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An advertising campaign by the lobby organization Initiative Neue Soziale Marktwirtschaft (INSM) against Green Chancellor candidate Annalena Baerbock is causing displeasure in the employers' camp. "Personal degradation and the unsuccessful use of Christian symbolism are not appropriate handling in the necessary competition for political content," said the Federation of German Employers' Associations (BDA). “That is not the style of the Confederation of German Employers' Associations. Social partnership is based on mutual respect. "
The INSM published an advertisement in several national media and on websites under the motto “We don't need a state religion”.
It shows Baerbock with two stone tablets full of supposed prohibitions such as "You are not allowed to fly" or "You are not allowed to freely negotiate your employment relationships".
The online version of the advertisement bears the headline "Annalena and the 10 prohibitions" and the addition: "Why green bans do not lead us to the promised land".
The advertising motif alludes to the figure of Moses, who according to the Old Testament received the Ten Commandments directly from God and plays a central role in both the Jewish and Christian religions.
"A candidate for Chancellor as orientalized Moses who wanted to bring a false state religion over Germany?" Wrote the Baden-Württemberg anti-Semitism commissioner Michael Blume on Twitter and warned against "using anti-Semitic conspiracy myths in the election campaign".
The former president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Charlotte Knobloch, also warns of prejudice on Twitter: "The INSM would be well advised to leave the subject of religion, which it obviously does not understand anything about, to others," tweeted Knobloch.
The criticism of the policy of the Greens was "completely wrong in tone."
The CDU member of the Bundestag Matthias Hauer demanded that the INSM should present its criticism "factually and well-founded and not so poorly clumsy."
Katharina Dröge, economic policy spokeswoman for the Greens in the Bundestag, commented on the INSM campaign rather ironically. Whoever shows the top candidate Baerbock as Moses and promises with her the way to the promised land has not understood "the power of imagery" at all, she writes on Twitter.
The INSM is financed by the metal and electrical industry, and its campaigns caused a sensation, especially during election campaigns.
In the run-up to the 2009 Bundestag election, she hired three journalists to shoot articles on the benefits of the social market economy.
Before the 2017 federal election, the INSM accused the SPD chancellor candidate Martin Schulz of wanting to levy a tax on the wealthy from 60,000 euros - which was incorrect.
The current SPD candidate Olaf Scholz was caricatured by the INSM as the "debt king" because of the record debt resulting from the Corona crisis.
Editor's note: DER SPIEGEL has published INSM advertisements in the past, but in this case rejected the campaign.
dab / mrc
