{"id":89583,"date":"2014-06-04T15:25:15","date_gmt":"2014-06-04T11:25:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/?p=89583"},"modified":"2014-06-04T15:25:15","modified_gmt":"2014-06-04T11:25:15","slug":"german-politician-on-countrys-who-wants-to-be-a-millionaire-uses-his-phone-a-friend-to-call-chancellor-angela-merkel-but-she-doesnt-pick-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/en\/?p=89583","title":{"rendered":"German politician on country’s Who Wants to Be a Millionaire uses his Phone A Friend to call Chancellor Angela Merkel… but she doesn’t pick up"},"content":{"rendered":"

When faced with a tricky question about East German washing machines, who should you call for help?<\/p>\n

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, according to one politician appearing on the country’s celebrity version of ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire’ last night.<\/p>\n

Wolfgang Bosbach, the deputy leader of Ms Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, was filmed using his ‘Phone A Friend’ lifeline to call his political ally twice on the TV quiz show.<\/p>\n

But unfortunately for him, it appeared Ms Merkel was not playing along at home as she failed to pick up her phone both times.<\/p>\n

Mr Bosbach, 61, had been left stumped by a question asking why the East German WM66 washing machine was so legendary.<\/p>\n

Had he answered correctly, he would have won 500,000 euros (\u00a3407,000) to spend on good causes, according to The Local.<\/a><\/p>\n

Mr Bosbach, who has been a Conservative German MP for 20 years, explained the Chancellor is ‘always happy to see me and hear my voice’, according to the BBC<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But after Ms Merkel’s phone went to voicemail for a second time, he joked that she was too busy ‘saving the world’.<\/p>\n

Seconds later, Mr Bosbach decided to bow out of the show, broadcast on Germany’s commercial channel RTL, with 125,000 euros (\u00a3102,000).<\/p>\n

Mr Bosbach, who joined the CDU parliamentary group in 1972, said he later received a text from the Chancellor asking him what he had wanted.<\/p>\n

Ms Merkel then sent him another text, reading: ‘Ok whatever it was, warm greetings from am.’<\/p>\n

Mr Bosbach said: ‘I’m not sure I would have done her a favour if she had answered the phone. I don’t know if she would have known the answer.’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When faced with a tricky question about East German washing machines, who should you call…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":89582,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[146,224,137],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe","category-news","category-world","post_format-post-format-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=89583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89583\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/89582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=89583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=89583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=89583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}