Non-existent politician turns 80, receives official congratulations from parliament.
The Lower Chamber in Germany, the Bundestag, has a running-gag since 1979: a parliamentarian who doesn't exist but everyone pretends to be real, Jakob Maria Mierscheid.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jakob_Maria_Mierscheid
The head of the Bundestag, Norbert Lammert, held a short speech on March 1st and congratulated Mierscheid on his 80th birthday. He also lauded his fictive achievement of discovering a statistical correlation between the national industrial steel-output and the poll-numbers of the social-democrats in national elections. At the end, Norbert Lammert told the parliament that Mierscheid couldn't be here today. He had provided an excuse and had cited urgent reasons.
http://www.tagesschau.de/schlusslicht/mierscheid100.html
He was invented in 1979 by two politicians in memoriam of their dear deceased colleague, the civil-rights-proponent Carlo Schmid, to show their colleagues that politics doesn't have to be a sour business.
On the other hand, there are photos that prove Jakob Maria Mierscheid to be real.
Like these:
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