Biography
The biography of Jakob Maria Mierscheid is that of a backbencher with a list of humble career steps. The official biography of the German parliament lists him as a member of the Trade Union of Peasants and Lumber Jacks, member of the Sport Friends Club (treasurer 1977-1982), honorary member of the Choral Society of the Trade Union for Wood and Plastics Workers. First listed as official delegate to the Social Democrat Party congress in Hannover 1960, Mierscheid first visited the West German capital in 1967.
In 1967–68 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. 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 an article on the "Mierscheid Law" in the Social Democrats' central journal Vorwärts published on 14 July 1983.
His activities continued with an article in Vorwärts titled "The Solution: More market than corruption" published on 12 January 1985, and in 1993 he authored "Ecological data on the CFC replacement R134a" for the third Höchst Stone Louse Symposium in Frankfurt.
There are some approved biography books like that of Peter Raabe: "Documented Trails of a Phantom", Hannover 1986. Later Dietrich Sperling and Friedhelm Wollner published "Jakob Mierscheid, Notes on the Life of a Member of Parliament: a Political Holography" in 1998.
On 11 December 2004, Mierscheid celebrated his 25th anniversary as member of the Bundestag.
In July 2005 the German Tagesschau announced the exit of Mierscheid from SPD to the German Linkspartei and WASG. Mierscheid's angry dementi was announced both by the Tagesschau and an interview in Der Spiegel.
After the parliament moved to Berlin, two new office buildings for members of parliament were connected with a pedestrian bridge over the Spree river. This bridge was nicknamed the "Mierscheid Bridge". Attempts to mark it with an official plate were said to have failed because "the nails were nuts" (pun on Niete meaning nut/rivet, a blank in lottery or a person that is unable to accomplish anything).
After the historic defeat in the 2009 election, Mierscheid quoted Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem Ulysses in German to raise the spirits of his comrades in the Bundestag.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
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