For decades, Heiner Müller-Ermann was the key figure in the Dorfen A94 resistance.
The SPD city council is now withdrawing from politics.
Dorfen
– An era is coming to an end in the Dorfen city council: Heiner Müller-Ermann is leaving the board after 21 years.
"I will be resigning from my volunteer position on May 1st," he said at the city council meeting on Wednesday.
"I feel that I'm getting milder with age," said the 73-year-old - probably only half jokingly.
Because as a SPD veteran with ecological convictions, he is known above all for his willingness to discuss things: always with a clear edge, never irrelevant or even hurtful.
With this announcement, the comrade surprised most in the meeting room - and then Martin Bachmaier (CSU) raised his hand and announced the same step.
This is his last session today, said the 44-year-old.
"I can no longer afford it, both professionally and privately," explained the police officer and father of three.
He admits that he was "sometimes difficult" in his nine years on the city council: "If I hit someone below the belt, I have to apologize." He wishes his colleagues to preserve the positive culture of debate in the city council.
Müller-Ermann also emphasized this.
He cannot always agree with calls for consensus.
"It is necessary that we have a contentious argument." Above all, the decades-long fight against the Isental autobahn is associated with his name.
With competence and persistence, he was the key figure in the Dorfen autobahn resistance.
The economics graduate and radio journalist for many years has been a member of the SPD for more than half a century.
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Member of the Dorfen City Council for nine years: Martin Bachmaier (CSU).
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He never thought before that local politics was so difficult in a town like Dorfen with 15,000 inhabitants.
"We're too big to be able to figure everything out in small groups and too small to have full-time employees."
"That hits me, it's a bit emotional for me too," commented Mayor Heinz Grundner (CSU) on Müller-Ermann's announcement.
Despite all the differences, "we have been allowed to work together since 2002," he says to the outgoing city council colleague.
He finally said: "After the April meeting we'll have a drink, and then I'll go home to my ex-colleague Ermann." At the age of 21 on the city council, he said he outdid his wife, Dorfen's Grünen founder Hanna Ermann, by three years the comrade smiling.
The list successors are Seppo Schmid at the SPD and Hans Baumgartner at the CSU.
