frustration
noun · Störung der Geschäftsgrundlage
Störung der Geschäftsgrundlage, § 313 BGB, or Unmöglichkeit, § 275 BGB, depending on which half of the English doctrine is in play. Frustration as a German word is a feeling, not a doctrine, and the machine writes it anyway.
Which translation, when
Why
English frustration is one doctrine with one blunt effect, the contract is discharged automatically when the frustrating event lands, no election, no adjustment. German law splits the territory and softens the consequence. Where performance itself is impossible, § 275 BGB ends the duty by operation of law and § 326 BGB unwinds the price. Where performance remains possible but the shared foundation of the bargain has collapsed, war, hyperinflation, the purpose gone, § 313 BGB takes over, and its first answer is not exit but Anpassung, the contract is adapted to the new reality, with termination only the fallback of § 313 Abs. 3 BGB, and even then through Rücktritt or, for continuing contracts, Kündigung. So a frustrated contract crossing into German reads differently at the decisive point, the English reader expects the deal to be dead, the German framework expects the parties to renegotiate it first, and a translation cannot bridge that with vocabulary, only warn.
Typical mistakes
- Frustration des Vertrages is not German law, the word names an emotion, and the sentence that carries it tells the reader the text was never checked.
- Vereitelung alone names an event, not a doctrine, German law files frustration of purpose under § 313 BGB as Zweckstörung, and the operative frames stay § 275 and § 313 BGB.
- Automatic discharge does not travel, § 313 BGB gives adaptation priority and exit second, § 313 Abs. 3 BGB, so advising a client that the German contract simply fell away imports the English effect into the wrong system.
What matters
Sanctions and supply shocks put the doctrine on the desk: the English memo says the contract is frustrated and everyone stops performing. Under German law the first question is which door, impossibility, § 275 BGB, ends the duty by itself, a collapsed deal basis, § 313 BGB, entitles a party to demand adaptation, and only failed adaptation opens the exit, § 313 Abs. 3 BGB. The client who walks away on the English reflex may be the one in breach.
What the machine misses
Frustration sails through the engines untranslated in spirit, the output says Frustration des Vertrages or reaches for Vereitelung, one is psychology, the other an event description, neither is a doctrine. The two German frames that actually decide the case, impossibility and the collapsed deal basis, never appear, and the reader is left holding a translated mood where the source stated a legal conclusion.
Examples
| frustration of contract | Störung der Geschäftsgrundlage |
| the contract was frustrated | die Geschäftsgrundlage ist entfallen |
| frustration of purpose | Zweckstörung |
| supervening impossibility | nachträgliche Unmöglichkeit |