In an election video, the SPD attacked the religious attitudes of Laschet confidante Nathanael Liminski - there was criticism.
Now the clip is no longer used.
Berlin - role backwards in the SPD election campaign.
Actually, the Social Democrats wanted to rely on the attack department in the crucial phase of the election campaign.
In particular, the current government partner, the Union, should be targeted in the coming weeks.
Therefore, the SPD published an anti-Union advertising clip.
But there was criticism - now the video is no longer used.
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Bundestag election: SPD renounces anti-Union advertising - "it was never planned that way"
The SPD is not using its much-criticized campaign video again.
"The campaign manager told me that the spot was not being used," said SPD chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz of the
Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung
.
He countered allegations that the commercial misused religious beliefs for the election campaign.
The reading is incorrect, "the SPD always advocates an open and tolerant society," said Scholz.
When asked why his party warned against a Christian because of his faith, he replied: “Nobody does that.
Our country and I are shaped by the Christian faith. ”An SPD spokeswoman assured that the video was only shown once at the start of the campaign.
Another use was not planned: "It was never planned that way," she told the dpa on Tuesday.
Bundestag election: SPD and Liminski present "arch-Catholic Laschet confidants for whom sex before marriage is taboo"
The SPD had presented a clip in which, in the style of Russian matryoshka dolls from an Armin Laschet figure, further, smaller and smaller figures with faces of other CDU politicians appear.
The pictures are accompanied by negative comments about the relevant people.
One sequence also showed Nathanael Liminski, head of the State Chancellery in North Rhine-Westphalia and one of Laschet's closest employees.
He is one of the "arch-Catholic Laschet confidants for whom sex before marriage is a taboo," it said in the clip.
Liminski is considered extremely conservative.
His father, who died in 2021, was a member of the ultra-reactionary Catholic association Opus Dei.
In his youth, Liminski was a supporter of the group known as the “Pope Fan Club”, “Generation Benedict”.
In the TV show “Maischberger”, the now 35-year-old campaigned for the credo “no sex before marriage”.
The Bonn native now has four children.
+
Laschet with his State Secretary Nathanael Liminski.
(Archive photo)
© Michael Gstettenbauer / Imago
Bundestag election: criticism of SPD spot - "double taboo break that I would not have thought possible among democrats"
Critics such as Günter Krings, chairman of the CDU regional group in North Rhine-Westphalia, saw the clip as a “double taboo break that I would not have thought possible among democrats”. The fact that highly personal issues and religious convictions are made the subject of political attacks "did not exist in the post-war period," said Krings. With the term “arch-Catholic” a whole denomination should be pushed “into a certain corner”. This is not acceptable.
According to party researcher Uwe Jun, the SPD clip is "a rather drastic form of 'negative campaigning' that is reminiscent of American role models," as the political scientist
explains
to
Tagesspiegel
.
"Negative campaigning" tries to defame the (political) opponent instead of putting one's own strengths in the foreground.
Jun stated that he was "not aware of any such offensive statements with regard to religious content by the established parties in this century".
Bundestag election: after controversial video - "The SPD has achieved a real coup with the campaign"
The CDU asked the SPD to stop using the clip. The Social Democrats have now done that - for which they have in turn been criticized in part. There were comments on social media that the Social Democrats would give in to their government partner. According to some contributions, the SPD should have shown strength and spread the spot further. In the podcast of the news portal
The Pioneer, there
was even talk of “cancel culture in the election campaign”, even if it was meant somewhat ironically.
The matter read more calmly in a comment by the media
magazine Meedia
, according to which the SPD emerged as the clear winner of the dispute. It says: “SPD Chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz has assured that the anti-CDU spot will no longer be used. In fact, it never is. The indignation of the Union politicians ensured the spread. The SPD achieved a real coup with the campaign. "
(As)