At the Windorf municipal office, they probably would not have had any doubts about Grandma. In Aicha vorm Wald and in Vilshofen, too, they might have known about their origins. But in the anonymous city far from the Danube? Is a Breiteich in Lower Bavaria – or “Brodoa”, as experts call it – unknown to the authorities. There is no such place in the computer system, so grandma couldn’t have been born there either.
That’s stupid: especially for the grandmother, who is pretty sure that she was born in that village 95 years ago. The grandma just wanted to extend her ID card. Unfortunately, neither Breiteich nor the next larger Rathsmannsdorf survived the local government reform of 1975 in terms of independence. At that time the whole area was added to the market town of Windorf. This had previously had to cope with the change from the district of Vilshofen to the district of Passau, only to lose area again to the neighbors in Aicha a few years later. But it’s also complicated.
The consequences not only depend on the Passau-Vilshofener Zwischenlanden, but now also on grandma. A Rathsmannsdorf knows the system in the office, but that is located in Saxony-Anhalt. And the fact that a Bavarian Breiteich is mentioned in the old ID documents is not an argument for its existence. The attempt to enter Windorf as the place of birth instead fails: the requirements have been tightened, it is said, so you first have to ask your colleagues in Lower Bavaria. But nobody picks up the phone there, it’s after twelve, noon. The young Ludwig Thoma would have been very happy.
And now? Grandma was obviously born. So she has to come back to the office the next day, with her birth certificate. It also says: Breiteich. Doesn’t exist anymore, explains the ID office. There is, grandma replies: if she writes a letter, it will arrive. After all, the office is convinced that grandma exists. According to the new ID, she was born in “Rathsmannsdorf, now Windorf”. “It’s a good thing we made it through,” says Grandma. Alternatively, the entry “Lower Bavaria” would have been fine.