GmbH. You see these letters at the end of a lot of company names. It's much like our "Inc." or the British "Ltd." It basically means that the company is a legal entity, much like a person. It can make a profit or lose its shirt, much like a person. And if you want to sue the company, you're only suing the entity, not the people who work for the company.
In German, it means Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung, or organisation with limited liabilty. Liability is an interesting concept because it seems that in the U.S., we're scared to death of it. In Austria and Germany, it doesn't seem to be that big of a deal.
You see it for sure on the playground. There are structures here that just wouldn't be allowed to exist in the U.S. because of the fear of injury. In these pictures, you see Nikolas just enjoying himself, yes, pushing the limits at times which can make any parent nervous, but it seems like he's able to judge for himself how far he can go and still feel safe. I think in the U.S. we take this decision-making out of kids' hands because we're too worried about what might happen.
So it seems that playgrounds could be called GmkSuH or organisations with no worries about liability.
