The farewell terror
Unfortunately, not a day goes by without a formerly important office in the orderly structure of our republic being damaged bit by bit. The incumbent wants it that way. He is dismantling himself and he is also dismantling, bit by bit, every day, the belief in success. Because, shortly before his end, he can't think of anything else. Shocking, finds Kai Blasberg
"The politician should be a person who is clear about his morals and his moral responsibility. He should know his goals and their justification and be able to achieve what he tackles." *Helmut Schmidt
"The politician should be a person who is clear about his morals and his moral responsibility. He should know his goals and their justification and be able to achieve what he tackles." *Helmut Schmidt
And now you, dear reader.
Read and understand.
Helmut Schmidt's sentences are understandable and clear. And basically you can't reasonably speak out against them. And now, dear reader, think of Markus Söder in the spirit of these sentences by Helmut Schmidt.
"The politician should be a person who is clear about his morals and his moral responsibility. He should know his goals and their justification and be able to achieve what he tackles."
I'll give you a minute, then the fit of laughter should be over.
Perhaps it's because a man from Middle Franconia cannot feel at home in Upper Bavaria. Perhaps because he saw himself as a chosen one since childhood. Who now, in the autumn of his career, realizes that everything was in vain. Just as his great role model FJS did and died miserably, defeated by his own fantasy of omnipotence, without a trace.
I've known him, the "Franconian Maggus", for 20 years. I came across him on an election poster in Nuremberg and from then on he was called "Frozen Markus". I don't usually remember election posters. So not even the ones I didn't know until then. But this one was special. I remembered the name Markus Söder. Not because of any statement on the poster. No. Not because of his lovely face either. It was because of his ice-cold eyes. His trademark. Pay attention, dear reader. Markus Söder has ice-cold eyes. When he laughs, or, as is usually the case, when he does something other than laugh, i.e. sneers, grumbles, shouts. Or mocks. Or, as Horst Seehofer once complained, sneers. Markus Söder always and everywhere did this with ice-cold eyes. In Bavaria, he held almost every office he graciously turned to, from Secretary General of the regional CSU party, to Minister for Europe, Minister for the Environment and Minister for Finance. He cannot be said to have been politically successful in any of these positions, but he regularly caused considerable damage. Even now as Prime Minister, the "most beautiful office in the world", which the white-blue clerics always wanted to make white-blue for us, but whose intention was always easy to decipher. The big boy from, nomen est omen, Schweinau hung posters in his childhood room. That was what people did in our generation. I did that too. From the national team in 1974. Or from Abba. I also remember, a little later, The Police. Markus, two years younger than me, hung a fat old man over his bed. Franz Josef Strauß, who had been seen in politics for decades, but who never jumped. Who could in good conscience be called a traveller kissed by criminal energy and who was the great role model of the young Maggus. Then he went to the army. Then to the public Bavarian broadcaster. Hardly anyone remembers that. Maggus studied law and earned a very mediocre doctorate on a strange subject. At 27 he was already sitting in the Bavarian state parliament for the Christians. You can see that Markus did not want to live off his own hands in the market economy that was supposedly so beloved.
