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Chancellor Schröder, Currywurst (2005 in Berlin): »Power bar of the skilled worker«
Photo: Carsten Koall / Getty Images
At some point, it must have been in the noughties, a new central station was built in Berlin.
The architect had designed a beautiful, long glass roof.
But this roof had somehow become shorter during construction.
The architect was annoyed.
When it came about, he took the opportunity to complain to the highest authority.
With the Federal Chancellor.
The man next to the new train station in the Chancellery had little understanding: “Man, the sausage is long enough.
I see them every day. "
Do you have to add at this point that this Chancellor was Gerhard Schröder and that by the sausage he meant the glass roof?
The Schröder era was the time when the sausage itself, or at least everything that was sausage-shaped, sausage-like, or at least sausage-like, determined the reason of state.
»Bild«, »BamS« and telly were the leading media of political communication, »Get me a bottle of beer« the hit with the Schrödersample - and then there was the cigar, the insignia of an era in which men still had tails had.
Sorry, silly reference to an old movie title.
But that's how it was, the humor of the Schröder years: deliberately incorrect.
The sausage as a will and an idea
It's all a little different today.
Both the sausage and the cigar have long been exposed by their opponents for what they actually are in their eyes: traditional insignia of toxic masculinity, neither climate-friendly nor emission-neutral.
After all, we live in postphallic times.
Today's status symbols are sustainable, morally presentable and green.
A company like Volkswagen would hardly come up with the idea of bringing the Phaidon onto the market, the megalomaniac luxury car of the Schröder years.
VW is advertising today with an electric car called ID.3.
Sounds kind of like an iPhone.
So contemporary.
And therefore attractive for all those who want to say goodbye to the gasoline stench, cigar smoke, men's sweat, all the odors of bygone days.
Who in this target group would still eat meat?
In this respect, it is only logical that Volkswagen has now abolished all meat dishes, including currywurst, in the canteen of the so-called Wolfsburg branded high-rise building in a symbolic campaign.
Symbol politics is in vogue, after all.
It costs little and is good for your image.
And there is always some favorite fossil enemy of the progressive camp to create the necessary media vortex for the cause.
It can be Uefa, Friedrich Merz or Boris Palmer.
When it comes to sausage issues, it is probably Gerhard Schröder in particular.
Yesterday's sausage
In a post on LinkedIn, the former Basta Chancellor tried again on a power word: “Currywurst with French fries is one of the power bars of the skilled worker in production.
It should stay that way. ”He also added a hashtag: #Save the Currywurst.
Oh, the currywurst.
Sung about by Herbert Grönemeyer, described by Uwe Timm, eaten by countless "Tatort" commissioners, elevated to the German national snack bar, now it should disappear, incorrect relic of a time when men still had sausages?
Excuse me, another silly allusion.
The spirit of the Schröder years, it doesn't quite go by - neither in our heads nor on the Internet.
As an election campaigner, Gerhard Schröder was brilliant. He could simplify and sharpen things without making it look flat, sometimes he was bold and sometimes he was alarmist. Sounds like a manual for social media. Now Schröder is fighting there for the currywurst. A little exaggerated. After all, the currywurst is still ubiquitous, for example in 29 other Volkswagen canteens. You actually see them every day. Now even vegan.
What Schröder actually wants to address should be something else, something irrational. The currywurst would only be an emotionally charged symbol for a feeling that he should share with many others. With many men, not just his generation; possibly also with many skilled workers who were once regular voters of the SPD and are now politically homeless. It is a suspicion: it is not the sausage that is yesterday's news - but you yourself.
