Angela Merkel’s “Big Zapfenstreich”: a farewell in the name of the rose. The degree of wetness in their eyes changed slightly when the Bundeswehr played their Hildegard Knef music request “For me it should rain red roses”, where the original text says “I don’t want to be alone and yet be free”.
And of course the still-chancellor left the scene on Berlin’s Bendlerblock with such a flower that had rained down – after a day of new, serious corona decisions.
In the afternoon she had announced some things to the journalists on the podium alongside her successor Olaf Scholz:
The tightening comes after some horror forecasts as well as the latest figures that suggest a weakening of the “fourth wave”. Bayern’s PR driver Markus Söder goes one better and only allows ghost games in the Bundesliga.
Angela Merkel’s last public speech after 16 years of service was, by the way, a single thank you. She could also have mentioned all the journalists in the country who sprayed the scent of roses again in pantheon-worthy comments for the tattoo. It’s over on Wednesday, but Angela Merkel already wishes us all that “happiness in the heart” with which our work has been proven to go much better.
One cannot say that the SPD has come very far on the way to becoming a people’s party with more than 30 percent. But she got the most votes in the federal elections because the model “Armin” and no longer the model “Angie” was up for election. And so the Social Democrats, as the new Chancellor Party, will continue to provide top personalities for a while.
Joachim Nagel, 55, for example, has the party membership and is a proven, recognized monetary politician – which will probably bring him to the presidency of the Deutsche Bundesbank. Jens Weidmann, once Merkel’s Sherpa, is leaving there.
Nagel had worked for the Bundesbank for around 17 years until 2017, most recently as a member of the board, before moving to KfW and then to the Bank for International Settlements. As the new general secretary of the SPD, Kevin Kühnert, 32, is a classic case of a party career. This leads from the left corner of the Juso boss through the real constraints of the office at the end to the “Seeheimer Kreis”, where ministers are made.
I happened to come across an “old ham” on the bookshelf: memories from five decades of Bruno Kreisky, Chancellor of the Republic of Austria from 1970 to 1983. You can get enough of reading “Zwischen den Zeiten”, but then at some point your gaze falls on that wax museum that last played great politics in Vienna. There is the man they call “Schalli”: short-term head of government Alexander Schallenberg, who barely managed to rule for his predecessor Sebastian Kurz because of the sheer favors and vows of loyalty he had given.
But then his mentor discovered, until yesterday, party and faction leader of the conservative ÖVP, how evil all the corruption investigations are and how heartbreaking the looks of his just-born son are. Seven hours after Kurz had left, the seven-week chancellor “Schalli”, the top Praetorian, also resigned. The second from the top, Finance Minister Gernot Blümel, followed immediately. Wonderboys world collapsed, now Interior Minister Karl Nehammer should judge if there is still something to save.
Let’s just end the farce of the political short-circuit of a country with Kreisky himself: “There are only bribed people where there are bribers. That is an indissoluble community. “
If inflation continues to grow faster than the economy, that is “stagflation”. A state of paralysis that existed in the 1970s, back then with skyrocketing oil prices, enormous wage increases and crumbling demand.
Now there is the omicron shock, the depressing realization that it will not be so easy with a huge upswing. The upswing that makes you forget all the suffering, losses and upheavals from two years of pandemic in a new growth frenzy.
Rather: Fear is back, we headline in our big weekend report. “The delivery bottlenecks persist and also cut back industrial production in the final quarter,” says Simon Junker, economic researcher at the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW). The economy has not yet left the intensive care unit, in spite of all the political talk about the big departure for the new country of climate neutrality, purring office computers and electric, quiet vehicles.
“Bayerischer Rundfunk brings Wilhelm” is a headline that arouses curiosity. Is it about Ulrich Wilhelm, 60, who resigned as spokesman for the federal government in 2010 to become director of the ARD station in Munich? Well, the trained lawyer and journalist sits on boards of trustees, senates and supervisory boards (FAZ GmbH) and cares about biodiversity.
Whoever turns up at BR, obviously as a program director, is Björn Wilhelm, 46. Most recently, he was in charge of the NDR television and coordination program area at Norddeutscher Rundfunk. The legal scholar was once also a journalist for daily newspapers and Sat.1. In Bavaria he replaces the Austrian Reinhard Scolik, who got his contract as program director for culture extended in the summer of 2020 – under director Wilhelm.
My culture tip for the weekend: “Nona and her daughters” on Arte. In the nine-part series, the great Miou-Miou can be seen in the lead role of a 70-year-old who is five months pregnant in this Christmas fairy tale, which is not to be taken very seriously. Due date of course: December 24th. So happy holidays.
Mainly it is about the life and love of the convinced single woman and her thoroughly happy-desperate triplet daughters, presented amusingly by director Valérie Donzelli. And in general about the message of the 1970s that eroticism, beyond #MeToo and gender-seriousness, can also be a special form of pastime, at least in Paris.
(Photo: imago images / SEPA.Media)
And then there is Daniel Risch, head of government in Liechtenstein, which is through and through princely, where a corporate tax rate of 12.5 percent applies. That is below the global minimum tax of 15 percent that soon-to-be-Chancellor Olaf Scholz initiated – and which Risch criticized harshly.
He definitely sees the added value of a global solution, says Risch in the Handelsblatt, “but we Liechtensteiners are economically liberal”. The debate about how much the state should at least take from companies is not so popular: “We could also discuss a maximum tax!”
The prime minister from Vaduz is still annoyed that some states are simply offering companies tax breaks – that would run counter to the global minimum tax. Risch: “There must be no special rules.” Jean Paul comments somewhat disrespectfully: “The nobility can outperform us in everything, just not in the majority.”
I wish you a princely weekend.
I warmly greet you
you
Hans-Jürgen Jakobs
Senior editor
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