Frank Slootweg wrote:

Your description doesn't compute. With 'shelf' do you mean a moving,
probably metal, plate in the 'output pipe' (don't know the right term
for the latter? Or do you mean the bottom of a US-style toilet, but
without the few gallons of water, i.e. the 'shelf' is not a seperate
component, but just the bottom of the ceramic toilet?

This website describes it, with pictures:

http://www.alldownunder.com/oz-k/rea...an-toilets.htm

Quote:

"Not so the German toilet. The excrement lands on a bone-dry horizontal
shelf, mere inches beneath one's posterior. Repeated flushings are
required to slide the ordure off the shelf into a small water-filled
hole, from which it hopefully disappears. See?"