(This should have been posted on June 30 – probably too late now, but then I haven’t posted much else recently)

In non-football news, the finders of Ötzi (the Iceman) have now been granted a finder’s reward (too late for one of them).

According to the Nürnberger Nachrichten (dpa), the authorities in Bolzano agreed to pay the 175,000 euros finder’s reward claimed by the Simons, who found the mummified body nineteen years ago. The courts costs of about 50,000 euros will be borne by the local government. The settlement means that the case will not have to be heard by the Italian Court of Cassation.

Vor knapp 19 Jahren ist die Gletschermumie »Ötzi» entdeckt worden, doch erst jetzt ist der Streit um den Finderlohn beigelegt worden. 175.000 Euro soll die Nürnberger Familie Simon von der Landesregierung Südtirol erhalten.

Ursprünglich wollte Südtirol den Nürnberger Urlaubern nur 50.000 Euro für den Sensationsfund zahlen. Auch zwei langjährige Prozesse brachten kein Ergebnis. Nach Angaben von Anwalt Rudolph muss die Südtiroler Landesregierung nun auch mehr als 48.000 Euro Prozesskosten schultern.

There are some reports in English on Italian sites, e.g. Iceman reward row settled

A long-running battle over a finder’s fee for Italy’s famous Iceman mummy has been settled.

Authorities in this province on the Austrian border said on Monday they would meet the 175,000-euro ($215,000) demand of the German couple who found the Iceman in 1991.

The money, which includes legal costs incurred during the wrangle, will go to Erika Simon, 73, who lost her husband and co-finder Helmut in a mountain accident six years ago when he was 67. …

The Iceman, 159 cm tall, 46 years old, arthritic and infested with whipworm, has since become familiar to viewers of some 30 TV science documentaries the world over.
Lately his fame has been boosted by suggestions that, like some of his Egyptian counterparts, he may wield a curse.
Seven people who have had something to do with him have died in allegedly mysterious circumstances.

I’ve mentioned Michael Bohlander’s translation of the German Criminal Code before. That was when he translated both Mord and Totschlag as murder.

I’m not sure that I mentioned his book Principles of German Criminal Law.

The great thing about this book is that the author has thought through the terminology of both German and English criminal law, and all his language is based on an understanding of both. That should go without saying in such a book, of course, but it doesn’t.

I was reminded of its usefulness this week when I was translating something about Absicht (dolus directus ersten Grades). I would usually translate this as specific intent – for instance, to be found guilty of theft, you would need to have specific intent to steal. But when it comes to a text that is more detailed, then I need to go to a textbook for more vocabulary.

Categories of Intent and Delineation from Advertent Negligence

Depending on the degree of knowledge and will employed, German law traditionally recognises the following degrees of intent, in descending order:

a) direct intent in the first degree: Absicht, wissentlich, wider besseres Wissen, ‘um zu’;

b) direct intent in the second degree: Direkter Vorsatz or dolus directus; and

c) conditional intent: Bedingter Vorsatz or dolus eventualis.

I found the term delineation in the heading a bit odd. Advertent negligence is used for bewusste Fahrlässigkeit.

There is more following this introductory list. The book is recommended thoroughly as one of those books comparing two legal systems that are so useful in legal translation.

I’ve now added a photo of a jackdaw to the Kafka entry, and a later note to the entry on how to translate Bundesgerichtshof – quoting an article I found online in English which uses two different terms for that court in the same article.

These are the Bechhöfer twins, Susi (on the left) and Lotte. They were born to an unmarried Jewish mother (and long-time resident of Fürth) in Munich in 1936. They were sent on the Kindertransport to Liverpool Street Station in 1939, and then they were fostered by a Welsh Baptist minister and his wife, who renamed them Grace and Eunice and destroyed all traces of their former life. Their mother Rosa died in Auschwitz. When Susi did her GCE O Level exams she first found out her real name was not Grace Mann but Susi Bechhöfer – Edward Mann could not adopt the twins until they were eighteen.

Lotte had an incurable brain tumour, was ill as a teenager and died at 35. It wasn’t until Susi was over 50 that she found out that she was Jewish and how she had come to the UK, and found a cousin and family in New York and a half-sister in Germany.

A TV programme about Susi’s story influenced Sebald’s Austerlitz – see a Guardian interview shortly before he died. Austerlitz, unlike Susi, was 7 when he left for Britain and had childhood memories he rediscovered:

The story concerns Jacques Austerlitz, who is brought up by Welsh Calvinist foster parents and in his 50s recovers lost memories of having arrived from Prague on the Kindertransport, the lifeline to Britain of some 10,000 unaccompanied Jewish children in 1938-39. It was spurred by watching a Channel 4 documentary on Susie Bechhofer, who in mid-life remembered coming to Wales on the Kindertransport. She shared a birthday with Sebald, May 18, and was from Munich. “That was very close to home,” he says.

Susi’s husband is Alan Stocken and her son Frederick Stocken, a composer.

You can see a bit of the book in Google books search.

LATER NOTE: apparently the book has been translated into German and was published in 1998.
Jeremy Josephs / Susi Bechhöfer: Rosas Tochter. Bericht über eine wiedergefundene Kindheit. Piper Verlag
München 1998, 191 S., ISBN 3-492-03993-6, DM 36

Take your pick: soup with analogue photography meet-up (on the right it says ‘Beates Suppenparadies’):

or cake with psychic healing:

The Oxford comma or serial comma – how did I miss this song?

Lyrics

Who gives a fuck about an Oxford comma?
I climbed to Dharamsala too, I did
I met the highest Lama, his accent sounded fine
To me, to me

Check your handbook, it’s no trick
Take the chapstick, put it on your lips
Crack a smile, adjust my tie
Know your boyfriend, unlike other guys

YouTube – Vampire Weekend: Oxford Comma