The power of the Thugs known as the “Zyklus”, is said to give somewhat eternal life. It is a life cycle that resets whenever the last Thug dies. As soon as the last Thug dies, they are reborn in roughly the same decade. The current cycle (#674) started in 1991 with the birth of Farid Lamik, after the previous Cycle (#673) ended with the last Thug, the death of Emperor Hirohito (alias Florentin Gorleben) in 1989*. Farid Lamik was still mad at some of the other Thugs for starting WW2 without him, as he was only 8 years old at that time and didn’t have enough time to get into a position of power or even the military. He therefore chose to start with a 5-year head start in the current Zyklus.
*Some experts speculate that Zyklus 673 reset with the death of an unknown German politician at the age of 102 in 1991 in Argentina.