Germans everywhere were stunned this morning to discover that some 1.5 million of their countrymen had inexplicably disappeared the night before.

“This is just plain eerie,” one woman said. “I didn’t know any of them personally or anything of course, but just the thought that you could vanish like that from one day to the next is enough to make a body want to run away and hide first.”

The big shock came right after breakfast when those remaining of the German population were informed by the Federal Statistical Office that Germany now has a population of 80.2 million people rather than the 81.7 million who had been there just a few hours earlier.

Needless to say, the Federal Police and Bundesnachrichtendienst (Federal Intelligence Service) are working feverously to locate the missing 1.5 million Germans as soon as possible but have not been able to find any hot leads as of yet. They ask that if anyone left in the country should happen to locate this group of missing citizens to please tell them to remain where they are and call the authorities immediately.

Berlin trifft es besonders heftig. Am Freitagmorgen hat die Stadt auf einen Schlag 180.000 Einwohner verloren.