Two days late, the members of the Bundestag congratulated their phantom colleague Jakob Maria Mierscheid on his 90th birthday. "He is a self-confessed backbencher, but he has initiated and achieved a lot. And that without once sitting with Markus Lanz," said Vice President Aydan Özoguz (SPD) on Friday in Berlin to strong applause from parliamentarians on the "celebratory occasion ".

At his birthday on Wednesday (March 1st), many colleagues, especially older ones, looked for him in vain. Unfortunately, one could not congratulate him directly, said Özoguz. From his home town of Morbach in the Hunsrück one hears that he is staying "in Brussels for urgent matters". His suggestions, "mostly in written form", were always appreciated and much discussed. To the laughter of the MPs, she added: "However, we are still waiting for his first speech in the Bundestag."

The fictional character Mierscheid was invented by several SPD members of the Bundestag in Bonn at the end of 1979. According to the legend, Mierscheid, who was Catholic according to Vita, a trained tailor, father of four children from the Hunsrück, should be a successor to the deceased politician Carlo Schmid. The idea of ​​the comrades behind the phantom: they wanted to "remind the MPs of real life from time to time, which can also be funny at times".

On Wednesday there was a celebration for the milestone birthday in Mierscheid's home town of Morbach. On his 80th birthday, the President of the Bundestag, Norbert Lammert (CDU), congratulated Mierscheid in a meeting - of course, the phantom was not there either.

Municipality of Morbach on the 90th birthday of Mierscheid Jakob Maria Mierscheid