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Markus Feldenkirchen: »At the time you suggested renaming the FDP.
And right now we're not having such easy times for the FDP."
Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann: "Now I'm back with the new name."
Feldenkirchen: »Lost five state elections in a row.
There are a lot of set pieces and we can sort of do a jigsaw puzzle.«
Strack-Zimmermann: "That's... It's typical SPIEGEL again."
Feldenkirchen: "Give me the book, please."
Strack-Zimmermann: »What happens at night?
What is happening here at night?”
Feldenkirchen: »So, we have here.
You see the terms: We have macho, we have cheeky, we have power.
Of course also freedom.
Certainly one of them.«
Strack-Zimmermann: "You really didn't leave out any clichés."
Feldenkirchen: "The CLP - Christian Lindner Party, would that be something?"
Strack-Zimmermann: "No, of course these are unbelievable clichés that you have here."
Feldenkirchen: "Make an alternative suggestion."
Strack-Zimmermann: "So the party of the privately insured... I'm not privately insured."
Feldenkirchen: »Party of the privately insured?
Would that be what?”
Strack-Zimmermann: "No, no, no, no, that's all too..."
Feldenkirchen: "Party against the speed limit."
Feldenkirchen: »Power?
Cheeky?"
Strack-Zimmermann: "Well, now I have it."
Feldenkirchen: "The Freedom Power Party."
Strack-Zimmermann: »Yes, it's not bad.
FPP.«
Feldenkirchen: »Yesterday I was out and about in the German Bundestag and asked what my colleagues think of you.
From almost all parties.«
Strack-Zimmermann: »Oh God!«
Feldenkirchen: "We'll take a look and in the meantime I'll clean up the table a bit."
Strack-Zimmermann: "Now I'm curious."
Feldenkirchen: "Mr. Bartsch, I'm thinking of Ms. Zimmermann that night..."
Dietmar Bartsch: »Then I really can't sleep for a short time.
She is already a special member of the FDP.
But I think Christian Lindner sleeps even worse when he thinks about her.«
Feldenkirchen: "What is important to note about Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann?"
Wolfgang Kubicki: »Yes, first of all, that she is a cheerful Rhenish person and has a very firm position on the question of the Ukraine war and the possibilities of influencing it.«
Anton Hofreiter: "Mrs. Strack-Zimmermann is a matter-of-fact, very clever and, in my experience, very upright politician."
Karl Lauterbach: "I think she's actually doing a great job for a member of parliament."
Feldenkirchen: "Do you have to be afraid of Ms. Strack-Zimmermann?"
Alexander Graf Lambsdorff: »Not only do you not have to be afraid of Ms. Strack-Zimmermann, you should listen very carefully to what she says.
That's mostly wise and quite often right.«
Lauterbach: "She's not always annoying either."
Paul Ziemiak: »She is argumentative.
I like women like that.
I really have to say that because they bring dynamism to it.«
Lauterbach
:
"Ms. Strack-Zimmermann doesn't have much to learn from me in terms of talk shows."
Feldenkirchen: "Does a speed limit need to be imposed on Mrs. Strack-Zimmermann's calls for arms deliveries?"
Ralf Stegner: »In any case, I don't find this outbidding competition helpful.
And the fact that she does it to such an extent is perhaps due to her temperament, but perhaps it is also the difference between the Federal Chancellor being the Federal Chancellor and Ms Strack-Zimmermann being the chairwoman of the Defense Committee.«
Feldenkirchen: "Do you feel well hit?"
Strack-Zimmermann: »Yes, I feel well hit.
I find it very charming and Karl Lauterbach comes from Cologne.
He has an incredibly good joke.
That's a bit elusive or past after the job he has to do.
So Minister of Health.«
Feldenkirchen: "Can someone be a good Chancellor who is not able to assess situations correctly?"
Strack-Zimmermann: "Olaf Scholz did in fact misjudge the situation at the G20 summit, which is why I alluded to it, and didn't really have the situation under control either.
I think you can say that from a historical point of view.«
Feldenkirchen: "And does he have the current situation under control?"
Strack-Zimmermann: "I think it took him a long time or took longer to internalize the dimensions of this attack by Russia on Ukraine."
Feldenkirchen: "If I meet Olaf Scholz in the dark after our reign..."
Strack-Zimmermann: "Then I would suggest that we go have a beer together and talk about some things, why something happened and why it didn't happen.
That would be interesting.
He has advisors around him and that would really interest me.
We could have trained the Ukraine six months ago.
Every day we waited was a day too much because a lot of people are dying in Ukraine.
And these trenches around Bachmut.
They would be different today if the Ukrainians had been equipped accordingly six months ago.«
Feldenkirchen: "The Chancellor's Office blasphemes that they have made a kind of business model out of the criticism of Olaf Scholz."
Strack-Zimmermann: "Well, of course that's... Who says that... Probably the Minister of the Chancellery.
Then you make it very, very easy for yourself, because you shouldn't look to Strack-Zimmermann to see what she says, you should see what's happening in the Ukraine.
And people are murdered there every day.«
Feldenkirchen: »There are now many nicknames or designations for you.
We have prepared a few of them and I would like to ask you which ones describe you in some way.«
Strack-Zimmermann: »Well, the word warmonger, we scanned it, is used against me about 14,000 times a week.
That's no joke.
That's a word that actually comes from the mouths of right-wing extremists.
They like to call me that.
That the ›taz‹ writes it that way, it should be a bit funny and half funny, half ironic.
Yes, God, okay."
Feldenkirchen: »You probably won't become Minister of Defense again.
But tell us: Would you have liked to have been one?”
Strack-Zimmermann: »If someone had asked me, I would have said yes.
And probably not slept many nights.
Because you have to be aware of that.
It's a task where you can hardly win and it's tough because you're held responsible for everything that didn't happen decades before.
And if things don't happen and they suddenly hit the time when you're responsible, you can't even say: Man, I made such and such a mistake, but you have to straighten your back immediately.
Well, yes, I would have done it, but it was never up for debate, and that's also part of the truth.
In the coalition negotiations, when they were concluded and the ministries were distributed, it was clear that the SPD would take the ministry.
In this respect, I was happy
that I am trusted.
But I gave it no thought.”