64-year-old pensioner Rolf J., who became famous by winning a case in a court of Lower Saxony against the state social welfare department, is nothing special in himself. The bureaucrats from this department refused to pay for Rolf J., whose total income is below the social minimum accepted in Germany, an apartment in Miami with an ocean view. The department's employees were embarrassed not by the proximity of the beach, but by the price of the housing that the pensioner had chosen for himself - $875. They even presented to the court the testimony of a local real estate agent, from which it follows that an apartment of 50 square meters (which is exactly how much a lonely German is entitled to for a decent life in a resort abroad) can be found for $450-500. The court ordered the German to find himself more modest housing in Miami within six months.
Payment of social assistance to Germans abroad is made, as determined by law, 'in cases of particular severity.' Previously, this is how people who fled Germany during the Nazi years were helped. But the lawyer of Rolf J. managed to prove that life in Germany has become unbearable for his client. He divorced his wife, lost his job, and as a result suffers severe mental anguish, which, God forbid, could even drive him to suicide. No German judge will take that sin upon his soul - the assistance was preserved in full.
In the everyday practice of German social welfare offices, which serve about two million recipients of social assistance, there are many piquant stories. 54-year-old Karlheinz F. from Frankfurt am Main demanded a monthly supplement for the purchase of Viagra. He motivated his social claim by saying that he needs increased potency, since he and his wife, a Georgian woman named Valya, intend to have a child together. 'I consider my demand fair,' Karlheinz F. addresses the German people. 'My sufferings as an unemployed person should not be aggravated by the deprivation of the joy of love.' Potency pills at a price of 13 euros per dose, multiplied by the monthly requirement, are too expensive a pleasure for poor Karlheinz F. The former telephone mechanic has only 112 euros of pension, 350 euros of social assistance, and money for rent, clothing, and medical care. On Karlheinz F.'s lawsuit, the Frankfurt Administrative Court made a historic decision: 'A recipient of social assistance cannot fundamentally be denied the allocation of funds for the purchase of medications to increase potency.'
The newspaper 'Bild' published a list of items that, if desired, can be extracted from the social welfare department. The long list includes, for example, upholstered furniture sets, bathing accessories, and also such a consumer good as 'condoms based on monthly requirement.' True, as always in such cases, the social welfare office will pay only for the simplest model, without any raspberry flavors, but quite a solid one.