20 people squeeze into a Trabant, a bobby car drives down the street at 106 km/h and a Christmas stollen is 1022 meters long: the Germans have once again done a lot to set world records this year. 90 have been certified in Germany in the past few months, said Olaf Kuchenbecker, chief judge at the Record Institute for Germany, the German Press Agency in Berlin.

This is also a maximum. Last year there were 80 records and in the first pandemic year 2020 there were at least 89. According tokuchenbecker, 75 were confirmed in 2019.

"This shows that the will to record is unbroken," said the record judge - despite Corona. Because mass events were not possible for a long time, the Germans also set records without an audience, for example when running a marathon with a tree trunk on their shoulder. "The pandemic has created new record categories." In 2022, however, there were more attempts again with audiences.

Leaning tower in the world in Rhineland-Palatinate

At the end of the year, for example, a tower in Gau-Weinheim in Rhineland-Palatinate entered the record book as the world's most leaning tower. It has an inclination of 5.4277 degrees. And: In Hamburg, a man smashed 113 full beer cans with his elbow in 60 seconds. A drummer from Kiel twisted his drumsticks around his fingers 105 times a minute. In Lower Saxony, a duo also managed to change a tractor tire in just 3 minutes and 16 seconds.

Statistically speaking, the Hamburg-based institute receives a request with an idea every day. "Not everything that comes to us in terms of inquiries is accepted as a new record category," said the judge. The Record Institute for Germany is considered the German-language counterpart to the Guinness Book of Records.

How many record attempts fail? According tokuchenbecker, there are only a few. "When we are on site as judges, people are sufficiently well prepared. You don't want to show yourself twice," he said, pointing out that the public or the media were there. "The situation then has a certain pressure again."