Jakob Maria Mierscheid

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Jakob Maria Mierscheid MdB (born March 1, 1933) has been a fictitious politician in the German Bundestag since December 11, 1979. He was then the alleged deputy chairman of the Mittelstandsausschuß (Committee for Small and Medium Sized Businesses) of the Bundestag in 1981 and 1982. According to his official biography, he was born in Morbach/Hunsrück, a very rural constituency. He is Catholic and a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany.

The Mierscheid hoax was originally introduced in the 1920s by Weimar Social Democrats to avoid paying restaurant bills. He is now a widely known curiosity within the Bundestag.

In 1983 someone signing under his name published in Vorwärts magazine the still valid (as of 2002) Mierscheid Law, demonstrating a correlation between federal election results and West German industrial production.

The Bundestag official web site carries an ostensibly serious 'biography'[1], although his fashion sense seems very antiquated and his eyeglasses apparently were added later. The site lists 615 current names although the actual membership of the Bundestag is only 614.

The hoax is paralleled in Germany in a number of other areas, for example Friedrich Nagelmann is a known (fictional) lawyer and Edmund F. Dräcker is a known (fictional) diplomat. Mierscheid, Nagelmann and Dräcker each have a long list of publications which have sometimes really been published in otherwise reputable media (science journals, parliament press) - non-native readers might be fooled here (compare April Fools Day).

[edit] Biography

The biography of Jakob Maria Mierscheid is that of a "backbencher" with a list of unimportant career steps. The official biography of the German parliament has notable points like him to be member of the Trade Union of Peasants and Lumber Jacks, member of the Sport Friends Club (cashier 1977-1982), honour member of the Choral Society of the Trade Union on Wood and Plastic (being assessor to the Seniors Committee). Being first listed as official delegate to the Social Democrat Party congress in Hannover 1960 he visited the German capital for the first time in 1967.

In 1967/1968 he wrote a four-part series about the "travel routes of the ring-tailed wood pigeons and its avionics" in the Central Journal of the Carrier Pigeon Breeder Association, reprinted 1969 in the Swiss-confederate journal "Homing Pigeon Correspondences". He entered the parliament in 1979 - and following his time as deputy chairman of the Mittelstandsausschuß (similar to the US Small Business Committee) of the Bundestag in 1981 and 1982 he wrote the article about the "Mierscheid Law" in the Social Democrats central newspaper "Vorwärts" published on the 14th of July, 1983.

His activities continued thereon with an article in the "Vorwärts"^[1] named "The Solution: More market than corruption" published 12th January 1985^[2] and in the year 1993 he was the author of "Ecological data on the CFC replacement R134a" to the 3rd Höchst Stone Louse Symposium in Frankfurt. (hint: the stone louse is a fictitious species as well, described also in the most reputed medical Pschyrembel book series).

Mierscheid-Bridge

There are some approved biography books like that of Peter Raabe: "Documented Trails of a Phantom", Hannover 1986 and later Dietrich Sperling and Friedhelm Wollner: "Jakob Mierscheid, Notes on the Life of a Member of Parliament: a Political Holography" of 1998.

After the parliament moved to Berlin, the new office building for the members of parliament has a pedestrian bridge of the river Spree which was nicknamed after Mierscheid - trying to mark it with an official plate did fail since the nails were nuts (the original pun used "Niete" being homonymous for both a bolt (rivet) and a blank (in lottery)).