I was recently in Munich, Germany, and the person who I was staying with accidentally left her apartment keys in her friend's car. If you are not familiar with the common German lock, it consists of a spring loaded latch, with no method of turning it other than a key (the outside knob does not turn) there is also a deadbolt that can be locked with the same key in the same cylinder. One turn pushes it out halfway, the second turn pushes it out a little further. She had locked the bolt with two turns. We called a local locksmith. Neither of us speak very good German, so we tried to explain to him on the phone that the door had been double locked. But when he showed up he simply tried to use a credit card-like device. After many minutes of trying to explain to him that that would not work, even pointing to the where the deadbolt was and describing the bolt position with my fingers. He finally understood that the door was double locked and told us he could not open it without drilling the lock. We decided to wait for her friend to ride the train back and give us the key. He did not even have tools to try to work the cylinder, and simply said "it is not possible". And he was not interested in my rough drawing of the key contours that I aquired from her friend 200KM away on the phone.
Are these German 5-pin cylinders (I counted them on the key) really that difficult to open? Or is it that uncommon for a locksmith to be able to defeat a cylinder. Or were we just dealing with someone who was not really qualified to call himself a locksmith. He did charge 50 Euro (about $62) for the house call.
Thanks, Dan