HAMBURG: A German polling organization that reckoned half of all Germans were unable to identify Gerhard Schroeder as the nation’s chancellor has taken it all back: it seems many of the people it questioned were just joking.

The respected Forsa institute boasted on Saturday some of the first findings produced by its latest technology: interactive digital television control pads used by a representative sample of 1,630 Germans.

The numbers were shocking: 99 per cent of those surveyed in May were able to identify Schroeder’s photograph, but only 51 per cent were able to correctly state what governmental post he holds. Three days later it was the pollsters, not the German public, that looked stupid.

It turns out that many respondents, when asked the unpopular Schroeder’s job title, could not resist being funny.

Knowingly sarcastic answers like “trainee chancellor”, “our mighty chief”, “bankruptcy administrator” or “Berlin money launderer” were all interpreted as “don’t know” by the serious-minded pollsters.

Forsa chief Manfred Guellner also admitted on Tuesday to the newspaper Stuttgarter Zeitung that mis-spelled answers where just one letter of “federal chancellor” was misplaced, or the word “federal” was left out, were also marked wrong.

After a reviewer with a more sophisticated sense of humour sorted through the answers, the score was lifted from 51 to 80 per cent, which is on a par with past surveys of general knowledge.

The mass-circulation daily Bild, always the friend of the little man, was gleeful on Tuesday, pouring scorn on the “inept” Forsa.—dpa