When he became a father, he left his expectant mother alone, who responded with the words: "I wasn't rich enough for him." It was a Karin who he liked. And it wasn't just the name - the wives of his predecessors in the office of President were called exactly that - no, it was also the inheritance worth millions that Karin was allowed to look after. But Söder's world remained small. Munich. Nuremberg. That was it. At almost 60. According to his own words, he is in his last legislative term, which of course doesn't count at all because of his meandering loyalty to his own word. Because that is also a difference to the official ethos of Helmut Schmidt. Markus Söder has already had all the opinions a person can have on his lips. But he has only thought, felt or meant the very least. In fact, despite the many decades of constant media bombardment, one cannot remember a single thought from him that puts him above that of a tram driver for the local public transport company. Which is certainly an injustice to this profession. He likes to rant in the style of a pocket-sized rebel with the words "that can't be true". And what can then be "net" is everyone including himselfa little later he can no longer remember. He hugs trees when he is fawning over the hated Greens. He sells apartments when they are most needed and then, when he promises to have them done, he doesn't build any more. When the budget for a state film festival is to be doubled next year because of competition with despised Berlin, the following year he cuts the already meager salary again. The one headline at the beginning was enough for him. He bans citizens from sitting in winter parks. Simply because he thinks he can. When a party friend wants to become chancellor in his place, he, not his competitor, thwarts his plans. See dirty talk. Although he twice achieved the worst election results in the history of his federal state for his party, no one is shaking his throne. After so many years of war against each other, everyone is just exhausted and mentally and intellectually bare. His entire cabinet is following the Peter Principle. But now the finish line seems to have been reached. Markus is giving up. He has discovered Instagram.
This is where he lays down to rest. Everything moral, everything sensible, everything serious goes away. Mostly when he eats. Yes. He is at the age where he has to be careful. The many festivals, anniversaries, summer meetings. There is something to eat everywhere. You can see that very quickly in the 6'5" lump in his traditionally ill-fitting cheap clothes. But what is new is this intellectual abdication. This "I always thought you were stupid and now I'm going to show you" of the last few months. Although he has never been committed to a great collection of ideas, Söder is now finding himself in truly pathetic decline by his standards. He speaks to his people as if they were very stupid little monkeys. In doing so, he simply makes himself a laughing stock. With full pay compensation. Of course, he denounces everything that others do that he himself does. But Markus Söder is no longer working either. Because every time the rubbish that he spreads among the digital people from now on is produced, the taxpayer's cost clock is ticking. He, who has never earned a cent himself, produces image garbage without rhyme or reason. But alas: of course he has it produced. It costs him nothing. Why does he do it? Why does the dog lick its tail? Why does Söder appear as Monroe or Bismarck? Why as Gandhi, when racism was still en vogue? The answer is always the same: he doesn't care.
He has said goodbye. Even if he stays: he is gone.
His last words probably sounded like this:
"The politician should be a person who is clear about his disgust with the world and his lack of responsibility. He should obscure his goals and deny their justification. And not want anything. Very important. Want nothing!"
08/01/24
*Kai Blasberg worked in the private media in Germany for 40 years
Read and understand.
Helmut Schmidt's sentences are understandable and clear. And basically you can't reasonably speak out against them. And now, dear reader, think of Markus Söder in the spirit of these sentences by Helmut Schmidt.
"The politician should be a person who is clear about his morals and his moral responsibility. He should know his goals and their justification and be able to achieve what he tackles."
I'll give you a minute, then the fit of laughter should be over.
Perhaps it's because a man from Middle Franconia cannot feel at home in Upper Bavaria. Perhaps because he saw himself as a chosen one since childhood. Who now, in the autumn of his career, realizes that everything was in vain. Just as his great role model FJS did and died miserably, defeated by his own fantasy of omnipotence, without a trace.
I've known him, the "Franconian Maggus", for 20 years. I came across him on an election poster in Nuremberg and from then on he was called "Frozen Markus". I don't usually remember election posters. So not even the ones I didn't know until then. But this one was special. I remembered the name Markus Söder. Not because of any statement on the poster. No. Not because of his lovely face either. It was because of his ice-cold eyes. His trademark. Pay attention, dear reader. Markus Söder has ice-cold eyes. When he laughs, or, as is usually the case, when he does something other than laugh, i.e. sneers, grumbles, shouts. Or mocks. Or, as Horst Seehofer once complained, sneers. Markus Söder always and everywhere did this with ice-cold eyes. In Bavaria, he held almost every office he graciously turned to, from Secretary General of the regional CSU party, to Minister for Europe, Minister for the Environment and Minister for Finance. He cannot be said to have been politically successful in any of these positions, but he regularly caused considerable damage. Even now as Prime Minister, the "most beautiful office in the world", which the white-blue clerics always wanted to make white-blue for us, but whose intention was always easy to decipher. The big boy from, nomen est omen, Schweinau hung posters in his childhood room. That was what people did in our generation. I did that too. From the national team in 1974. Or from Abba. I also remember, a little later, The Police. Markus, two years younger than me, hung a fat old man over his bed. Franz Josef Strauß, who had been seen in politics for decades, but who never jumped. Who could in good conscience be called a traveller kissed by criminal energy and who was the great role model of the young Maggus. Then he went to the army. Then to the public Bavarian broadcaster. Hardly anyone remembers that. Maggus studied law and earned a very mediocre doctorate on a strange subject. At 27 he was already sitting in the Bavarian state parliament for the Christians. You can see that Markus did not want to live off his own hands in the market economy that was supposedly so beloved.
