The dispute over the botched vaccination start in Germany is raging more and more violently.
There are many lives involved.
About how often the lockdown has to be extended.
And about who will rule Germany in the future.
A comment by Merkur editor-in-chief Georg Anastasiadis.
Who bears how much to blame for the stumbled vaccination start in Germany?
Was it only the cumbersome EU bureaucracy that made the wrong decisions when ordering vaccines?
Didn't Health Minister Jens Spahn pay attention?
Or are reports true that the Chancellor fell into the arms of her minister when he wanted to order vaccine on his own - because Merkel, as EU Council President, did not want any German “vaccination nationalism”?
It is not about "knowing better than that", as NRW Prime Minister Laschet brushes off critics.
It's about who is responsible for the avoidable corona death of many German citizens.
And for a lockdown, which now has to be maintained for unnecessarily long because too few people can be vaccinated.
In the end, this also explains the harshness and bitterness of this debate, is about power in Germany: The CDU will elect its new boss in eleven days.
In Berlin, bets are made on the fact that the unpopular Armin Laschet, if he wins against Norbert Röttgen and Friedrich Merz, wants to leave the candidacy for chancellor to his tandem partner Jens Spahn.
But a health minister who would have to vote with the stigma of “vaccination failure” has bad cards.
The final for the Chancellery has started in Berlin.
In the vaccination dispute, the SPD and CDU are at war, the duo Laschet / Spahn is against Merz.
And a second time, as in the asylum dispute, Merkel and Spahn face each other as opponents: Who of the two is to blame for the vaccination debacle?
For the Chancellor, it's about a strong exit.
And for Spahn about the chance to take on her legacy.
