[James]

Schroeder's half-brother joins Big Brother

April 17 2004 at 04:18PM

Berlin - German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's half-brother is set to feature on Germany's version of the worldwide reality television hit Big Brother, newspaper Bild said on Saturday.

Lothar Vosseler, 57, was set to join the show as a candidate on June 13. Bild said the news was unlikely to please his elder sibling.

"Yes, that's true. I'll take a look at the goings-on in the house for a day. Maybe I'll stay a week or even longer, in any case as long as I please," Voseller told Bild.

Vosseler's struggle to stay in work - he once lost his job cleaning sewers - has caught the attention of the country where over four million people are unemployed.

His debut on the show will coincide with elections for the European parliament and in one German state, in which voters are expected to punish Schroeder's Social Democrats for the government's programme of welfare cuts.

"I'll discuss politics with the people in the Big Brother house," Vosseler said.

Vosseler and Schroeder grew up together with their mother Erika Vosseler in the central state of Lower Saxony. Schroeder never saw his father, who was killed in World War Two. Schroeder's mother later married Vosseler's father.

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