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Apostolic Succession In the first centuries of the Catholic Church a doctrine of official legitimacy arose: Jesus Christ installed the apostles directly – his messengers, twelve men from the circle of his disciples (but also Paul, who never saw Jesus, regarded himself as an apostle called by him). The apostles authorized the first bishops by the laying on of hands; since then all bishops have been “consecrated” personally by bishops. It is a genealogy based on physical contact, but without male-female generation. The Pope is always included in one of the men’s family tree lines. The Reformation churches also know personal consecration, but according to their doctrine the legitimation of office results from loyalty to the apostolic message. Isn’t there a follower (➝ prophet) in the history of philosophy or music? Beethoven, it is said, received “Mozart’s spirit from Haydn’s hands”. Hardly by laying on of hands. Michael Hunter
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Bond Idris Elba hollowed out the Internet in 2018 with a mean little tweet: “My name’s Elba, Idris Elba.” This was followed by shouts of joy, denials and considerations (“too old”). This has been going on for years. Not just with Elba, but with all British actors under 50 who meet two conditions: to look good in a suit and to have shown themselves violent. Not privately, but in front of the camera; it’s called the “action movie experience”. Every real Bond fan must be able to name at least 15 possible names, with the calls for an Afro-British (Bridgertons Regé-Jean Page?) Or a Bond with an Asian background (Henry Golding?), An openly gay actor (Luke Evans?) Or a woman in the role. One thing is certain: the decision will polarize. Barbara Schweizerhof
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Dictatorships They regulate the succession either through intense power struggles (➝ Honecker) or within the family. Sometimes both. North Korea, for example, with the three Kims – Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il, Kim Jong Un – a well-known dynasty. The Syrian dictator Hafiz al-Assad (1930-2000) also relied on the sons. He actually wanted to establish his son Basil as his successor. When he died in a car accident in 1994, Bashar al-Assad, an ophthalmologist by profession, had to step into the breach; to this day he steers the country through destructive times and against fierce resistance. The Saud dynasty in Saudi Arabia has existed for hundreds of years and makes the succession among or against each other.
Democracies usually feel superior to dictatorships: A US politician once instructed a representative of Saudi Arabia that there was no democracy in his country. Power would go directly from father to son. The Saudi countered him that it was the same in the USA. The son of President George HW Bush (1924-2018), George W., followed his father to the White House after a while. Magda Geisler
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Eternal heir to the throne He’s still waiting: Prince Charles, the longest serving heir to the throne in the history of the British monarchy, continues to prepare to become king. The Prince of Wales, born in 1948, makes the most of the waiting, cultivates organic farming, loves animals, talks to plants and is committed to sustainable business. His Aston Martin runs on E85 bioethanol. He has been heir to the throne since 1952. Over the years, according to insiders, he lost his desire for the crown. Is he about to pass the scepter on to William? “The older I get, the more I long to just plant trees,” Charles recently announced. Marc Peschke
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Family clan Patriarch Wolfgang Grupp believes that children should love each other for a lifetime, not argue. The wiry man has been running the textile manufacturer Trigema on the rugged Swabian Alb for more than fifty years. His children Bonita and Wolfgang Jr., raised at elite boarding schools, are already in management positions in the company. But only one of the two should inherit the company. Grupp leaves the decision to his wife, a born baroness. He himself plans his farewell boldly: only the year of death is missing on his grave plaque in the specially built family grave. The rest of the family gave up so much foresight. Jan C. Behmann
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Gunter Sachs He was the prototype of the playboy, darling of the gossip press, at least since he married Brigitte Bardot in 1966. He wrote the sentence: “Some have a hump, I just inherited this stuff”: 74.9 percent share in the Schweinfurt automotive supplier of the Fichtel & Sachs Group. The father died by suicide in 1958. Gunter 2011. He was interested in art, photography, astrology, real estate, 26 worldwide (“I like furnishing”). His share sale from 1976 on – a media event also because of the lawyers of the shrewd heir (➝ Family clan). Due to a loophole in the German-Swiss double taxation agreement, Sachs did not live in Germany, but in Switzerland. The often used German properties? These were now only for recreational, health resort, study or sporting purposes: the Sachs, which weighed hundreds of millions, was out of the reach of the German tax authorities. Helena Neumann
