A grave matter

Austere but elegant, and with fine views of an historic rococo church, this lovely building would make a fine weekend cottage. And you could be the lucky bidder when it comes under the hammer! There’s one thing you’ll want to have removed before settling in, though: the corpse of Franz Josef Strauss.

Since this legendary (and legendarily corrupt) Bavarian Ministerpräsident joined the Blaskapelle invisible in 1988, his mortal remains have awaited the last trump next to those of his wife in a tomb in Rott am Inn. Unless the last trump blows quickly, though, he might need to shift his resting place.

The tomb is not in the churchyard but on a privately-owned plot just behind it. And there’s the problem, as the Süddeutsche reports. The plot now belongs to Strauss’s son Max. And Max is not only insolvent but facing trial for tax evasion. The inland revenue has slapped liens on everything he owns, including the tomb. And, unless Max comes up with a wodge of money that he apparently does not have, the state will auction off his real property, tomb included.

Now, Strauss is revered to this day as something of a god by a substantial slice of Bavaria’s political establishment. Beery jowls grew an angry red at the news. ’Impiety! Sacrilege!’, came the cries. Nobody at the inland revenue wanted to admit to having filed the lien. Current Ministerpräsident and one-time prime ministerial candidate Edmund Stoiber is feeling the heat: how could he have failed to know about this, and if he did know about it, how could he have failed to stop it? Can’t have the pharaoh’s mummy on the auction block.

Ah, as I reach the end of the article, I read that Strauss’s daughter has been told the lien will be lifted. Pity, that; I might have put in a bid myself. Just think what Gunther von Hagens could have done with the corpse!