Hello

I'm aware of a similar story and wanted to share that experience with you.

A Schengen visa has usually two restrictions
- the time frame defined by the starting-expiring date
- the number of days of stay allowed.

You have to be out of the Schengen area before one of them expires; it doesn't matter which one. For example if a visa is valid from 1/1/09-31/3/09 for 30 days of stay and you enter Schengen area on 1/1/09, you have to be out of that area by 31/1/09 at the latest. If not, you are staying illegally in Schengen for the difference of days and then the trouble starts.

Depending on the country, details might differ. For Germany it is more or less like the following:
- if you entered Germany after the visa expired (in this case after the 30 days of stay) then you entered Germany illegally, which is one paragraph of the law you are breaching
- independently of when and how you entered Germany, you are staying illegally in Germany which is the second paragraph of the law you are breaching

Before the police at the airport let you go, they put this kind of stamp in your passport and hand you some papers. These papers are very important in case you want to remove the indefinite travel ban. Usually the procedure is described there in German. What you should do more or less is write a letter to the police station that's handling your case with the whole story. Furthermore , you have to pay a fee for your case to be processed and after some time you should get a response when the ban is expiring. It will be not less than 6 months and not more than 4 years.

As regarding the other Schengen states that should not be a problem, but more details on that should be on the accompanying letter of the police. Usually such bans are valid only nationally, i.e. within Germany, unless you did any kind of criminal activity.

Good luck