An unpaid bill. By Erich Kästner:
This text refers to the artist Erich Knauf, who created well-known father and son stories under the pseudonym O. E. Plauen. He had fled into this relatively harmless area of activity because all others had been forbidden to him.
“A bill that was sent to a woman to pay for expenses incurred by the government due to her husband’s death by hanging on 3 May 1944. A bill for 585.74 Reichsmark, due to be paid “within one week”, as “after expiry of the payment deadline, forced collection should be expected without further reminder”. A bill whose authenticity is unquestionable, yet which is entirely unbelievable.
A bill that had been paid at the court office but was far from settled with that state! The Nazi government wrote thousands and thousands of these bills. For them, it was not enough to hang innocent people. No, the government demanded payment for the expenses incurred by the murder, in accordance with the relevant sections of the court cost fee schedule, to the post office giro account. This government was a very orderly mass murderer. “Fee for death penalty”: 300 RM. Was that too much? Fee for the “public defender”, meaning the man whose job it was to meekly explain: “My client agrees with his own strangulation, of course”, 81.60 RM. Is that too expensive? And so exact! Those sixty pence were presumably for the advocate’s expenses for public transport.
“Execution of sentence”: 158.18 RM. What a bargain! For hanging an honest, brave, wise man, I would demand much more.
And another thing - how might these bureaucratic devils have arrived at 18 pence at the end of the sum?
O poor Erich Knauf! I knew him for twenty years. He’d been a typesetter for the Plauen newspaper, before he became an editor, a publishing manager and a writer. A man of the people. And a man for the people all his life. A man we now need like we need bread!”