Chancellery Installs Steam Valve to Vent Rising 'Political Pressure' on Merz
Engineers say the gauge was meant as a metaphor until someone actually built it.
As polling stations closed on Sunday, maintenance staff at the Chancellery confirmed that a brass pressure gauge, connected directly to live exit-poll feeds, had been bolted to the wall outside the Chancellor's office earlier in the week.
The device reportedly hissed for the first time within minutes of the first regional projections, sending a thin plume of steam down a hallway already crowded with aides holding clipboards and looking for somewhere else to be.
"We came together as one coalition, vented," said a spokesperson for the building's facilities team, before excusing themselves to check whether the pressure release valve needed replacing before the next round of numbers came in.
By early evening, staff had reportedly taped a small sign beneath the gauge reading "Do Not Touch," though several visitors noted this seemed less like a safety warning and more like general advice for anyone hoping to change the outcome.
No one at the Chancellery would confirm whether the gauge could be recalibrated if the numbers improved, or whether, as one junior aide put it, it only knows how to go one way.