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Prime Minister Reiner Haseloff (CDU)
Photo: Klaus-Dietmar Gabbert / dpa
At some point that afternoon, Armin Laschet also spoke up.
It's about the chaos in Saxony-Anhalt, the dispute over radio fees, the impending break of the coalition, the flirtation of some conservatives with the AfD.
Prime Minister Reiner Haseloff (CDU) has promoted his interior minister and party friend Holger Stahlknecht from office.
He had previously flirted publicly with a minority government that would be unthinkable without the support of the right.
So now Laschet: "The Union is the mainstay of the people's party of the second German democracy," explains the man who would like to become the head of the CDU and preferably also to become chancellor.
"This includes our firm anchoring in the middle of society with a clear compass of values."
With a "radical right-wing party," said Laschet, there should be no cooperation.
"The AfD can never be a political partner."
Decision imposed
The bar can hardly be set higher.
Laschet raises the events in Saxony-Anhalt to the identity question for the Union.
And in fact Magdeburg is about matters that are many times more weighty than the dispute about 86 cents per household and month, which the CDU parliamentary group and AfD do not want to grant the public lawyers.
The question is whether the Union will hold tight to the right.
And whether she can ever credibly distance herself from extremists.
The crisis in Saxony-Anhalt forced a decision on the CDU.
You now have to commit: will you continue to be with the parties that consistently exclude the AfD?
Or is it ready, contrary to its own decisions, to give the right wing the power to shape and thus gain acceptance?
The future of the entire Union is also being negotiated in Magdeburg.
Burden for federal CDU
No question, if the conservatives first make a pact with the AfD - even if it is only indirectly - the inhibition threshold is likely to fall elsewhere to try it with the right in case of doubt.
Such a taboo break would be a huge burden for the federal CDU.
Every new party leadership will then find it difficult in the future to clearly distinguish itself from the radicals.
That puts the Union in an explosive situation shortly before the start of the Bundestag election campaign.
Especially since the experiences from the previous state elections in Brandenburg, Thuringia and Saxony showed: The prospect of an overly strong AfD caused a real anti-fascism surge in the final spurt.
Most of the voters flocked to the respective prime ministerial party.
But what if the line between CDU and AfD is blurred in the future?
Is there then a threat of a mobilization from leftists to commoners against the Union?
State of complete disorientation
The Magdeburg chaos is already causing a huge mess at the federal level.
While Laschet strikes a big blow against his own people, Friedrich Merz, his opponent in the struggle for party leadership, shows understanding for the CDU parliamentary group in Saxony-Anhalt.
General Secretary Paul Ziemiak, in turn, tries above all to blame the SPD and the Greens for the misery.
From the outgoing party leader Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, however, you hardly hear anything substantial about the matter.
The Magdeburg case also shows that: The CDU is in a state of complete disorientation.
Chance for Laschet?
In any case, Armin Laschet takes a risk.
He takes the clearest position.
But it is also a position with potential for division.
With his move, the North Rhine-Westphalian head of government is making the drama in the East an issue in the party's internal election campaign.
Laschet had clearly weakened here recently.
Now he has to hope that the moderate forces in the CDU will gather behind him in the face of a shift to the right.
A revolt of the liberal conservatives, so to speak - that would also be a possible outcome of this in itself unworthy spectacle in Saxony-Anhalt.
In this respect, Magdeburg can also be an opportunity for Laschet.
His story about a party in the center has not necessarily been enough to get the party friends going.
It often looked boring and spongy.
Now it is suddenly more concrete than ever before.
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