RED TAPE EXTRAORDINARY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3044, 5 June 1926, Page 4

RED TAPE EXTRAORDINARY.

An extraordinary instance officialism run mad is reported from Germany.

Because Etisli Muller, of Berlin, had the misfortune to drop dead in the German-Czeeho Slovakian border with his liead in the later and his feet in the former country his friends and relatives were unable to carry out his wishes to be cremated for forty-one days. Neither country was willing to fill out a death certificate unless they were sure that he was completely dead, which, they said, they were unable to do unless they possessed the entire body. The death occurred on March 2, and was due to heart failure, Muller being buried on the spot because officials did not find instructions covering the case in their manuals. In cheeking, the officials said that since Muller was a German citizen, a resident, and found with the greatest part of his Anatomy on the German soil, the government must issue a death certificate. However, since Muller’s other documents, which every German is required to have, were in order, permission to have the body cremated in Hirshberg was issued. But even then the red tape was not unwound from the case. Higher authorities had by this time become interested, and decided on a review of the whole affair, expressing a doubt as (o the logic of “hasty and irregular” action taken in cremating the body without first submitting the matter to their August survey. And there, when the last mail left, the case rested.