German red tape blunder

“Send For Fritz!” read the headline above a story of bureaucracy gone mad.

“Fritz Lange, head of the East German State Control Commission, yesterday promised disciplinary action against a civil servant who devised Form M. 31.

“The form, used for allocations of raw materials, was a bureaucratic monster, he said. It has seven pages and requires 16 stamps and 32 signatures. Herr Lange ordered immediate revision of the form to release the East German economy from the burden of paper.”