December 2, 1970: The city is attacked hard – Nuremberg

In Nuremberg there is a dispute over the dead until they are underground. Here they rest in peace – they don’t care about earthly quarrels.

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The state chairman Alfred Pfefferler from Pfaffenhofen an der Ilm had rushed to Nuremberg to raise his index finger and indict the “entire city council governed by the SPD”, “which does not allow the free entrepreneurs to work”. The rather polemical statements of the chairman Pfefferler were by the managing director of the association, lawyer Dr. Dr. Dieter Walther, legally substantiated.

There was considerable excitement among the funeral directors present, most of whom were previously urban corpsewomen, about the city’s statement that the urban funeral home was a regulator to protect the population from exploitation. Just the opposite is the case: the funeral home keeps prices high.

This funeral home is a thorn in the side of the free entrepreneurs. In their opinion, the funeral home does not adhere to the generally accepted rules of free competition. This includes that the funeral home and death registry office are housed in the same building “in order to be able to better maintain the already existing close amalgamation of official staff, offices and funeral directors in the city.”

According to the observations of the competing entrepreneurs, mourners who have a death certified are immediately forwarded to the municipal company. It is also alleged that the city administration issued an official directive to all police departments that surviving dependents should only be referred to the city funeral home. And besides, the independent entrepreneurs find out that the city of Nuremberg wrongly exercises the so-called compulsory use.

The compulsory use means that certain services before and during the funeral, mostly of a hygienic nature, but also the transport of corpses, may only be carried out by the city.

A ruling by the Federal Administrative Court in the model trial of a Nuremberg corpse woman against the city of Nuremberg clearly shows that the free entrepreneurs are right. It is established that the supply of corpses is also an economic activity and that it is wrongly made subject to compulsory use in Nuremberg.