The 'Bundeswehr' has made a big fuss about it - a soldier obviously premeditatedly failed to pay his lunch for €2.70 ($3.75) and his superiors wanted to get rid of him because of his 'violation' within the 'service'.

A German administrative court has ruled that this punishment for a 23 y-o lance corporal would be equivalent to shooting ducks with cannons.

Well, of course, everybody within the armed forces knows that 'not paying a meal' may result in disciplinary action toward the service member, regardless whether he/she is military or civilian staff.

The reason why the government failed in this case has been inconsequence, for sure.

The German DoD changed the method of payment for meals at military facilities. Dodging payment was made almost impossible by introducing a pre-paid system that ensured proper payments - not understandable, why this could have happened.

Years ago, the Bundeswehr faced problems with 'bounced checks' of soldiers who had given permits to the administration to withdraw the money for meals from their current accounts. Some millions of German marks and euros had to be recovered by administrative and / or disciplinary actions toward the respective 'perpetrators'. Dismissals have only been an 'ultimate weapon against repeat-offenders'.

Therefore, it was clear from the very beginning that this 'shot to the moon' was somewhat like a trial to test the courts on this issue. The verdict was - no dismissal - but the guy is still facing military disciplinary action.

I assume that he will get a stiff fine of about 100 to 500 euros for his offense.

German link:

http://www.bild.de/BILD/politik/wirtschaft/2010/10/06/job-sauerei-bei-bundeswehr/gericht-kippt-soldaten-kuendigung-wegen-unbezahltem-mittag-essen.html