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Annalena Baerbock on the phone (in September 2021)
Photo: Daniel Lakomski / imago images / Jan Huebner
Insights into the everyday family life of a top German politician.
Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) reported in a TV show that she drops everything when one of her daughters writes her a text message with a certain code word.
»If she sends this to me, then I know: Now it's very urgent.
Then I leave every session and call her," said Baerbock in the Sat.1 program "Kannste regent?" broadcast on Thursday.
Luckily, that hasn't happened yet.
The politician did not reveal the code word.
For the show, Baerbock visited 17 students from all over Germany in a Berlin classroom.
The student Mia asked how she stayed in touch with her children.
The answer of the Green politician: Every Wednesday – that is, on the days when the cabinet meets in Berlin and she is usually not traveling around the world – she tries to be home for dinner.
Because of the many trips, the minister says she also communicates a lot with her children via cell phone.
The older of her two daughters already has a smartphone and also sends her messages.
"And the little one is making an audio message because she can't write very well yet," Baerbock said.
Scholz and Lauterbach were also there
The TV children aged 8 and 14 also asked Baerbock more serious questions: It was about the war in Ukraine, her meeting with the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov or one of her core issues, feminist foreign policy.
In addition, Baerbock had to recognize countries on a world map and dance with the children to the Tiktok hit »Jiggle Jiggle«.
In addition to Baerbock, Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) also visited the children.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) invited the school group to the Chancellery.
The format is a sequel to the political docutainment »Kannste Kanzleramt?«.
In addition to Scholz and Baerbock, the then candidate for chancellor of the Union, Armin Laschet, answered the children's questions in last year's federal election campaign.
The new show was taped in August
jok/dpa