BERLIN -- The great-great grandson of Otto von Bismarck, Germany's legendary "Iron Chancellor", is facing calls for his resignation as a conservative MP amid claims that he has become the country's "laziest politician".

Count Carl-Eduard von Bismarck, a 46-year-old MP in Chancellor Angela Merkel's ruling conservative party and former New York banker turned manager of the Bismarck family's country estate outside Hamburg, was elected to the German parliament in 2005.

But yesterday he was the focus of criticism from conservatives in his constituency in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein who demanded that he resign his seat because he hardly ever attended parliamentary sessions or party meetings.