It's "Kontoauszugsdrucker"
Bank statement = Kontoauszug
Printer = Drucker
"Not very clever" bank thieves have blown up an automated statement printer in Berlin instead of the ATM they were hoping to empty. In a laconic statement auf Deutsch titled "Shredding differently" (who says Germans have no sense of humour?), the local cops said: "Presumably not very clever criminals succeeded in forcibly …
Reminds me of the case where (would-be) thieves ripped apart no less than 83 supermarket trolleys in the dead of night, hoping to get the £1 coins out, before (possibly) realising that the coins get returned when shoppers put the trolleys back in the rack.
[Yes it really happened - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/4599946.stm ]
"In Germany cash machines do not normally show the account balance. Instead separate machines, known as Kontoauszuege, print your bank balance for you."
Almost. The ATM will usually be able to show your balance, but won't be able to print a statement. That's what the Kontoauszugsdrucker is for (see post above). Because "Was Du schwarz auf weiß besitzt, kannst Du getrost nach Hause tragen", oder so ähnlich. Anyway, Goethe.
This post has been deleted by its author
According to one of the Dutch newspapers, a number of Dutch criminals targeting ATMs have moved their focus from the Netherlands to Germany. Not sure if that's because Dutch ATMs are now better protected or if they just wanted to excercise their freedom of movement :) So kids, if you want to commit a crime abroad you'd better pay attention at school so you understand the language and choose the right target for your nefarious activities.
Although Berlin is a way aways.
They usually do it around here (Lower Saxony). They pump gas into the machine and then ignite it, blowing the machine apart, so they can get at the cash.
The banks are now retro fitting the ATMs so that in the event of such an explosion, the money will be sprayed with dye.
A better idea if for the Bank manager just to funnel it into their Jag/Merc... why let the crims have the fun of an explosion, when we can have the fun of at least getting all that petrol off them!
Troll icon, because it is probably the right time to do it when done to the criminals.
"The German outpost of top-notch foreign news folk The Local, which originally spotted the police statement, noted that Germans seem to make a habit of bizarre failed robberies."
Alternately, perhaps the German media doesn't publicise successful robberies much which may lead to people thinking "that's easy, I could do that".
Instead by publishing all of the failures and few of the successes, they might lead people to think "Robbers are stupid, and don't get away with anything! And they now have the Polizei after them, the fools!" Much the same as the old British films, which usually covers the robbers but ends with them failing spectacularly with an unsubtle subtext of "Now look here, crime doesn't pay and we WILL catch you".
A few years ago, we had a run of bank robberies committed by the same person. They were in fact using a mountain bike to clear the area. They scouted their escape routes in advance, planning them to run through wooded areas. The cops of course were scouring the roads. On emerging from the woods a fair distance away, they switched to a parked car. Clean getaway over and over. I believe they finally messed up on their 25th robbery or so.
Ah, well. Knowing when to call it quits....
The guys (and the girl) who ran an underground death-squad killing foreigners earned their money by robbing banks. IIRC, they often got away by bike and switched to their own camper, posing as tourists.
But after a while, the police realized that they were missing something and changed their tactic.
They committed suicide rather than doing time.
Yep. One of our local burglars has the same trick. He breaks into houses at the top of the hill then rides off downhill through the woods.
He's a bugger to catch because there are so many routes back to the estate where him and his mates live. That and he has a tendency to put any unarmed Police into hospital.