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Chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz at the SPD party conference
Photo: Wolfgang Kumm / dpa
Olaf Scholz is almost at the end of his speech when he quotes a "famous sentence in Germany": "It depends on the Chancellor." He does not say that he took this quote from a CDU man.
It just fits so nicely into his speech at the SPD party congress and is intended to prepare for its climax.
It comes a little later and consists of only three words: "I can do it."
That is the real message on this sunny Sunday afternoon, which is apparently so tempting for many of the more than 600 delegates that they sometimes skip the virtual votes at home in their home office.
Who can blame them?
Concentrated digital boredom for several hours, the brave work through of indentations and sub-items of a party program that nobody will read and in the end the realization that this day is not about content, but about Scholz.
And nobody else.
"Eight out of ten points on the Scholzomat scale"
The chancellor candidate is giving one of his better speeches that day.
"Eight out of ten points on the Scholzomat scale," a prominent comrade concedes with full appreciation, "maybe it was even nine."
Scholz talks about everything, about climate, digitization, corona and about a "society of respect".
It is a new cipher for an age-old social democratic topic: social justice.
In truth, it is about something completely different.
In the Scholz narrative there is only one person who can save the world.
The Greens are not.
They may be full of good intentions, but they cannot.
The Union, on the other hand, does not even have good intentions, and in any case cannot.
No, "it depends on the conductor," says the candidate for chancellor.
It is high time to let the pros out, and what better pro than Superman Olaf?
Scholz doesn't know anyone.
In the long history of the SPD there have been enough men who did not suffer from a lack of self-confidence.
But Willy Brandt, Gerhard Schröder and even the great global strategist Helmut Schmidt knew that they were dependent on others.
That they needed a team of distinguished women and men in order to be successful, a shadow cabinet.
The candidate is important, but the party is even more important
The Scholz team consists of only one person.
From Scholz.
And the party accepted that.
Out of fear.
On this Sunday, she completely surrendered herself to a candidate whom she did not even trust to chair in 2019.
The SPD is now Scholz, and Scholz is the SPD.
Next to him only dwarfs exist.
It is a dangerous strategy because the Germans will not vote for a chancellor this autumn, but for a party.
The candidate is important, but the party is even more important.
In the polls, the SPD is lagging behind in third place, but the Germans don't seem to have much confidence in the candidate either.
He may be a professional, but do the voters know that too?
He does not have much time, and postal voting begins as early as August.
A worthy challenge for Superman Olaf.
The "famous sentence" that Scholz quoted in his speech was written by Kurt Georg Kiesinger.
"It depends on the Chancellor," the CDU man posted in the 1969 Bundestag election campaign.
A little later, Kiesinger was voted out of office as Chancellor.