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February 6, 2020: Minister President Kemmerich (FDP) elected the day before after a press conference in the State Chancellery in Erfurt.
Photo: Carsten Koall / Getty Images
It is an image that is now part of the republic's historical inventory.
Björn Höcke, right winger in the AfD, congratulates the elected Thuringian Prime Minister Thomas Kemmerich with bowed head.
A few minutes earlier he had put him into office together with the CDU and FDP.
That was on February 5, 2020. This breach of taboo by Erfurt sent political shock waves through the whole of Germany.
An FDP Prime Minister by the grace of the far right.
The AfD has never before felt so powerful.
Protest demonstrations followed, in front of the State Chancellery in Erfurt, in front of the FDP headquarters in Berlin. During a business trip to South Africa, Chancellor Angela Merkel called the election an "unforgivable event".
The leaderships of the FDP and CDU frantically tried to put things back in order.
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AfD parliamentary group leader Höcke congratulates the new Prime Minister Kemmerich in February 2020
Photo: Bodo Schackow / dpa
After initial hesitation, FDP leader Christian Lindner persuaded his party colleague to resign from office, while Erfurt was a fiasco for CDU chairwoman Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer.
After her attempt to persuade the reluctant CDU parliamentary group to retreat failed, she announced her withdrawal from the CDU federal leadership.
Today, a year after Kemmerich was elected, the Thuringia crisis is now a chapter in German history, but the consequences continue to have an effect, especially among the FDP and CDU.
With Kramp-Karrenbauer's withdrawal, the way was finally opened for a new CDU chairman, who is now called Armin Laschet, who may soon be the Union's candidate for chancellor.
For the FDP, too, the February 5th election remains an open wound.
She recently called a "stress test" for his party in SPIEGEL by the FDP General Secretary Volker Wissing.
Renewed candidacy as head of the FDP?
Kemmerich is largely isolated in the federal party, he has been resting his seat on the federal executive since last spring, he does not want to run as the top candidate for the state elections this year, but is toying with one of the top list places and brings his renewed candidacy as FDP state chief into play .
His chances are likely to be good, there are no personnel alternatives yet.
February 5, 2020 left stronger traces in the Thuringian CDU.
Mike Mohring said goodbye - with a heavy heart - to the CDU state and parliamentary group chairmanship.
He is now working on his comeback, was elected to the CDU federal executive committee in January and is running as a direct candidate for the Bundestag.
Christian Hirte, a member of the Bundestag, who was also appointed by the Chancellor during the Kemmerich crisis and who was the Federal Government’s Eastern Commissioner, took over the state chairmanship.
In the parliamentary group, however, Mohring's eternal adversary now has the lead: Mario Voigt.
The liberal political scientist is trying to relax relations with the federal party again.
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Before the most recent federal party conference, he publicly promoted Laschet as the new party leader.
And when there are elections in Thuringia and in the federal government in September, Voigt even wants the Chancellor to appear as the driving force in the Thuringian election campaign - although she has heralded her political farewell.
The wounds in the state party have not healed to this day.
Even if the CDU top candidate Voigt asserts the maximum distance to the AfD in interviews, in the state association there are voices at the grassroots level and even in the CDU parliamentary group that could imagine working with the far right.
In municipalities, a pact is already being made with the AfD.
In the state parliament of Thuringia, the CDU parliamentary group is meanwhile pragmatic: it works with the left, the SPD and the Greens by means of a written stability pact.
It will be particularly tricky after the state elections if the voters bring about a result that is as complicated as in autumn 2019.
Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow would not have a majority for his red-red-green government for the second time, but the CDU would also not have a majority without the AfD and the Left.
What happens then is completely open.
Consequences for Kemmerich
Kemmerich hopes to be able to move into the state parliament again with his party. In the last survey in November, his FDP came back to five percent for the first time in months.
During these days, the 55-year-old gave an interview to the magazine “Cicero”: He would “do a lot of things differently” today, he said, at that time they were “not prepared” for the election by AfD votes.
At the same time, however, he also stated: "According to surveys, I am very well known, after all, 18 percent of Thuringians rate what I do politically as positive."
In Kemmerich's environment, the February 5 election also had personal consequences. There were demonstrations in front of his house, his youngest son had to go to school under police protection, and his wife was "badly insulted," he said in an interview.
»The chapter on politics is over for me after 36 years«
Kemmerich's ex-FDP party and parliamentary group spokesman Thomas Reiter
February also had other consequences.
Kemmerich's long-time press spokesman in the party and parliamentary group, Thomas Reiter - who followed the events up close - is no longer working for him and also no longer in the FDP.
At the end of 2020, he resigned after twelve years in the party, previously he had also been with the CDU for 24 years.
"For me, the political chapter is over after 36 years," the 52-year-old told SPIEGEL.
He does not give any further reasons for leaving the Free Democrats.
Reiter had worked for Kemmerich since 2019.
In terms of business, however, Reiter and Kemmerich - both native West Germans - remain connected to one another in Thuringia: They are both shareholders in the “Uhrenwerk Weimar GmbH”, of which Reiter is the managing partner.
The earthquake in Erfurt, it damaged many, but for some it also brought a boost: Susanne Hennig-Wellsow, left parliamentary group leader, became known nationwide when she presented the bouquet to the newly elected Prime Minister Kemmerich in the state parliament on February 5 threw her feet - today she is the designated co-head of the Left Party.
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Opponents Kemmerich, Hennig-Wellsow on February 5, 2020 in the state parliament
Photo: Martin Schutt / dpa
For Bodo Ramelow, who was elected at the time, the dramatic day remained a short interlude.
Since March, the left-wing politician has again led a minority government together with the SPD and the Greens.
And the Thuringian AfD?
It uses February 5, 2020 until today to celebrate itself.
Fraction leader Höcke, whom the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution has been observing as a right-wing extremist since last April, has now announced that by voting out Ramelow, a "central election promise" had been redeemed.
»We«, says Höcke, »have only done our duty«.
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