The Payslip Hold-Up

Berlin, 2009. A man decides to rob a small branch bank in the Tiergarten district. The plan is light. He has not brought a weapon. He has not brought a disguise. He has not brought a getaway driver. What he has brought is a piece of paper. With three sentences on it. Money. Now. Or I shoot. The paper, unfortunately, is the back of his most recent German payslip. A Lohnabrechnung. A document that bears, on the front, his full legal name. His residential address. His date of birth. His tax identification number. The name and address of his employer. His personnel number. His salary. His marital status for tax purposes. He slides the note under the cashier's window. The cashier turns it over. Reads it. Quietly presses the silent alarm with her foot, tells him she is waiting for the manager to authorise the withdrawal, and waits with him for three minutes until the Berlin Polizei arrive. Kit and Eden on the man who brought to a robbery the one document specifically designed to identify him — and then handed it to a stranger.