No German, no welfare?

A court in Germany, in the city of Wiesbaden, just upheld a 30% cut in the very basic "Hartz-IV" welfare payment to a Turkish woman who did not enroll in the famed German "integration course".

Germany has adopted the popular "got to do something if you want welfare" strategy which is so en vogue in many countries. We already stated what we think about bunk like this, see our post "Integrating Foreigners".

This time around, we noted that the court stated "spoken as well as written German" are mandated.

We could not help but ask ourselves:
Do German citizens ever get asked about their writing skills when they show up at the welfare folks?
What would happen if that illiterate German acquaintance of ours walked up to the counter and asked for help?

You did read that correctly, "illiterate German". The one we know is an older man, who actually held down a job throughout his life.

Is there any judge on the social welfare court who himself is an immigrant or has immigrant parents?

We found that the website of the court in the city of Wiesbaden does not list the judges! So we cannot even say that name looks Greek to me, or, well the name might indicate a German-American army brat, just nada. Mr. Kafka would nod.

Unthinkable for any superior court in the United States.

Being the facetious yankee, TheEditor pulled out the Susan B. Anthony dollar, waved it in the air with a grandiose gesture and said:
We bet there is at least one (1) judge or admin employee of the welfare court in the City of Wiesbaden who has been on vacation in San Francisco, CA, and strolled through SF's China Town and enjoyed what he or she saw --- well, if there is no such employee, the Susan B. (minus shipping and handling) goes to the welfare court in Wiesbaden, Germany.

And here is an announcement for our British friends: our departure to the UK to check for those bilingual train station signs in the Greater London area  is imminent.