A Matter Of Language
When you
think of Germany, what comes to mind?
Neuschwanstein Castle, probably, the annual
Richard Wagner Festival in Bayreuth, and meticulously maintained buildings
representing a rich and varied history.
Germany also makes the world think of
capable engineers, cars, and machinery products, and a stable social
system. And lately, it also makes us think of passengers stranded in
German airports because of striking pilots, flight attendants, and ground
support staff.
It looks like Germany has another and
rather unique if not dubious distinction as well—it won’t
deal in anything but the German language.
As the German weekly SPIEGEL
reported in its latest edition, a district attorney in Berlin, Ulf-Hartwig
Hagemann, has refused to press charges against a high-ranking manager
of the Federal Printing Corporation who stands accused of bribery.
The German Federal Printing Corporation—Bundesdruckerei,
in German—is among other things tasked with printing bank notes,
ID cards, and passports, not only for the German state, but also for
a multitude of foreign countries.
As for the reasons the alleged bribery
is not being investigated further, Hartmann insists:
“The documents were made available
to us in English and Spanish language.
“I must insist that the language
of the court is the official German language.
“In particular the legal principle
here that the state is obliged to investigate a possible crime by no
means can be interpreted as a requirement that the state must substantiate
such charges by employing translators.”
He went on say that “based on the
documents made available to the enforcement agencies in question in
the German language, there is no evidence to support the presence of
a crime or wrongdoing on the side of the accused and thus no requirement
for further investigations.”
You can’t make this stuff up.
All of this makes us think that since
a number of airline officials have learned the hard way that price fixing
and illegal cartels can deliver penalties and even imprisonment, conducting
certain meetings in the English—or any other—language might
prove advantageous in Germany.
Jens
