This paper investigates how Members of the German Bundestag manage their individual knowledge relevant for policy-making, using original data collected in a standardized quantitative online-survey in early 2021. About five per cent of the 709 Members of Parliament from all seven parties currently represented responded, granting a first insight into a western parliament. The main points of the survey dealt with the prior knowledge of the MPs, their familiarization phase, the support from the parties and the parliamentary administration and the organization of the MPs' offices. The results support earlier research which stated that knowledge in parliaments tends to be tacit, informal and not recorded. Only 37 percent of the MPs felt well prepared for their future tasks when they took office. Only 25 percent received an orderly handover by their predecessor. Accordingly, 97 percent of those questioned agreed with the thesis that loss of knowledge within parliament is a major problem. I conclude that knowledge is not systematically archived and evaluated in current politics. This is a disadvantage, especially for inexperienced MPs. Building on this, I discuss a first proposal for a political knowledge management model.