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This is a sentence found among the subtitles to an episode of "Die Chefin". Is it correct?

Warum haben Sie ausdrücklich darum gebeten, in meine Abteilung versetzt zu werden?

Or would it be more correct written here:

Warum haben Sie ausdrücklich darum gebeten, in meine Abteilung versetzt __ werden?

If the "zu" is correct, what is the explanation?

And what about this sentence:

Warum haben Sie ausdrücklich darum gebeten, dass Sie nächstes Jahr in meine Abteilung versetzt werden?

English "to be" can also mean a future state. So would the "zu" still be required? In English the phrase could mean, "that you become transferred to my department next year?"

3 Answers 3

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In this case, the two german sentences are constructed similar to english sentences. First, the sentence with "zu". The translation given by Henning Kockerbeck is the canonical way translate it, so my translation is exactly the same.

Warum haben Sie ausdrücklich darum gebeten, in meine Abteilung versetzt zu werden?

Why did you explicitly ask to be transferred to my department?

On the other hand, your second example is:

Warum haben Sie ausdrücklich darum gebeten, dass Sie nächstes Jahr in meine Abteilung versetzt werden?

Why did you explicitly ask that you will be transferred to my department next year.

In this second case, neither the German sentence has "zu" as infinitive marker, nor the english sentence has.

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Yes, "zu" is necessary in this case, because the subclause is an Infinitivsatz.

It's not too different from the English translation,

Why did you explicitely ask to be transferred to my department?

If you leave out the "to" (the one in front of the "be transferred"), the English grammar wouldn't work either.

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The construct in your example sentence is known as erweiterter Infinitiv.

Zu is not just correct, but mandatory and can only be avoided by using an entirely different construction for the objective, which the addressed person asked for:

Warum haben Sie um Versetzung in meine Abteilung gebeten?

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