Such persons as kindly German bureaucrats do not exist, you might think. I'd been waking up at night worrying about one of my many bureaucratic issues . . . to live in Germany is to have bureaucratic issues . . . but this one had me sweating. When you move, you're supposed to register your new address with the "Citizen Office" or "Bürgeramt" within two weeks of your move. And to register, you need all relevant documents. Did I have them? Well, somewhere. After all, I'd just moved. Everything was in boxes. And I was thinking like an American, a problem I tend to have, repeatedly.
Imagine moving from New York to Chicago and being required to go to an office to document that you've left your New York address behind for your Chicago address. Why would anyone care, I wonder. But they do care. Oh, they do.
Last night I was talking with one of my teenagers about this application and explained--my explanation eliciting a startled look--that this kind of registration wasn't required in the USA.
"But Mom," said my child, "How do they know how many people they have living in the city, then, or where they live?"
"They don't care that much," I said. "Anyway, there's always the census and your taxes." I had to explain that in the States, I'd just send my new address around to various important places, like my accountant's office.
To register at our local Bürgeramt, my older kid told me, I'd need my American passport, my German residency permit (Oh, and everyone has a card--if you're a citizen you have to have a personal identification card, too. Yes, in addition to your passport) and proof of my new address. I'd need the lease and some other document I've forgotten the name of that my landlord gave me. "And," my kid said, "You need the original, mom!"
Which of course I had. In a box somewhere. I unpacked those boxes. I looked into those big gray notebooks I now stick various documents into . . . though I never know what to do with the various documents I've stored there. I paged through those notebooks repeatedly, sure I'd stuck the lease in there.
I hadn't. But then I did find it, in a box. Then I discovered that a huge part of the lease had been sent only via email. The email was actually the original! I printed out all nineteen pages and stuck them in a plastic document pocket with the passport, the residency card, and the "original" part of the lease and went off to my appointment hoping for the best. Waiting on the tram platform, I nearly turned around and went home, since I hadn't brought the bill from the moving company documenting the date on which I'd moved.
My head swimming with dire tales of people who'd waited a few months instead of the two weeks, and had to pay a 500 euro fine, or even a 1,000 euro fine, or lost their benefits, I trembled into the agency, sat down in the waiting area, and pulled out my book. I'd been told to keep my eye on the screen until my number came up, and I figured I'd have a good two-hour wait. Barely had I gotten through a paragraph when my number came up, and I went to the assigned booth and nervously explained, before anyone even asked, how sorry I was that I was late with this, there'd been family illnesses and . . .
The young woman with the non-matching fingernails (some were pale pink and some were red glitter) waved a hand.
"Ist in Ordnung," she breathed, as if she saw Americans like me every day and accepted their odd ways. I could hardly believe she wasn't going to yell and scold and explain that this one time there'd no fine but I'd better watch out next time . . . .
And then there was a problem. But only a little one. They want the personal id card of the child who is living with me. Having it is "very important!" but I can bring it by in a day or two. I hope I get the same clerk or somebody just as nice. Kurt Tucholsky, a German-Jewish writer, observed: “The German nightmare
is to stand in front of a counter, the German dream is to sit behind a
counter.” But today I saw the exception to that rule, and I feel downright cheerful.
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