State Ransom
Germans are always getting themselves into trouble abroad. The problem is, when some (not all, mind) Germans go on a cycling holiday, Slovenia and Croatia just isn’t good enough. There’s always one who has to take it too far, and go through bandit country in southern Algeria in the midday sun. Or go on a jeep safari in the Philippines. Or as in our hero Osthoff’s case, go marry a Muslim and get into a stranger’s car in northern Iraq.
It used to be that if you did this, and then spent a fortnight chained to some piping in a rudimentary hostel in the jungle, the German foreign ministry would send you a bill for your ransom expenditure and your plane tickets back to Frankfurt. Not any more though, thanks to a Berlin court. Although the recent ruling was made only in relation to a single case, a precedent has been set. (The case is that of Reinhilt Weigel, who fell into the hands of some bearded mercenaries in Colombia in 2003. The hostage takers asked for a helicopter, got it, and Weigel got a bill in the post for 12,640 EUR.) The individual triumphs over the state!
Perhaps Germany is not Socialist after all? That’s what everyone thinks anyway.