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Campaigner Habeck (on Tuesday in Biesenthal, Brandenburg): "The forest is a space of longing"
Photo: POOL / REUTERS
Under normal circumstances, it is an appearance that is made for a Green chairman.
The top German forest clarifier, Peter Wohlleben, invited people to his home village of Wershofen for the National Forest Summit.
It's about a German myth, maybe the German myth in general, and that myth is in great danger.
Through the people who exploit him for his hunger for wood and the climate crisis that lets him wither.
Robert Habeck is invited to be one of the keynote speakers and he knows how to use the template.
"The forest is a space of longing," he wrote right at the beginning of his lecture.
"It smells different, the wind sounds different than when it rushes through the streets."
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Habeck at the forest summit
Photo: Wohllebens Waldakademie / YouTube
For Habeck and his party, the forest summit could not be more convenient.
The topic is moving deep into the bourgeois-conservative electoral class.
The Greens want to go there as a self-proclaimed people's party, this is the only way they can land over 20 percent in the upcoming federal elections.
And the appointment distracts from the crippling, public debates about the mishaps and mistakes of the green candidate for chancellor, Habeck's co-chair Annalena Baerbock
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But it is not that easy for Habeck and the Greens to be indignant about clear-cutting and drought in the wood. Because the forest summit takes place in the Waldakademie Wohlleben, which is only a few kilometers as the crow flies from the epicenter of the flood disaster, the Ahr valley. The Eifel village of Wershofen, where the bestselling author's conference center is located, was only spared from the floods because it is located on the hill and not in the narrow valley gorges through which the destructive masses of water rushed.
The proximity between these two places represents the problem that the Greens have right now: How can one talk about the environment and the climate, now that quite a few people have just lost their lives here?
Or do you have to do it right now?
But how do you then talk about it without exposing yourself to the suspicion of instrumentalizing the suffering of the victims and giving the political opponent the opportunity to impose electoral calculation on the party?
Wershofen shows how difficult it has become for the Greens in this election campaign to get on the offensive, even with a topic that is their very own.
Robert Habeck tries by addressing his dilemma offensively: "I can't be here without talking to the people who have been affected by this catastrophe," he says and apologizes for not being able to stay the whole day.
He will drive to the people, those affected.
After his lecture, shortly before he sets off for the flood areas, he becomes even clearer.
He speaks of a "trepidation" that comes over him when he thinks of the tragedy that happened in the next valley.
And he talks about how strange his campaign trip to Schleswig-Holstein felt.
There he stood in the sunshine, while further south the people had fought against the floods.
The leeway for the Greens in this election campaign has become smaller since the controversy over the candidate for chancellor.
CDU boss Armin Laschet and Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder said as a matter of course that the flood disaster had something to do with the climate.
But Habeck has to be more careful.
Habeck promises forest funds
So he says in advance that it made the difference in this heavy rain event that it rained in one place for so long, a weather phenomenon.
And that it was so catastrophic was also due to the coincidence that the enormous amounts of rain fell over narrow valleys.
In this respect, this catastrophe is a singular event.
Only after this preface can he talk about global warming, which would make such events more frequent, and the natural forests, which could have helped hold back water and protect people.
Luckily the host, Peter Wohlleben, takes care of the rest.
The former forester deliberately wants to use the flood disaster for a debate about a new type of forest management.
Wohlleben tells of a healthy beech forest very close to his academy.
He is standing on a steep slope on which he could not see any traces of water flowing down.
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Habeck uses the appearance to lure the competition out of the reserve with further political advances.
On Tuesday, he and Baerbock had already succeeded in doing this very well when they presented an immediate program for climate protection.
This included the idea of founding its own climate protection ministry, equipped with a veto right over the other departments on new laws - an affront for any party that could form a coalition with the Greens after the elections.
Habeck then watched with relish as the other parties attacked the proposal.
A substantive controversy is exactly what the Greens can use to get relief.
In Wohlleben's forest academy, Habeck continues to try the offensive.
He taunts the Union-led Federal Ministry of Agriculture and the Federal Environment Ministry led by the SPD, two departments that "acted against each other" in forest matters, so that in the end nothing went ahead, says Habeck.
It would of course be different with the Greens in power, is his message.
Habeck presents a forest fund that his party wants to set up after the election, endowed with one billion euros.
"The forest fund is intended to compensate owners who do not use their forest," explains the head of the Greens.
In this way, a healthy mixed forest should be created that can withstand drought and rising temperatures.
This is an investment in nature, "the most venerable infrastructure" that mankind has, according to Habeck.
In Wershofen, the head of the Greens looks as if he has rediscovered the fun of the election campaign, despite all odds. Demonstratively carefree, he acts as if he doesn't want to take any shitstorm on social media or gossip from the political opponent into account. When a reporter asks him about his best experience in the forest, he replies: "I can't tell you that." Then he grins meaningfully and adds: "But it was very nice."
