Constantin:
One of my funnier experiences with the (generally awesome) German postal system was sending a gift package to my god-daughter over there... except it didn't arrive... instead, the mother got a notice to pay up... long story short, the Droid at the customs hall took a look at the contents listed on the customs form, noted "gift", read it in German (in which case you're shipping 'poison') even though the package came from a English-speaking country and items shipped internationally are always declared in English, and decided that a duty applied.A terse letter from the mother regarding the English-reading skills of the droid in question unlodged the package without the need for duty payments. Naturally, without comment.
So it is okay to ship anthrax to Germany, as long as you pay custom duties, right?!
When my sister was on vacation in Europe, she brought back a few tulip seeds from Holland. When returning to Brazil, she was asked if she was bringing biological substances. She was fool enough to say yes and the tulip seeds were confiscated never to be seen again.
The funny part is that you can buy them from the internet and have them delivered to your doorstep (as long as they aren't shipped through UK's Royal Mail, in which case they'll never be delivered!)