Potsdam The resistance was too great. Parents, teachers’ associations, even party members mobilized against Britta Ernst’s plans to shift staff at schools. On Monday, the 62-year-old SPD politician gave up and submitted her resignation as Brandenburg Minister of Education.
Ernst is the wife of Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) and one of the country’s best-known education politicians. She has been Minister of Education in Brandenburg since autumn 2017 and before that for three years in Schleswig-Holstein. In 2021, when the corona pandemic caused states of emergency in schools, Ernst was President of the Conference of Ministers of Education.
Ernst has been under pressure in Brandenburg state politics for weeks. She wanted to reallocate 200 teaching posts to administrative clerk and school social worker positions. This not only caused an uproar in schools and parents, but also met with resistance within the coalition of SPD, CDU and Greens.
Ernst had no support in the SPD parliamentary group, but was also not willing to change their plans, reported the “Tagesspiegel”. Therefore, she drew the conclusion and submitted her resignation.
This ends for the time being a special constellation in German politics: there has never been a couple of politicians like Ernst and Scholz in Germany until now. None of the spouses of the previous chancellors had previously worked as ministers at the same time.
Ernst and Scholz met at the Jusos
Britta Ernst and Olaf Scholz met in the 1980s at the Jusos, at that time the spark jumped over immediately, as Scholz revealed in 2021 the “Bunte”. They have been married since 1998. The political style of both is similar: reserved, pragmatic and calm.
Ernst is the wife of Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD).
(Photo: IMAGO/Metodi Popov)
Since the spring of 2018, when Scholz moved from the position of mayor in Hamburg to Berlin as federal finance minister, the two have lived together in Potsdam. In the social networks, Ernst shows from time to time that she likes to explore the Potsdam area, on foot and by bike.
Then the social democrat posts landscape and nature photos, such as a walk in Babelsberg Park and at Griebnitzsee. In addition, Ernst and Scholz like to cycle. Otherwise, little is known about the private life of the two politicians.
Ernst has been reluctant to make public appearances at Scholz’s side since he became chancellor. Comrades who were there that evening report that even on the evening of Scholz’s election victory, she is said to have shown little enthusiasm at having to appear again and again in front of cheering party supporters and the press.
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When Scholz was elected Chancellor in the Bundestag, his wife Britta Ernst watched from the stands. She sat between Scholz’s mother Christel and former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder.
They rarely talk about each other in public
Publicly, Ernst and Scholz hardly ever talked about each other. And if they do, they never say “my husband” or “my wife”, but their respective names. Only once did Ernst appear larger than “First Lady”.
Last summer, she and her husband welcomed the heads of state and government at the G7 summit in Elmau, Bavaria, and then completed the spouses’ program. An appointment that Ernst could hardly cancel because of etiquette and for which she took extra leave.
Ernst always attached great importance to her own career, which was not easy. After Scholz took office as mayor, she had to withdraw from the Hamburg Parliament at the end of 2011.
She had been a member of the state parliament since 1997. “In no area is it right that changes in one partner are accompanied by a renunciation of the other,” she wrote at the time.
The next step in his career followed in 2014: Ernst became Minister of Education for Schleswig-Holstein. She has held the same office in Brandenburg since 2017.
Scholz: “That’s a question that upsets me”
Scholz himself told the women’s magazine “Brigitte” when asked whether his wife would continue to work after taking office: “That’s a question that outrages me. I don’t know whether it is also placed above men who are spouses.
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Brandenburg’s Prime Minister Dietmar Woidke (SPD) praised his outgoing Minister of Education. “In difficult times – I’m just thinking of the corona pandemic – she carried out the office with foresight and a steady hand,” he said.
“I am sure that looking back, her term of office will be associated with important milestones such as the continuous improvement of the day-care center staff ratio and the entry into the exemption from contributions.”
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