I went through this for 10 weeks. I started writing to German authorities in January. I never got a single reply. By the time, I flew to Dusseldorf in mid-April, I was still no wise as to how to settle.

And whether you like it or not, I am NOT the kind of person who gives up. The things that some German officials said to me were callous. When I tried to explain my situation to one bureaucrat. She told me to stop talking and that I spoke too much.

Towards the end, one bureaucrat, when they finally started help me (8 weeks in), she said to me that my treatment was the way it was because 'they didn't know me.'

I was told I would have to give away all my money, and give away all my possessions in order to be helped.

As you have probably never been an old age pensioner, with a pension of €162 per month, and as you have probably worked at least some of your life in Germany, and as you can probably speak German, you will never know just how limited in intelligence, compassion, common sense, your bureacracy is.

I have a new appreciation of other countries.

So, no, it isn't a misrepresentation. It is what people who have enough funds to contribute to their own living costs, but insufficient funds to be able to survive on their own face.

One either is willing to live 20% below the poverty line forever, or one gets the hell out of Germany. I was caught between a rock and a hard place.

And I did plenty of fact checking.