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Honecker It was not allowed to stay as it was in the GDR. But how should it ever change? The SED General Secretary stuck to his office as if it were eternal life. Waiting for the “biological solution”? However, there was hardly anyone in sight who could have inherited Honecker. Konrad Naumann, the first secretary of the SED district leadership in Berlin until 1985, who occasionally spoke of such ambitions while drunk, was transferred to the State Archives Administration in Potsdam. A rough guy – you could go from bad to worse. Who stayed now? Krenz? Modrow? Honecker himself deposed his predecessor Walter Ulbricht in 1971 with the help of the Soviet leadership. He secured himself. That he equated the future of the entire state with his person (➝ Dictatorships), however, has ironically been confirmed. After his resignation in October 1989, forced by the Politburo, the end of the GDR was not far away. One could only feel sorry for the once so powerful. Irmtraud Gutschke
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Krupp When the last of the Krupp dynasties died in 1967, the group was transferred to the “Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation”. As the sole owner, she should secure the future of Krupp with 100,000 employees worldwide and use the profits from the foundation for charitable purposes. “The company should, as it were, belong to itself.” Berthold Beitz became chairman of the foundation. Instead, Arndt von Bohlen and Halbach, Alfried’s only son, studied law and business administration, renounced the company management, the name Krupp, an inheritance worth billions, in exchange for a lifelong appanage. For the press, the openly gay eccentric who died in 1981 was just a “work-shy playboy” (➝ Gunter Sachs). Helena Neumann
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Country Doctors Fewer and fewer general practitioners are setting up as general practitioners in rural areas. This is why established country doctors have had great difficulties for years in finding successors to take over their practice. In 2019, around 3,300 branches nationwide remained vacant. In 2035, 11,000 general practitioner positions will be vacant and 40 percent of the districts may be underserved, as recently forecast by the Robert Bosch Foundation. The reasons are not necessarily the country life and the seclusion, but high takeover costs as a successor, which speak in favor of being employed instead of being self-employed. Experts therefore propose the establishment of regional health centers – similar to the polyclinics in the GDR. Tobias Prüwer
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They The management position was newly filled, not internally, as was to be hoped. Someone younger from the outside was brought in – as if he were better. And now he’s making a stir – like in the Soviet play “The Man from Outside” by Ignati Dworezki, where everything is turned inside out in the factory in which it is set. Is there no value in experience? The newcomer earns a lot more than the long-established ones. Resetting hurts, and painful envy comes back. One comfort one another, make one’s peace with oneself. Power spoils character. And is career even what you want in your deepest soul? Aren’t inner freedom and lifetime more important (➝ Krupp)? Irmtraud Gutschke
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Prophet “Becoming a caliph instead of a caliph”: the punch line of the clichéd comic series Isnogud has a real core. In Islam, the central point of contention has always been who is the true successor – in Arabic: caliph – of the Prophet Mohammed. Shortly after his death in 632, this led to a split into two major denominations. The Shiites only considered direct agreements by Muhammad’s son-in-law Ali to be true successors, the Sunnis not. This schism has shaped the Islamic world to this day and also has repercussions. The religious, always politicized conflict becomes clear in the front position between Iran as a Shiite protective power and Saudi Arabia (➝ dictatorships) as a Sunni bulwark – and the terrorist groups they support, among others, who not only attack other Muslims. The notorious murder sect of the assassins also has its origin in the question of the successor. The irony of the story is that it became so famous in western pop culture because of a video game.Tobias Prüwer
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Generation Z And which cohort do you belong to? I was born in 1993, you are part of the “Generation Y”, which questions everything (“Why?”). And because I am a good representative of my age group, I ask myself: What are these classifications actually supposed to be? Sure, to refer to the “boomers” as such makes sense: Their parents liked to fuck after the war and the birth rate “boomed” (➝ Family clan). But why do you belong to the “Generation Greta” if you were born between 1997 and 2010? There are young people who burst into tears on Instagram because the planet is falling apart. But quite a few, as we now know, vote for the FDP: They have just got their driver’s license and, well, really don’t feel like the speed limit at all. They are likely to be as far removed from Greta Thunberg as Annalena Baerbock is from the chancellorship. Dorian Baganz
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