Icon: enlarge
"Winter is coming": Party leader Söder addresses the CSU delegates via stream
Photo:
Sven Hoppe / dpa
Markus Söder has his strongest moment after half an hour of speaking time: He reads from threatening letters that recently reached him, they are disgusting hateful messages: "I'll shoot you, cut you into slices and throw you to tigers to eat," writes one.
Another: "You stinking Jewish pig, should be gassed."
A third calls the CSU politician a "disgusting Merkel boot-yummy", a "popular murderer and child molester".
Most of the time, they are silent about the communications that many politicians receive at all decision-making levels.
Because they show the recipient as vulnerable simply by having to read such things.
"Pretty blatant, isn't it?" Says Markus Söder, pausing briefly in his speech.
Then he pours tea from a thermos into a cup that stands in front.
The hot content changes its color from black to white, as does the inscription: "Winter is coming", read there, a sentence from "Game of Thrones".
Now it says: "Winter is here."
After being concerned, laughter in the press room of the Munich CSU state management.
"That doesn't exist," says a journalist.
Söder's accessory is reminiscent of the joke cups, mostly with a dirndl print, which can otherwise be bought at fairs.
The cup was a gift, explained a party spokesman afterwards, the striking effect was not intended.
"I don't like it" is not provided
A real Söder.
The party leader and prime minister conveyed his two core messages to the CSU delegates within a minute and at most strikingly: Beware of corona extremists.
And: Beware of the virus, which continues to be dangerous.
But perhaps the format of the party congress also needs special clear messages and strong images, both of which Söder is happy to serve.
Because for the first time in their history, the Christian Socials meet for a major party congress that runs online using a conference tool.
Only the party chairman and important officials are present in the party headquarters.
The approximately 800 voting delegates can log in from home, swipe through the applications, vote on the computer and express their goodwill using the "I like" button.
The work surface set up by the CSU does not have a "I don't like" button.
So it happens that Söder's hour-long speech is garnished with buzzing thumbs-up icons in the interactive screen view.
Söder holds it without a real audience at his desk in his office on the fourth floor of the CSU headquarters, behind him a CSU flag and the bust of Franz Josef Strauss.
"The second wave is running"
It has almost only one topic.
Bavaria and Germany have come through the crisis well so far, says Söder, but refrains from any feel-good phrase.
Instead, he warns: "I can't give the all-clear. Corona is back with full force, all its might across Europe."
And: "The second wave is running, and quite strong."
And even more drastic: "It is perhaps the test of our time and our generation."
The Bavarian, burdened by the high number of infections in his federal state, opposes the Swedish strategy: Infection has a high price.
As before, the numbers could grow exponentially and the hospitals could fill up.
The goal: "We don't want a second, comprehensive, general lockdown."
Söder does not announce new measures, it is about containment, testing and clear rules.
He explains his line with an ethical argument: "For me as a Christian it is not justifiable to sacrifice life less for the leisure activities of many."
At the party congress, Söder hardly explains why the numbers in Bavaria are currently so high.
He warns against social polarization all the more emphatically.
"Rights are trying to establish a kind of Corona-Pegida."
It is true that every citizen is entitled to show his skepticism, to demonstrate and even to believe nonsense.
However: "The tone becomes more aggressive, the theses become more confused."
He emphasizes: "Our standard is reason instead of conspiracy".
Söder announces that the Reich war flag, a symbol recently worn by Corona deniers, will be banned in Bavaria.
Söder's appearance is reminiscent of an online lesson, the background noise of a real party congress disappears.
At the CSU, such events can turn out to be anarchic in normal times - for example in 2019, when the base rejected a binding quota for women in party committees after several verbal contributions from quota opponents to the hall microphones.
Face-to-face events canceled
Little controversy, but also little jubilation, however, in 2020. Actually, the CSU wanted to celebrate its 75th anniversary in a big way.
But the planned party congress had to be canceled, what remained was a rather sober celebration with non-alcoholic sparkling wine and a few invited guests in the premises of the Hanns Seidel Foundation.
The CSU has temporarily canceled all larger face-to-face events.
Instead, it is holding a "digital labor convention", as General Secretary Markus Blume explains, who moderates 150 motions with Dorothee Bär.
A new broadcasting room for board meetings and press conferences has been set up in the state management.
For a few days, the CSU has also had a cheaper online membership without voting rights.
The party wants to become more digital, and "younger, more feminine, more ecological," as Blume explains.
Soon there will be a campaign to win more women for party work.
The decreed modernization harbors conflicts, but unlike its sister party, the CSU does not have any party details to clarify until 2021.
And the sister party, wasn't there something at CSU party congresses?
Söder praises the Chancellor and thanks the outgoing party chairman AKK.
He does not want to interfere in their search for a successor.
And in the candidacy for chancellor?
An agreement would be reached with the CDU, but this should not be interpreted as "as if the CSU only had to approve it".
For semantics, Söder still has a variant of his much-quoted sentence ready: "My place is always with you, in Bavaria".
Icon: The mirror
