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CDU politician Kramp-Karrenbauer: finally goodbye
Photo:
Odd Andersen / AFP
One more time, then it's over.
Camera on, let's go, the boss speaks.
On Friday evening, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer will say goodbye to the CDU, at least as chairwoman.
The exit will be quieter, more lonely, than is usually the case when chairmen hand over the baton.
She will give a speech, of course, but there will hardly be any party friends who could rise from their chairs to applause farewell.
The pandemic.
There is no other way.
Perhaps this departure also fits in with »AKK« and your term of office.
In the two years that she spent at the top of the CDU, nothing really was normal.
Neither the hopes that were initially placed in her when many believed she was the sure successor of Angela Merkel.
Still the frustration that erupted over Kramp-Karrenbauer when it became clear how overwhelmed she was with giving the party a direction.
It was a brutal time, that much can be said.
In just twelve months, Kramp-Karrenbauer, who had built a political career in Saarland over three decades, fell from high above to below.
And because of the pandemic, she has had to wait for a year to finally be able to give up the chair.
That too.
What's next?
Wednesday morning, shortly after eleven o'clock, German Bundestag.
Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer rushes with her entourage to the defense committee, she is still a minister, with a company car, helpers, personal protection, the full program.
Under his arm is a thick pile of folders and papers.
Despite the pandemic, it is important to be prepared; there is hardly any other department that is as important as yours.
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Defense Minister Kramp-Karrenbauer (in December 2019 on the corvette "Ludwigshafen am Rhein" off Cyprus)
Photo: Michael Kappeler / dpa
Your appearance is well planned.
Without an introduction, Kramp-Karrenbauer speaks for a good 30 minutes, her remarks sound like a roadmap for the year 2021, as participants of the meeting report later.
New mandates for foreign missions are on the list, as are the major armaments projects.
One after the other, the commander lists her most important projects.
The CDU and its difficult time as chairman, all of that is far away here.
She doesn't seem to care anymore.
In a few days she will only be Minister of Defense, nothing else, that also has its advantages.
Now others can take care of all the party banter, campaigns, strategy and election victories or defeats.
She's out of there.
A departure as a liberation, as a new beginning.
Like after a marriage that had long been broken and finally got divorced.
The corset is finally gone
Kramp-Karrenbauer's view of the situation presentation in the committee goes far into the future.
The minister wants to handle the Bundeswehr's mission in Afghanistan and take a critical look at the mission.
She is even working with her top officials and military on a budget for 2022, i.e. for the year after the federal election in September, she reports.
Some of the audience later see the performance as a kind of signal, based on the motto "Hello, I'm still alive".
In any case, she doesn't seem like someone who wants to end, who wants to get out of politics entirely, out, end, over.
All out?
Even that is believed by some in the party.
You have read Kramp-Karrenbauer's hints that she last made.
The sentences about how she sat down with her husband and family over the holidays to discuss how to go on with her.
About her strong environment that she catches.
About their home.
"Politics", as she told the FAZ, "is an important part of my life, but not the only one".
The tone of a circular that Kramp-Karrenbauer sent to all CDU members on Thursday is similar.
"I look back with gratitude and satisfaction on what I have achieved in these years," it says.
The work "gave her pleasure", the personal conversations were "important" to her.
And finally: "I wish you all the best and God's blessing."
Free at last, that's how it sounds.
She was never free as party leader.
On the contrary.
The office was a corset for her, an imposition.
She could never do what she wanted because she was on the defensive almost from the start.
She had to emancipate herself from Angela Merkel, but at the same time remain loyal to her.
She was the leader of a split party and had to pretend it was a unit.
Even then, when the abyss opened up for them in Thuringia, when the MPs there saw no problem in voting with the AfD.
No wonder that Kramp-Karrenbauer's appearances seemed tortured in the end.
It couldn't go well.
Letting go of power is such a thing in politics.
Some draw a harsh line to deal with injuries, which can seem like they are only concerned with their own pain relief.
Andrea Nahles is an example of this.
Others playfully manage to take on a different role, which can seem like they cannot let go.
Wolfgang Schäuble, for example, who even became President of the Bundestag so as not to have to stop.
Or Martin Schulz, who now heads the Friedrich Ebert Foundation.
Kramp-Karrenbauer still has her ministry, her departure from the chair does not come abruptly either, she now had a year to adjust to it.
She can continue to participate until the federal election, then she can see what comes next.
She went through almost all of the departments in Saarland, she was Minister of the Interior, Minister of Education, Minister of Labor.
Why not change again in the federal government?
Or move to Bellevue Palace?
There are people who have completely reinvented themselves after a setback.
Norbert Röttgen, for example, who now wants to be her successor.
Is she running for the Bundestag?
Who will be in the lead in the future should not be entirely irrelevant for AKK.
Imagine the new party leader's name was Friedrich Merz.
The Merz that Kramp-Karrenbauer defeated almost twice - first in the runoff election at the Hamburg party congress at the end of 2018 in the race to succeed Angela Merkel and then a year later at the party congress in Leipzig, when she ended his attempts at insurrection with a resolute speech.
Should she now submit to it?
Or Armin Laschet.
Kramp-Karrenbauer still remembers how little Laschet was there for her as a vice in complicated phases.
Yes, how much he used taunts to make her situation worse.
To beg for an office from this party colleague?
Not a dream option either.
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Kramp-Karrenbauer with her possible successor Merz (in June 2019): Should she now submit?
Photo: Wolfgang Kumm / DPA
So: First of all, Kramp-Karrenbauer should consider whether she will run for the Bundestag at all.
She'd have to do that in order to stay in the game for whatever.
She is 58 years now, which is not yet an age in politics.
At home in Saarland, they are waiting for an announcement from her.
She could have a constituency if she wanted, number 296, Saarbrücken.
It is currently in the hands of the SPD.
But in Saarland, Kramp-Karrenbauer is as popular as if nothing had happened in Berlin.
AKK, the eternal mother of the country.
It should be easy for her to wrest the constituency from the Social Democrats.
Why not compete?
It is said that she spoke to her husband, but has not yet made a decision.
Kramp-Karrenbauer will not take the Nahles way, she is not that defiant.
The Schäuble number doesn't have to be either, it never wanted to stay in politics forever.
She also has a little time left.
At the moment, the Christian Democrats in Saarland cannot vote for their candidates anyway, because the pandemic also has its advantages for Kramp-Karrenbauer.
Big meetings are not possible, the numbers have to be reduced first.
Perhaps you will be able to think about it from April, but not before.
Until then, Kramp-Karrenbauer will watch everything and sort things out.
She is free now.
She can do whatever she wants.
For the first time in a long time.
Icon: The mirror
