Hey German Readers, is this story true? Did it go through the German media? Because it's all over the "human interest" pages of certain English-language media:
A 25-year-old waitress who turned down a job providing "sexual services'' at a brothel in Berlin faces possible cuts to her unemployment benefit under laws introduced this year.[from the Telegraph UK story]
I find this hard to believe, and since I can't find anything through Google's German news, I thought I'd ask.
[update: good info in the comments (thanks, Armin and Scott): see Snopes and Metafilter.]
Posted by Heather at February 1, 2005 09:00 AM
Comments
I don't read German media any more, but I very much doubt it. Snopes.com is already on the case:
http://www.snopes.com/media/notnews/brothel.asp
And the Torygraph is unlikely to pass any opportunity for German bashing...
Posted by: Armin![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.hemmungen.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at February 1, 2005 10:29 AM
Thanks, this is exactly what i suspected. Actually, Jurabilis ( http://jurabilis.blogspot.com/2005/02/statistics-on-anglo-german-relations.html ) just posted some funny (both ha-ha and peculiar) statistics about the British view of Germans, and some commentary from Transblawg on the British media's Germanbashing. That was the first thing I thought of when I read the story...
Posted by: Heather![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.hemmungen.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at February 1, 2005 10:36 AM
I think this comment at MetaFilter http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/39143#838851 is closest to the truth. The story is probably old and greatly exagerrated.
If it were true, Bild Zeitung would be all over it. Then again, Bild is pre-occupied with the Bundesliga scandal at the moment. :-)
Posted by: Scott at February 1, 2005 10:44 AM
Snopes calls it undetermined, but I think we can officially label it a hoax.
Posted by: Xrlq at February 2, 2005 11:29 AM
Hi. Great blog. May I add your feed to www.berlinblogs.com?
Posted by: Murray Cumming at February 4, 2005 06:15 AM