One of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany is a greater push for the digitalization of education. Compared with other countries, Germany has been somewhat slow in adopting computer-based learning. The German federal government has promoted “digital competencies” as a central concept in education for several years—as recently as 2019, it committed €5billion euros (US$5.8 billion) for the modernization of its internet infrastructure and the increased supply of digital devices in Germany’s 43,000 schools. However, the abrupt shift in March of 2020 to online education for close to 11 million school students in Europe’s largest country exposed Germany’s lack of readiness for digital learning. The crisis resulted in cascading calls across the political spectrum to rapidly advance the digitalization of schools.