WEST GERMANY: When Flowers Are Cheaper

Nowhere (not even in the bureaucratic honeycombs of Washington, D.C.) is the balance between pay, position, privilege and office furniture so carefully monitored as it is in West Germany’s orderly civil service. Last week, Adenauer’s pfennig-pinching Minister of Finance Fritz Schaffer issued a directive to spell the whole thing out in precise. Teutonic detail. Herr Schaffer decreed a maximum expenditure of $60 to furnish a typist’s office, $140 for “experts working in special fields,” and about $285 for the office appointments of a department head.

Even within Herr Schaffer’s limits, there are other rules and proscriptions. No civil servant below the rank of minister or state secretary, for instance, will be allowed to have carpets, vases of flowers, window curtains that reach to the floor.

Bookcases will be allowed only to those who rank as ministerial councillors or above. Sitzecken, or sofas and armchairs, will be permitted only “for such civil servants as currently receive visitors.” Ministers of Cabinet rank will be permitted to use their own discretion in furnishing their offices, but even they were warned by Herr Schaffer that the ensuing bills “will need my approval.”

For any German bureaucrat who might drop dead worrying over whether he could ever achieve carpet status, Herr Schaffer added a crumb of posthumous comfort: flowers and wreaths, plus ribbons “in such quality suitable to the honor of the deceased,” might be sent provided they cost no more than 40 marks ($10)—except of course, in summer, when flowers are cheaper. Then, according to Herr Schaffer, 30 marks at most will provide all the honor necessary.