Philipp Mißfelder (25 August 1979 – 13 July 2015) was a German politician and a member of the German Bundestag. From January through March 2014, he served in the German government as the Coordinator for Transatlantic Cooperation in the Field of Intersocietal Relations, Cultural and Information Policy. Life Training Mißfelder was born in Gelsenkirchen, Northrhine-Westphalia. After receiving his secondary school certificate in 1999, Mißfelder served as a conscript in the German military. He began studying law in 2000 but changed his course of study to history at the Technische Universität Berlin in 2003. He finished his studies in 2008 while serving in the Bundestag. Party activities Mißfelder joined the Junge Union (JU) in 1993 and the Christian Democratic Union in 1995 and was head of the offshoot Schüler Union from 1998 to 2000. He had been on the CDU's board of directors since 1999 and was voted onto the Junge Union's board of directors in 2002. Since 2002 Mißfelder had co-chaired a party working group dedicated to improving relations between younger and older citizens. He had been an elected member of the CDU's leadership council, known as the Präsidium, since 2008, and was its youngest member. German Bundestag Mißfelder was a member of the German Bundestag from 2005, but was not directly voted in, instead entering through his party's Landesliste system, which allows some party members to join the parliament even if not directly elected. He was the CDU/CSU foreign policy spokesman in the Bundestag and a member of the Bundestag's foreign relations committee. Other activities Since 2006, Mißfelder had been a member of the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung and was in the Bundestag's European Union parliamentary group. He served as a deputy member of the Haus der Geschichte Foundation in Bonn. Additionally, Mißfelder was on the German-British Society's Königswinter Conference steering and Executive Committee of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP), among other engagements. In June 2013, he was appointed to the board of directors of the Atlantik-Brücke e.V transatlantic network. Mißfelder was married since 2006 and had two daughters. He was Roman Catholic. Death and legacy Philipp Mißfelder died unexpectedly on 13 July 2015 of a pulmonary embolism. The chairman of his parliamentary group, Volker Kauder said about Mißfelder: "Our group loses one of its most profiled politicians in foreign affairs and I personally lose a great friend, who accompanied me on many travels. I am distraught, stunned