As someone living in Germany, I would be very surprised if someone legit manages to bribe their way to skip a step somewhere. At an institutional level, perhaps it's more surprising if it never ever happens anywhere at all; but at an individual level, your particular case hitting a bribeable person and you knowing of it seems like worse odds than seeing a shooting star during a solar eclipse. Maybe if you are close family, or close enough plus a sob story, the person might have the ability to handle your case first; that sounds like something the computer system would allow in order to avoid getting stuck on a case they can't currently work on (for whatever reason) at the head of the queue. They're probably not the only step though so it might not help much