This Saturday, Germany wakes up with the real perspective that there will be a new federal government before Christmas.
The next Federal Chancellor will probably be Olaf Scholz.
I don't know about you, dear reader, but I am still baffled that the SPD, Greens and FDP have reached agreement on coalition talks so quickly and silently.
Just three weeks ago I would have simply lacked the imagination. Perhaps this is due to the fact that during the election campaign I kept hearing this sentence from Christian Lindner that he unfortunately »lacks the imagination for a traffic light coalition«. In the SPIEGEL interview shortly before the election, the FDP boss found a slightly modified formulation: "If anything, an attractive offer from Mr. Scholz would be a surprise."
Election winner Olaf Scholz was obviously able to surprise the FDP leader.
Or is it perhaps not that difficult to surprise Lindner?
In any case, now he has the "political fantasy" that the traffic lights can work, and that is not enough: "Many people in our country" are "impressed" by these soundings, Lindner claims to have observed, and even "drew hope" from them.
We experienced a »turning point in the political culture of Germany«.
Negotiated
The first reflex to it: “Phew, yes. Can it be a size smaller? «Especially since I still have the pictures of the former, unimaginative Christian Lindner, who rolled his eyes in annoyance when he had to listen to the green candidate for Chancellor Annalena Baerbock in the Bundestag. On the other hand, this new Lindner has a sound that we media people have repeatedly warned in 16 years of Angela Merkel sobriety: more pathos please, more passion, more joy for the future, amazement, optimism. Well, maybe we'll let the traffic light people strike their sparks now until the "embers" (Robert Habeck) of this coalition really shine.
Speaking of which: Habeck's statement seemed strangely subdued for his circumstances (keyword: "cool"). Was it just the tiredness after a negotiated night? "We parted early in the morning not far from here," Habeck wrote at his entrance. Another reason could be that in the first concept paper of the future coalition partners a noticeable number of FDP positions appeared. Habeck spoke of "impositions" that should have been swallowed. But the paper only depicts part of the conversations, he said later in the ZDF interview. And no, all three partners could have scored about the same number of points.
But as the strategist who Habeck is, he must have known: In a three-way alliance, an outsider has the chance to get the most out of it because you have to entice him.
Olaf Scholz has offered a lot to the FDP, so much that there is already faint criticism to be heard from the left wing of the SPD.
What would the Greens have gotten out of a Jamaica alliance with the Union?
Maybe more?
We will probably never know.
Internal party power games with the SPD and the Greens: How long do the left keep quiet?
Burned out
Meanwhile, in another galaxy far, far away: The Junge Union (JU) meets today for the second part of its Germany Day in Münster. Yesterday in any case, one looks in vain for a spirit of new beginnings, progress, renewal, as my colleague Kevin Hagen reported to me in the evening, who is allowed to spend his weekend with the CDU youth: “There is a strange, slowed-down atmosphere in the hall. The election debacle has also noticeably affected the youngsters. Even long-time JU darling Friedrich Merz does not cause cheers. "
Merz received only scant applause from the scene. Neither when the 65-year-old remembered that he had once co-founded the student union, nor when he pointed out that he had accepted several young women into the CDU during the election campaign. "Some of them weren't even listening to him," observed Kevin. Maybe because Merz himself gave the mood killer? He predicted "pretty hard times" for the party (after all: only
pretty
hard!). And he qualified the Union as "lazy to think", as a "serious political restructuring case at risk of insolvency".
However, Merz did not show a way out of the valley of tears, as a questioner from Bavaria then criticized. That speech was wonderful, an excellent description of the problem. "But I also have the question, what are your solutions?" What does that mean in concrete terms?
Merz's answer was basically: Hello, is it still possible !? He works “more intensively conceptual than almost anyone else in the Union”, wrote a book that no plagiarism researcher would have poked about, and he'd like to come to Bavaria and tell about his ideas, then the young people would I'm sure to be “surprised”, “what suggestions I make, they probably go beyond those that you have already worked out in the Junge Union”. At this point there was laughter and applause in the hall, although in the live stream it was difficult to understand what exactly was being laughed at.
In any case, the Junge Union could jolt today when Armin Laschet and Jens Spahn speak to the youth of the party. How will Laschet be received? On the one hand, the associations of the Junge Union had voted in April with a large majority for Söder as candidate for chancellor. You should feel confirmed by the election failure and be charged accordingly. On the other hand, Söder has fallen sharply in favor with the party youth. After he was recently received in an unfriendly manner by the Junge Union Bayern, he canceled his trip to Münster without further ado. The party youth is also invited about this. So who is the brass bigger for now?
Incidentally, Angela Merkel will not be traveling to Germany Day for the first time in a long time.
It is also a matter of opinion whether her alternative program is so much more attractive: The Chancellor is traveling to Istanbul today on a farewell visit to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Hammered out
I don't know how many readers will believe this statement.
But until I read the research carried out by our investigative team on the »xHamster« online portal, I had never heard of it.
xHamster is the most visited porn site in Germany, apparently even one of the largest in the world - according to the company's official history, the name alludes to the sexual activity of hamsters.
I cannot contribute anything to this either, since our family only ever had chaste guinea pigs.
xHamster has a dark side.
Here, interested parties will find not only conventional pornography, but hundreds, if not thousands, of nude photos of women secretly filmed against their will.
And those affected, who wanted to defend themselves legally, have so far failed because xHamster hides the identity of its operators.
But research by a team of SPIEGEL editors together with the NDR reportage program STRG_F now reveals for the first time who the people behind the site are.
The trail leads via Moscow to Cyprus, Antigua and the British Virgin Islands.
So much can be revealed here: The operators of the site are much more squeamish when it comes to their own privacy.
Online portal xHamster: The porn empire and its kings
Winner of the day ...
... is Mario Czaja. While the Union is in crisis after the election defeat, Czaja embodies an extraordinary success story. Ironically, in the Berlin district of Marzahn-Hellersdorf, known for its striking prefabricated buildings, the CDU candidate won the direct mandate, for the first time in 30 years for his party, and after the left-wing candidate Petra Pau had been victorious here for almost 20 years. In addition, the 46-year-old CDU man is the only one in his party who has "turned" a constituency in the east.
My colleague Timo Lehmann traveled through his constituency with Czaja and got to know a new MP whose campaign strategy was the complete opposite of his party: Where the Union warned against the red socks, Czaja hugged the left, especially his rival Pau and left Front man Gregor Gysi, presented himself as a carer and garnished the whole thing with a pinch of Ostalgie.
This strategy is unlikely to work for the whole party.
But such fearless, if not cheeky maneuvers could also be good for other CDU candidacies in the future.
The latest news from the night
Assassination attempt on Davis Amess: Fatal knife attack on British MPs was, according to investigators, a terrorist act
Merz on exploratory results: "We could have had that too"
Corona infections: RKI reports almost 11,000 new cases - the incidence rises to 70.8
The SPIEGEL + recommendations for today
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I wish you a relaxed Saturday
Your Melanie Amann