When he became a father, he left his expectant mother alone, who responded with the words: "I wasn't rich enough for him." It was a Karin who he liked. And it wasn't just the name - the wives of his predecessors in the office of President were called exactly that - no, it was also the inheritance worth millions that Karin was allowed to look after. But Söder's world remained small. Munich. Nuremberg. That was it. At almost 60. According to his own words, he is in his last legislative term, which of course doesn't count at all because of his meandering loyalty to his own word. Because that is also a difference to the official ethos of Helmut Schmidt. Markus Söder has already had all the opinions a person can have on his lips. But he has only thought, felt or meant the very least. In fact, despite the many decades of constant media bombardment, one cannot remember a single thought from him that puts him above that of a tram driver for the local public transport company. Which is certainly an injustice to this profession. He likes to rant in the style of a pocket-sized rebel with the words "that can't be true". And what can then be "net" is everyone including himselfa little later he can no longer remember. He hugs trees when he is fawning over the hated Greens. He sells apartments when they are most needed and then, when he promises to have them done, he doesn't build any more. When the budget for a state film festival is to be doubled next year because of competition with despised Berlin, the following year he cuts the already meager salary again. The one headline at the beginning was enough for him. He bans citizens from sitting in winter parks. Simply because he thinks he can. When a party friend wants to become chancellor in his place, he, not his competitor, thwarts his plans. See dirty talk. Although he twice achieved the worst election results in the history of his federal state for his party, no one is shaking his throne. After so many years of war against each other, everyone is just exhausted and mentally and intellectually bare. His entire cabinet is following the Peter Principle. But now the finish line seems to have been reached. Markus is giving up. He has discovered Instagram.
This is where he lays down to rest. Everything moral, everything sensible, everything serious goes away. Mostly when he eats. Yes. He is at the age where he has to be careful. The many festivals, anniversaries, summer meetings. There is something to eat everywhere. You can see that very quickly in the 6'5" lump in his traditionally ill-fitting cheap clothes. But what is new is this intellectual abdication. This "I always thought you were stupid and now I'm going to show you" of the last few months. Although he has never been committed to a great collection of ideas, Söder is now finding himself in truly pathetic decline by his standards. He speaks to his people as if they were very stupid little monkeys. In doing so, he simply makes himself a laughing stock. With full pay compensation. Of course, he denounces everything that others do that he himself does. But Markus Söder is no longer working either. Because every time the rubbish that he spreads among the digital people from now on is produced, the taxpayer's cost clock is ticking. He, who has never earned a cent himself, produces image garbage without rhyme or reason. But alas: of course he has it produced. It costs him nothing. Why does he do it? Why does the dog lick its tail? Why does Söder appear as Monroe or Bismarck? Why as Gandhi, when racism was still en vogue? The answer is always the same: he doesn't care.
He has said goodbye. Even if he stays: he is gone.
His last words probably sounded like this:
"The politician should be a person who is clear about his disgust with the world and his lack of responsibility. He should obscure his goals and deny their justification. And not want anything. Very important. Want nothing!"
08/01/24
*Kai Blasberg worked in the private media in Germany for 40 years
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