Narrenschiff is asteroid #5896 and also known as 1982 VV₁₀. Narrenschiff was discovered by Lyudmila Georgievna Karachkina (Людмила Георгиевна Карачкина) at Nauchnij/ the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory. Narrenschiff’s orbit is characterized by a semi-major axis of 2.28 Astronomical Units, an eccentricity of 0.01, a period of revolution of 1 260 days, and an inclination of 3.1 degrees.

The asteroid Narrenschiff’s name was proposed by a L. R. Nemirovskij. Narrenschiff’s name was given on the occasion of the quincentenary of the publication in Basel in 1494 of the first edition of Narrenschiff, an immortal satiric poem published in 26 editions in several European languages in the sixteenth century alone. It consists of a prologue, an epilogue, and 112 chapters between them and is illustrated with woodcuts. The author was the German writer and humanist Sebastian Brant. He lived from 1457 until 1521. Narrenschiff was the most popular German book before the reformation. It established the trope of the fool. Appearances of fools and phrases they use are until today influenced by this book. Narrenschiff describes how 109 people, none of them a sailor, try to be the captain of the same ship because they are the crew of the ship and already on the ship they figured out that their captain is the most incapable of them all. Narrenschiff means Ship of Fools.

I celebrate the election of the German parliament with a look at this asteroid. The Greek philosopher Plato already uses in his work Republic a ship with fools as a crew as an allegory to describe bad governance. So there is no better theme for describing the governments of today than the theme of the asteroid 1982 VV10. Narrenschiff could indicate every kind of foolish behaviour, where it could be possible and disadvantageous.