Friedrich Merz promises not to hold a history lesson. But he has to name three crucial dates when it comes to Wolfgang Schäuble, on whose 80th birthday the CDU chairman is to give a laudatory speech in Offenburg on Sunday. First, the date of the signing of the unification treaty between the Federal Republic and the GDR – September 23, 1990. Schäuble led the negotiations on behalf of the West.
The second date is June 20, 1991. In a heated Bundestag debate about the move of parliament and government from Bonn to Berlin, Schäuble gave a speech that may have made a decisive contribution to the later decision in favor of Berlin. Both Union and SPD deputies applauded standing, which Merz recalls.
And Merz mentions that October 12, 1990, shortly after reunification: in Oppenau, just a few kilometers from Offenburg, Schäuble’s hometown, the life-threatening assassination attempt on the interior minister at the time took place almost 32 years ago. Two shots from close range meant that he had to be in a wheelchair from then on. Schäuble continued to do politics.
How would Schäuble’s career have gone without the assassination?
“Would German post-war history have been different without October 12?” Merz now asks. He only mentions the years 1998 and 2016, nothing more. The listener thinks: If Schäuble had stood as a candidate instead of Helmut Kohl in 1998, wouldn’t the Union have been defeated? Would Schäuble, who was critical of the chancellor’s refugee course, have decided differently in the aftermath of 2015? A small hint is about the incomplete Schäuble, who never became chancellor, but shaped the country like few others.
Great reception for an unfinished work: Schäuble on Sunday in Offenburg
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Image: Verena Mueller
Winfried Kretschmann (Greens), the other speaker this morning, says that, with the exception of the Federal Chancellor, he can only think of a few people who have achieved Schäuble’s “effectiveness”. In the five decades that he has been in the Bundestag, Schäuble has become someone who has created “stock and foundation” for the decisions of the chancellor. Kretschmann is reminded of the coat of arms of the Prince of Wales, on which is written “I serve”. “Your entire political life is based on this motto,” says Kretschmann, addressing Schäuble. What you can study with Max Weber in “Politics as a Profession” you can tell from him, Schäuble: passion, struggle and leadership, but also a sense of proportion.
“Thanks to our wives, we settled it”
While Kretschmann pays tribute to the jubilee in a state-friendly manner, but remains distanced from party politics, Merz shows reverence and emotion when he talks about the father. A few years ago, at an event at a high school in Freiburg, Schäuble was asked whether one could also make friends in politics, Merz recalls. Schäuble thought about it and then said: “Yes, Friedrich Merz is a friend.” What Schäuble didn’t know: one of Merz’s grandsons was sitting in the audience and called his grandfather in the afternoon: “Wolfgang Schäuble was at school today and said, you are his friend.”
Schäuble’s son-in-law, Baden-Württemberg’s Interior Minister Thomas Strobl (CDU), also found a few words of praise on his 80th birthday. It’s those historical achievements that everyone mentions. There was only one real argument between the two men, says Strobl. He himself put forward a thesis that Schäuble disliked. “You’re becoming arbitrary now,” the father-in-law said. “Any like the CDU” – “You haven’t thought enough,” Strobl replied.
“It won’t work anyway”
We didn’t speak to each other for a day and a half. “Thanks to our wives, we settled that.” A few days later, Schäuble spoke to the CDU Presidium on the subject of the private dispute with Strobl. At least his opinion had changed. Schäuble has a “loving view of the world,” says Strobl. If this changes, then people should change too.
Schäuble himself sees it in a very similar way. “The world is no longer the way I used to see things,” he says in a short, free speech at the end. Schäuble remembers his brother’s accusation, who called him a “terrible know-it-all”. “I still know everything better, but I try not to say it all the time,” says Schäuble.
He talks about quitting politics. Nobody likes to part with a political office. And he remembers that he once promised his wife that he would never become a member of parliament. Schäuble chuckles when he says that; the man who left politics only a few weeks after a life-threatening assassination attempt.
50 years ago, the CDU lost a candidate for the federal elections. It should be someone from the Junge Union, and when asked, Schäuble offered to do it. “It won’t work anyway,” he said to his wife. He won. And at 30 he had to defend himself for his young age. At the time, he told the local newspaper that the accusation that he was considered too young was becoming less relevant every day.