Today it's about the Chancellor's playlist for the big tattoo of the Bundeswehr, we explain how the federal and state governments want to get the corona situation under control again, and we learn: Not everything goes wrong in Berlin.
It was so nice in the Chancellery
It is the unmistakable sign that the farewell of the still managing Chancellor is really imminent:
On Thursday evening, the German Armed Forces honored Angela Merkel with the big tattoo.
Even if an era comes to an end, the Corona circumstances let the traditional military ceremonies shrink by torchlight.
If around 600 guests came to Gerhard Schröder's party, Merkel should only have around 200, under strict 2G rules.
After all, the Federal President is there, and all 52 ministers who served under the Chancellor have received an invitation.
The usual large reception in the casino in the Bendlerblock is canceled.
One suspects: Angela Merkel is quite right if there is not so much fuss about her departure from government headquarters.
But with her music selection, which SPIEGEL revealed a few days ago, the CDU politician is causing a bit of a stir.
For the serenade after the parade, the honorees may choose three titles that the staff music corps will perform.
Again and again the Bundeswehr winds had to rehearse unusual pop and rock songs as instrumental versions, and the Chancellor also presented conductor Reinhard Kiauka and his troupe with certain challenges.
The hymn "Great God, we praise you" still looks like the compulsory program of a pastor's daughter who led a Christian Democratic party for more than 18 years.
But who would have thought that Merkel would choose a song by the German “Godmother of Punk” Nina Hagen, of all things.
What's behind it?
A throwback to Merkel's East German youth?
A joke against her husband?
In her GDR hit
"You forgot the color film"
from 1974, Nina Hagen celebrates a vacation on the island of Hiddensee (part of Merkel's constituency), which her partner Michael only captures in dreary black and white pictures - because it causes trouble the singer did not have a color film with her.
"Now nobody believes us how nice it was here," sings Hagen, and maybe this is Merkel's message, an attempt to save her political legacy in gloomy times: despite all the crises I had to overcome in my chancellorship but not all bad.
"But how terrible", it goes on in the text, "the tears are rolling down hot, landscape and Nina and everything is just black and white."
Tears at Merkel?
As with Schröder, whose eyes got watery at Frank Sinatra's “My way”, that macho classic, to which, as a colleague from the Austrian “Standard” so aptly described it, “managers and business travelers also like to go to some hotel bars late at night Crying dreadfully into their double shot whiskeys when the day has just been particularly tough on them «.
It is hard to imagine that the Chancellor would be overwhelmed by emotions in such a way.
The third song, Hildegard Knef's "For me it should rain red roses", is actually unexpectedly sentimental for the woman with the sober, pragmatic style of government.
And it may contain (even if presented in an instrumental version) a hint about Merkel's future:
"It should rain red roses for me,
I should encounter completely new miracles,
develop anew far from the old
, keep most of what is expected,
I want, I want."
But where and how does it want to develop, away from politics?
Anyway, have a handkerchief ready.
I was already wondering what one day Olaf Scholz will hear when he says goodbye, in four, eight, twelve, 16 years from now?
"I like traffic lights" by Monty Python maybe?
Or something from the REM album "Automatic for the people"?
Please send me your suggestions: philipp.wittrock@spiegel.de
End of the Merkel era?
Why we need modern conservatism
2G becomes standard
The Chancellor has to work before receiving the award.
Once again in the morning there is
a round with the prime ministers of
the federal states.
Your designated successor Olaf Scholz, who surprised the ProSieben entertainers Joko and Klaas with a live vaccination call on Wednesday evening, will of course also be there.
The meeting is the second within a few days.
On Tuesday, the federal and state governments had already discussed how the fourth corona wave could be slowed down, people teased and reproached each other, the Union side presented a catalog of demands with more stringent measures, and the future chancellor countered with his own catalog.
It was
a strange power game that doesn't do justice to the gravity of the situation.
Agreement should now be reached on the following points, among other things:
Nationwide 2G in
retail
- exception: shops for daily needs
Contact restrictions
for unvaccinated people
2G or 2Gplus in
cinemas, museums, theaters
and for
major events
- spectator numbers are also limited, including for soccer games
At least 2G for
Christmas
markets, 2Gplus for
carnival
events
From a seven-day incidence of 350
clubs and discos
are said to have to
close, but the limit value still seems controversial
Mask requirement in
schools
The draft resolution that we have before us is from yesterday at 5 p.m. (read here in detail what it says).
Here and there you can still find square brackets, which means that the ministers of the chancellery and the heads of the state chancellery have not yet reached a final agreement in their preparatory talks.
This applies, for example, to the passage in which a
new revision of the Infection
Protection Act is announced.
One wording suggests an “appropriate tool kit with additional measures”, the other speaks of the fact that “the entire tool kit valid until November 24, 2021” should also be available in the future.
Obviously, the Union side wants to record the date in the paper that the SPD, Greens and FDP screwed it up when they streamlined the Infection Protection Act with the end of the epidemic emergency.
You just can't leave the power games.
Intensive care physicians and epidemiologists on the federal-state proposals: "We are very late"
Winner of the day ...
... is
Berlin.
Finally, the capital is at the top of a federal state ranking: Berlin tops the list for booster vaccinations, more than 15 percent received their third vaccination, which is not a sensational rate given the situation, but significantly more than the national average.
Why is it that the city, which cannot even properly organize an election, is making better progress here than other countries?
Berlin had kept vaccination centers open when they were closed elsewhere, the minimum interval between second and booster vaccinations was shortened to five months.
And - that is at least my personal experience and that of various friends and acquaintances: Many doctors now offer uncomplicated vaccinations without much bureaucracy and long queues.
Advice from the daycare chat group about a vaccinating orthopedic surgeon in the neighborhood, online appointment booked for the next few days, waiting 15 minutes, injection, done.
That's how it should be.
The latest news from the night
Fine after amputation of wrong leg:
Instead of the left leg, a surgeon amputated the right leg of a patient.
A court in Linz has now sentenced her to a fine for “gross negligence”.
She now works in another clinic
Baerbock announces a tougher course towards China:
Both the foreign minister-designate and the applicants for the CDU chairmanship are in favor of a stricter China policy.
Baerbock wants to rely on a mixture of dialogue and harshness
Alec Baldwin speaks in a TV interview about a
fatal shot
during a film shoot:
"I didn't pull the trigger"
-
Alec Baldwin became emotional on US television because of the fatal accident on the set of "Rust".
How the shot came about remains open.
The police are investigating further
The SPIEGEL + recommendations for today
CDU triumph with Merz, Braun and Röttgen: battle with clichés
OP postponed due to Corona: "When the call came, I thought: Shit"
Falling corona incidences: "These numbers should be treated with caution"
Approval of online gambling in Germany: The force of addiction
Have a good day.
Heartfelt,
Your Philipp Wittrock