“As Germany prepares to mark the 200th anniversary of the death of the literary giant Friedrich Schiller this week, the celebrations are overshadowed by an embarrassing row over whether the skull inside Schiller’s coffin is really his. Schiller, the author of Wilhelm Tell and other celebrated plays – died on 9 May 1805, aged 45. His body was put in a mass grave in the local cemetery. Some 21 years later, Weimar’s mayor, Karl Leberecht Schwabe, decided to dig him up. Faced with a choice of 27 skulls, Schwabe put them all on a table and picked the biggest, declaring: ‘That must be Schiller’s.’ “