April Fool's Day

According to Bavarian media reports, the state government is finally to free up funds to complete the famously unfinished Neuschwanstein Castle built for King Ludwig II 125 years ago, but put on hold when public coffers ran empty.

Wolfsburg, apparently, is in talks with the Deutsche Bundesbank to commemorate the city's 70th birthday with a limited edition 70 euro note.

In Berlin, state Finance Minister Thilo Sarrazin suggested the cash-strapped capital make a fast buck by selling a few of the city zoo's animals to chefs.

"Guests would come from as far away as Japan and pay a small fortune for a taste of (world-famous polar bear) Knut carpaccio with five spices powder and lovage jelly," said celebrity chef Tim Raue.

Education authorities in Lower Saxony, meanwhile, have issued a warning about the risks of exposure to chalk dust faced by over-worked high school students.

"Now that high school students are required to graduate in eight instead of nine years, the increased concentration of chalk in the classroom is exacerbating cases of neurodermatitis and asthma," said the authority in a press release dated April 1.

The mood was equally frisky in the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia on Tuesday, where traffic police revealed that they would be taking ballet classes with professional dancers in order to improve their coordination. The office issued an announcement predicting that the plan "will help distract motorists from the bleak reality of traffic jams and reduce stress."

Swedish furniture retail chain Ikea got in on the act with the announcement of Germany's first drive-in store in Berlin, where visitors will be able to place orders from behind the driver's seat, sit back while staff members load the furniture into the trunk and enjoy a snack for just 10 euros ($15) extra.

Looking foolish

Even DW-WORLD.DE was taken in by the German bookshop owner, who last week announced plans for a naked launch party in his shop for a forthcoming book about nudism.

Helmut Maass admitted Tuesday to German news service DPA that the invitation had been an April Fool's joke, after some 30 television, radio and newspaper reporters applied to attend the event.

But even though no public reading -- clothed or otherwise -- was to take place Tuesday, Maass really is selling a book in his shop in the eastern town of Pasewalk about the nudist minority in formerly communist East Germany. It draws on recollections -- and indeed photographs -- of holidaymakers in East Germany before the Berlin Wall came down in 1989.

The region's nudist movement has undergone a notable revival in recent years -- and a DW-WORLD.DE story about a travel agent in the eastern city of Erfurt introducing nude charter flights this summer to the Baltic island resort of Usedom is, believe it or not, definitely true.

Truth stranger than fiction

The strangest story in the papers Tuesday was also the honest-to-goodness truth -- proving that the abundance of jaw-dropping stories in Germany makes April 1 pretty superfluous. In fact, the media's pranks seem somewhat sober in comparison to some of the real-life reports doing the rounds.

Take this tale of the 33-year-old woman allegedly suing doctors in the central German town of Kassel after she checked in to have wrinkles removed and woke up with a new pair of breasts.

"I had lost 100 kilos on a diet and wanted a tummy tuck," she said.

But when she came to after the operation she found doctors had put two 200 gram silicone implants into her breasts, increasing their size from a C cup to a D.

You couldn't make it up.