Friedrich Schiller’s Overdue TV Licence
October 2, 2008
One of Germany’s most famous poets and playwrights, Friedrich Schiller, was recently ordered to pay his television licence despite having been dead and buried for over 200 years.
The German licence-collecting agency, GEZ, threatened legal action if he did not promptly pay the fee of €17 (£14). The nation notorious for its red tape did not relent when the headmaster of the primary school bearing Schiller’s name in Weigsdorf-Köblitz in Saxony, to which the bill was sent, had relayed the simple fact that “the addressee is no longer in a position to listen to the radio or watch television”.
GEZ replied that unless Herr Schiller could prove he was not in possession of a television set or radio, then the bill had to be paid.
Michael Binder, the headmaster, finally settled the confusion. He said: “I told the GEZ that Herr Schiller has not been with us for quite some time, and included his curriculum vitae with my letter.”
A spokesman for the agency later apologised saying “We have to deal with such a huge amount of data, that something like this can happen, and the name Friedrich Schiller is not so unusual that it stood out as strange. We will now alter his status in our computer system.”
Friedrich Schiller is famous for his poem ‘Ode to Joy‘ which was later adapted by Ludwig van Beethoven into the fourth and final movement of his Ninth Symphony. It is now also the anthem of the European Union.
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