator, authority or high-quality market evidence. Where capacity is disclosed in MVA, GBR does not assume a power factor to manufacture an MW figure. Stage and disclosed scale are maintained separately.
Mittelstand and company research
Succession intentions are not treated as completed transfers. Private-company estimates are labelled, and company rankings state the financial year, ownership definition and comparison basis.
Review dates, corrections and refreshes
German reference pages are reviewed when official releases, project stages, filings or financing conditions materially change. Provisional statistics and later revisions remain visible in their proper period. Review dates are not changed for cosmetic edits.
Where a material factual error is identified, the correction process follows the Editorial Standards. Research pages are not given a newer date simply to create an appearance of freshness.