DoubleDTown

Don't you need to be a Meister at something before you start offering "beauty" services?    In any case, while i can appreciate the desire to be one's own boss, I'd suggest starting out as an employee somewhere as that may be the most painless way to learn the ropes of the German beauty business.

  I have done NO research, but my understanding has been that (1) there is an embassy in Berlin and consular offices in Berlin and other cities; (ii) it's a consular office that will handle something like this; (iii) not all the consular offices handle all issues; (iv) consular offices handle things in their region - for example, someone who lives in Berlin and wants to renew a U.S. passport must go to the Berlin consulate as a U.S. consulate in another region of Germany would refer them to the consulate in Berlin. 

I agree with Nina.  I've had Netherlands-sourced "Erdnusscreme", in a glass jar, from both Kaufland and Lidl, and neither were as good as Penny's Mike Mitchel's peanut butter was.  :-(  

yeah, the whole issue of privacy protection even for the convicted is nuts.    But, then, see also what happened with Germany's Streetview - so full of blur-outs and now super outdated and likely never to get updated

  our local Penny no longer carries PB.  it literally filled the shelf space with more Nutella.  Nutella next to Nutella.  No PB.   on the plus side, it does still carry maple syrup.  it's not from Vermont though, only Canada stuff.

our local Penny has been out of PB for weeks, but the Netto ("orange Netto", not "Hunde Netto") nearby still has it.  I don't know if Netto has a different supplier or if Netto customers don't eat as much PB.

  No, that's not what I'm saying. (and I'm saying it based on U.S. experience)  What I'm saying is courts and law enforcement aren't much interested in enforcing trademark protection laws.  But, trademark owners are interested.  You probably have a civil claim against the seller that he sold you something different than what he offered you.  The trademark owner has a claim against the seller too, because he sold goods that violate the trademark owner's trademark rights.    But, if the trademark owner takes action it doesn't help you.   And for you to take action is likely not worth the expense.    The harsh reality that trademark counterfeiters often get away with it doesn't make becoming a counterfeiter a good business risk.

  police and judges will say "I have drug smuggling and "real" crimes to deal with where people actually get hurt."  That's not to say that one can't bring civil cases for trademark violations, one can, one just doesn't get a lot of sympathy from courts who think some businesses and fancy lawyers are wasting time that could be spent on "real" crimes.   

  indeed, it is a crime.  I can't speak from experience in Germany, but I can tell you in the U.S. that it is really hard to get law enforcement, or even a judge, interested in trademark counterfeiting or infringement no matter how blatant it is -- unless maybe pharmaceuticals are involved.  But, if you sell goods that you know are counterfeit then YOU are a counterfeiter.  Having bought them innocently from someone else doesn't absolve you, it just means you got burned. Sorry.   The party most likely to be interested, but also probably not likely to help you out financially, is the company that owns the subject trademark.  To find the German lawyer that handles that mark, try looking up the mark at the German trademark office, the DPMA.  Link to online search here:  https://register.dpma.de/DPMAregister/marke/einsteiger?lang=en  

My Burgerbüro gave me a copy, not a redacted copy.

  dstanner is correct.   copyright protects expression  = movies, books, songs, recordings, plays   patent protects original ideas = new machines and methods   trademark protects indicator of origin = symbols, logos, brand names, colors, sounds, smells   trademarks can be forever, they can continue to be renewed as long as one continues to use them   copyright and patent protection is for a limited term   all are forms of a government-granted monopoly

  atomic power generation.  You seemed concerned that "without a cheap and abundant and scalable source of energy there is no human civilization".  I'm thinking that if all other sources fail, atomic power could be used to produce electricity.  Electricity can be used to provide power for trucks and other things with motors.

  atomic

  Ge-f-ing-nau.  Hospitals don't even have a/c as standard, other than in operating rooms.  I read an article a year or two ago in the Artzteblatt about an experiment in Berlin with air conditioning.  Surprise, patients' recovery time improved.  But apparently, this wasn't normal a/c like mere American hospitals have -- that might blow germs around.  This was special cooling pipes in the wall - sort of a vertical version of Fussbodenheizung. 

  as a smart ar$e...    'common descriptive' is another way of saying 'generic'    a generic can't be protected.  though you could protect your distinctive logo or stylized display of the generic term.    if it is merely descriptive, and not generic, then you could potentially acquire secondary meaning through extensive use or advertising and earn distinctiveness that enables protection.  but it's not an optimal starting point.  A descriptive mark is inherently weak, and any scope of protection is going to be narrow.    marketing teams love marks that tell potential consumers what a product is.  there is something to be said for that.  but the most protectable mark is one that is arbitrary or coined.  like AMAZON for online books sales (arbitrary) or EXXON for petroleum products (coined / made up).