termination
noun · Kündigung
One English exit, three German doors. Kündigung ends a continuing contract for the future, Rücktritt unwinds an exchange back to the start, Aufhebung ends it by mutual agreement, and which door the translation picks decides what happens to everything already performed.
Which translation, when
Why
Termination is one word because English lets the contract type stay implicit, German does not. A Dauerschuldverhältnis, the lease, the service agreement, the supply framework, is ended by Kündigung and only for the future, performance already exchanged stays where it is, and § 314 BGB gives the for-cause version its home. A one-off exchange, sale above all, is left by Rücktritt, § 323 BGB, and Rücktritt does the one thing Kündigung never does, it unwinds, §§ 346 ff. BGB send both performances back. Aufhebung is neither, it is the parties agreeing to stop. German doctrine polices the line, once a continuing contract is in motion the exit runs through Kündigung rather than Rücktritt, so a translation that picks the wrong word has not chosen a synonym, it has invoked the wrong regime for everything already performed.
Typical mistakes
- Beendigung is the effect, not the right, an operative clause that says beenden gives the German reader no regime at all, drafting says kündigen or zurücktreten.
- Termination for convenience has a German home only in continuing contracts, the ordentliche Kündigung, a completed sale knows no free exit, a Rücktritt needs a ground or a right reserved in the contract, § 346 Abs. 1 BGB.
- Kündigung of a one-off exchange reads as a category mistake, a German lawyer expects Rücktritt where goods and price must travel back.
What matters
A supply framework with a for-cause exit shows the stakes: terminate this Agreement with immediate effect is a fristlose Kündigung, § 314 BGB, and everything delivered stays delivered. The same sentence in a one-off equipment sale is a Rücktritt, § 323 BGB, and the machine goes back against the price. One English sentence, two opposite fates for past performance, the German verb decides.
What the machine misses
Termination hands the engines one word where German needs a decision, and the output defaults to Kündigung or retreats to Beendigung whatever the contract type. A terminated sale comes back as gekündigt, the sending back of goods and price the parties actually needed is nowhere in the German text, and a terminated lease occasionally arrives as Rücktritt, an exit German law does not offer a running lease.
Examples
| to terminate the agreement | den Vertrag kündigen |
| termination for cause | Kündigung aus wichtigem Grund |
| termination for convenience | ordentliche Kündigung |
| notice of termination | die Kündigungserklärung |