Berlin – According to what has been known so far, there are no plans to reshuffle the government in Potsdam: Britta Ernst wants and should remain Minister of Education in the state of Brandenburg. She, the wife of Chancellor Olaf Scholz, sees the role of First Lady as a part-time job.
She is just as confident there as Merkel’s husband, the quantum chemist Joachim Sauer. The fact that Britta Ernst keeps her office is only to be welcomed, because the position of a first lady as an appendage to her husband sounds like a Federal Republic of Germany long past – just like the dentist’s wife.
Hanseatic cool
Britta Ernst, who has lived in Potsdam with her husband for years, is praised from all sides for her professional competence, her hard work, her “hunger for files” and her detailed knowledge. Critics accuse her that on a human level she is one of the more difficult leaders – because of her Hanseatic coolness. She is not considered a visionary, but a clever woman who thinks further than the current problems. Ernst and Scholz complement each other so well not because of their differences in character, but because of their similarity.
Ernst was a member of the Hamburg Parliament from 1997, then Minister of Education in Schleswig-Holstein until 2017. In the same year she moved to Potsdam. For many women of the Brandenburg SPD it was not well received that none of them got the post, but the Hanseatic woman.
Through this office, the 60-year-old is acting as head of the Conference of Ministers of Education this year. As the last official act, she will present the results of the 376th Conference of Ministers of Education on Friday.
With Sauer and Merkel, there was no overlap between family and work, different with Ernst and Scholz: Both are in government offices – so the federal-state negotiations take place at the breakfast table. At least that’s unusual. On the other hand, there were no allegations that Brandenburg’s schools additionally benefited from the fact that Scholz was the lord of money in the Merkel government.
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