SPIEGEL: The Greens have made it in Thuringia just over the five percent hurdle. Is your high-altitude flight nationwide soon over?
Trittin: In the Bundestag we are currently sitting with a share of 8.9 percent ...
SPIEGEL: This is the result of the Greens from the year 2017. In surveys, you have meanwhile delivered a head-to-head race with the Union parties.
Trittin: I can not buy anything from that. After that, we made a series of sucking state election results. In Bavaria, Hesse and Bremen. In the social democratic Hanover, which has been in existence for 70 years, we are in the run-off election for the OB post with very good chances. We are fine. But one must also see: The rise of the AfD has shifted the majority. If we sum up the results of the CDU, FDP and AfD, this results in almost all majorities right in the middle. Not only in Thuringia, but also in other countries as well as in the last federal election. This is unfortunately a fundamental trend.
SPIEGEL: It seems that the Greens are simply a Western party. Why are you still so weak in the East?
Trittin: It's nothing new that the Greens are weaker in the East. But in Leipzig, Dresden and Potsdam we were able to get direct mandates. These are our milieus, there we can catch up. Thuringia is more difficult because there is a collection of small and medium-sized towns there. I have never believed that the gap between East and West dissolves overnight. Nevertheless, we soon rule in three, maybe four of the five Easterners.
More about the state election in Thuringia
SPIEGEL: On the way to the People's Party you are not with these results, right?
Trittin: Who said that the Greens are or want to be a people's party? I do not know anyone in the Greens who demands that.
SPIEGEL: Your party leader Robert Habeck finds the idea of the "big tent party" modeled on the US Democrats attractive. Whether you call that big tent or the People's Party is ultimately irrelevant.
Trittin: No. The concept of the People's Party is dead. It no longer works to bring together different social and economic interests and then to compromise on behalf of society within a party. Why should we chase after an outmoded model? The SPD is experiencing a crisis, including the CDU. If the CDU wants to govern, it has to take the middle. At the same time she wants to cover the right edge and must profile accordingly. CDU chief Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer shows every day how to do it wrong. But this is a strategic dilemma for the CDU and not just the inability of its leaders.
SPIEGEL: Which party system will establish itself permanently in Germany?
Trittin: We will have three to four medium-sized parties competing with each other. In the elections of last year we have kept up well, this time we have done less well.
SPIEGEL: Do you expect a coalition of left and CDU in Thuringia?
Trittin: Bodo Ramelow is the Winfried Kretschmann of the left. And the CDU has become the second strongest democratic force in Thuringia, as in Baden-Württemberg. All democrats must be able to talk to each other. CDU and the FDP should take their responsibility.
State election Thuringia 2019
Preliminary final result
Second vote result
Shares in percent
CDU
21.8
-11.7
The left
31
+2.8
SPD
8.2
-4.2
AFD
23.4
+12.8
green
5.2
-0.5
FDP
5
+2.5
other
5.4
-1.7
allocation of seats
Total: 90
Majority: 46 seats
29
8th
5
5
21
22
The Left (29)
SPD (8)
Green (5)
FDP (5)
CDU (21)
AfD (22)
Source: Provincial Returning Officer
Results in detail
SPIEGEL: Are you tolerating or coalescing out of state responsibility?
Trittin: It's about more. It's about defending democracy against anti-democratic forces. We know from the Weimar period what can happen if one creates ungovernable conditions and in the end the fascists are involved in power. Then it comes to the transfer of power. Also in 1933 it was not a takeover, but a transfer of power. You should learn from this story.
SPIEGEL: What do you learn from the story?
Trittin: It was always the same pattern. Populist parties are radicalized and given a fascist, anti-democratic character. And then conservative forces believe they have to involve them and participate in power. This mechanism must be broken. Of course, the institutional safeguards in Germany today are much better than they were back in the Weimar Republic. Our constitution finally results from this experience. That's why there are so few plebiscitary elements in it. For a good reason, I think.
SPIEGEL: How do you want to break the mechanism you are talking about?
Trittin: We have to confront the AFD representatives a lot more often, to oppose them, to set up verbal firewalls. At the moment, we are more likely to find that the voters of this party feel permanently confirmed from the middle of society. If, for example, the fairy tale spreads to the middle of the CDU and is believed, Angela Merkel would have opened the borders four years ago. This is dangerous.
SPIEGEL: What are all-party coalitions doing whose sole aim is to find majorities against the AfD, with democracy?
Trittin: First of all, they show that Democrats stand together against anti-Democrats. That's a good sign. For example, with the Kenya coalition in Saxony-Anhalt we are preventing the CDU from actually governing jointly with the AfD in the event of a minority government. You can see that because we are constantly confronted with the fact that parts of the CDU still vote with the AfD. Preventing is not a nice activity that we pursue there. But it is necessary.
SPIEGEL: Are you still following your dream of red-red-green at the federal level?
Trittin: I'm not a dreamer. A center-left alliance has no majority for the foreseeable future. Ramelow shows: The Left Party can only win if it is perceived as a party of the middle. This alignment is abhorred in the left-wing parliamentary group.
SPIEGEL: In the case of possible new elections, a black-green government would be the probable consequence. Would you support the CDU leader in her push for an international protection zone and German soldiers in northern Syria?
Trittin: Ms. Kramp-Karrenbauer has thrown herself with a great gesture behind a crazy train. Russia and Turkey do it together, there is no chance of a UN mandate. That's bitter, but the reality. What worries me much more: The security community in Germany holds this concrete proposal for nonsense - but they celebrate an alleged taboo that we should take more military responsibility in Europe and the world. One thing will not happen with the Greens: that politics will be replaced by military ones.
SPIEGEL: Are you still against Germany taking more responsibility in the world?
Trittin: Replace political failure with military is irresponsible. Anyone pushing their obligations under the Iran Agreement should not try to send warships to the Persian Gulf as a substitute. More responsibility means keeping to the law. The federal government has tornadoes flying over Syria, although neither a mandate from the UN Security Council or a request by the Syrians to do so. This is contrary to international law. We do not carry that with us.
SPIEGEL: Who will be your chancellor candidate?
Trittin: First, the Social Democrats have to decide who leads them and whether they want to stay in the coalition. Then we will see when the federal election is. And then our party leaders will make a proposal that we will support in solidarity.
SPIEGEL: If you still stand at 20 plus X in the polls.
Trittin: I say that such debates are premature. But certainly we will not watch when discussing with a weak SPD, the Groko among themselves and then called "chancellor duel". As simple as that.
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