The German word Beamter (female: Beamtin or Beamte, plural: Beamte) means civil servant, and is pronounced [bəˈʔamtɐ], with a glottal stop between the 'e' and the 'a'. This English translation may be ambiguous, as German law puts public servants into two distinct classes, namely on one hand ordinary public employees (Angestellte), which are generally subject to the same body of laws and regulations as the employees of private enterprises, and on the other hand the Beamte with their own, special body of laws and regulations covering their conduct. German law thus makes a distinction that does not exist in most other national bodies of law.

The original idea was developed as part of the "enlightened monarchical rule" as practiced in 18th century Prussia and other German states. These states did not accept "radical" concepts such as democracy or popular sovereignty, but they did struggle to professionalize their public service and to reduce corruption and favoritism. The idea was that whoever represents the state by doing official duties that only the state may legally provide (hoheitliche Aufgaben), such as issuing official documents, teaching state-approved curricula to students, preaching in state-approved churches, wielding lethal power in the name of the state, or making any other kind of official decisions, should have a special kind of employment with the state - an employment marked by a higher-than-normal degree of loyalty. Ideally, that loyalty works in both directions, with the Beamte having a special duty of serving (Dienstpflicht) that goes beyond the merely economic self-interest of the salaried worker, and the state having a special duty of seeing to their welfare (Fürsorgepflicht) that likewise goes beyond what would be expected of a commercial employer.

Wolfgang Stumph (born 31 January 1946 in Radków, Poland) is an award-winning German actor and cabaret artist.

Stumph was born in Silesia in 1946 and grew up without a father in Dresden in the German Democratic Republic. After school he trained to become a heavy plate boiler maker and later studied engineering and psychology in Dresden, graduating from university as "Engineer-Pedagogue". After his studies, he completed a public actor's training and started his professional career as a political cabaret artist in Dresden's "Herkuleskeule" club.

Stumph achieved his breakthrough as an actor shortly after the German reunification with the 1991 comedic film Go Trabi Go. In the film he plays a teacher from former East Germany who wants to take his family to Italy for their first holiday, driving there in the family's Trabant (a car affectionately called "Trabi").Go Trabi Go was a major hit in the time shortly after the reunification of Germany and drew crowds in both parts of Germany; critics said the film was a way for East Germans to "laugh not precisely at themselves, but at the absurdities of the system under which they lived until last year".