Every year, the German Taxpayers' Association publishes a “Black Book“ with the most striking examples of wasteful and irrational use of state funds. These are cases in which money is simply thrown away, as the listed “projects“ show.
6,000 euros to solve a non-existent problem
In Bonn, since 1982, there has been a small children's sports complex - a playground and football field. For decades, people from the surrounding blocks walked there along a path between the garages - unofficial, but convenient, it led directly to the playground. So 40 years passed, until one of the garage owners complained to the municipality - he decided that the cars coming out of the garages could pose a danger to the children going to the playground.
The authorities reacted immediately - to eliminate the risks, a fence was erected for 1000 euros, blocking the path, which made the path of people going to the playground much longer. And not only that - after the fence was erected, the residents in turn were outraged and demanded that it be removed. The city administration refused, but offered a compromise - to make an alternative path behind the garages. A wooden staircase was also installed there, which cost another 5000 euros. Other costs were also incurred in cutting down bushes and trees that blocked the new path.
Coworking space for 22 people
The town of Minheim in the Rhineland-Palatinate province, with a population of less than 500, decided to attract entrepreneurs and freelancers by creating a coworking space in the municipality. The project was funded with 108,000 euros by the federal and regional authorities, and the city allocated another 100,000. The result was tragic: in two years, 22 people used the space, and the profit was only 5,200 euros. The project was declared a failure and closed.
A house for 330,000 euros that almost no one has used
The marketing agency Saaris set out to come up with ways to attract more specialists from other regions to the Saarland region - through the small mobile house Tiny House, in which those who wanted to live in the region were given the opportunity to settle down for a few weeks and form an opinion about life in this place.
The development of the concept, the construction of the house and the creation of the corresponding website cost 230,000 euros, another 83,000 were spent on PR and advertising. However - since 2023, the house has been used exactly once in six weeks. In addition, it turned out that each move required a separate building permit, which cost 21,000 euros.
The coat of the dead dachshund
The Kassel City Museum spent 4,500 euros to buy the coat of a long-lived dachshund. It is assumed that the coat belonged to Erdmann, the favorite dachshund of the last German Kaiser Wilhelm II. The dog died in 1901 and was buried in a park in Kassel, where Dachshund Day is now organized annually in his honor.
The exhibit was bought in 2020 at an auction, but its origin has not been confirmed. Historians doubt that the coat really belonged to the famous dachshund, since there is no evidence of this. The museum explains the urgent purchase by the lack of time – The auction was announced suddenly and the museum had to decide whether to participate in just a few days, there was no time for research. Today, the exhibit is on display in the local museum as part of the historical collection.
A bike path that leads nowhere
In the city of Fuldabrück near Kassel, 700 meters of street pavement were completely renovated for almost 4.8 million euros. New surfaces, channels and sidewalks were installed, as well as a bike path, as well as three green islands to increase safety. However, they were right in the path of the bike path and interrupted it - there, cyclists have to go around them. In the end, instead of increasing safety, the renovation turned into a new source of danger.
22 houses for four bats
In the town of Kirchberg an der Mur in the federal state of Baden-Württemberg, they refused to demolish an old building because four bats lived in its attic. The animals are protected by law, which is why their home cannot be demolished just like that.
In February 2025, 22 special houses for bats were installed on the walls of the town school and the sports hall - worth 20,000 euros. And that's not all - in addition to the construction, monitoring had to be carried out to see if the bats were living in the houses. This will take at least five years and cost another 21,000 euros. That means the old building will stand for at least a few more years.
A walkway to an information center for 147,000 euros
The authorities of Munich decided to build a special pedestrian path for those who decide to reach the information center, connected with the construction of a new subway line in the Bavarian capital. It doesn't sound unreasonable, but the cost of the wooden structure with a length of 26 meters and a width of about three meters came out to 147,540 euros. The structure is massive, and every second pillar has special lighting.
The absurdity is that the information center is open only once a week - on Wednesdays from 3:00 PM to 7:00 PM. And for those four hours a week, the city has spent money that could be compared to the improvement of an entire street.
Digital misunderstandings
The digitization of government agencies in Germany is still subject to criticism to this day. Many are faced with the fact that the information on the websites of ministries is incomplete, outdated, or simply the sites do not work well. But the Ministry of Economics has surpassed all others - in addition to its main page, it has 48 additional sites. Their attendance is low, and some of them are not visited at all.
At the same time, the ministry itself does not know how much its websites cost - they only know that last year their total expenses for public relations were three million euros.