Baerbock on a summer trip: talk offer in need of improvement – politics

warmonger. The foreign minister spits out this word like an inedible fruit. This afternoon in the Ore Mountains, she was insulted as a warmonger. “Nobody wanted this war,” says Annalena Baerbock, and then she talks herself into a rage for a moment. It was not she who started this war, but Vladimir Putin. And who now accuses her of a lack of willingness to negotiate in view of the war. She’s slowing down now. “We’re doing everything we can to end it again.”

A converted tram depot in Chemnitz on Friday evening, Annalena Baerbock is visiting Saxony, it is the first leg of her political summer trip. “Strong together” is written on the sky-blue bus that Baerbock’s entourage is supposed to drive across Germany after difficult government weeks in Berlin and to people who protect the free society and its lifelines: at European borders, in the waterworks, in voluntary work, in telecommunications companies or a chip factory.

“We want to keep Germany as a resilient and agile country that will master the challenges of the future with confidence,” announced Baerbock at the departure in Berlin. During her tour, the Green politician wants to talk “openly and honestly” with citizens, preferably with the go-getters and committed people in the country who are developing resistance to the challenges of the present and “resilience”: despite war, inflation and the climate crisis, despite bickering from the federal government, despite unresolved migration issues and the erosion of democratic beliefs.

So it starts in Chemnitz, on Friday evening a few hundred guests are sitting here at the “Citizens’ Dialogue”. Neo-Nazis are gathering outside the door, but nobody inside really cares. Other demonstrators have wrapped themselves in flags of Ukraine, as Wladimir Klitschko, brother of Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko, is also there. “Mojn,” says the former heavyweight boxer, and begins by telling what the constant noise of kamikaze drones at night can trigger in people: equanimity. “You get used to the pictures. You get used to the dangers. You get used to seeing death,” he says. But life goes on.

Next, Annalena Baerbock pleads for understanding for the decision to support Ukraine militarily, sometimes her voice trembles with anger. “To be honest, this kidnapping of children makes my stomach turn,” she says. The manager of a Ukrainian children’s home told her how Russian soldiers suddenly appeared in the door, “they took nine out of 15 children with them.”

One suspects that Klitschko and Baerbock expected protests here in Chemnitz, with resistance from East Germans against war and armament. A mistake, as will soon become apparent. There is rather a lack of desire to argue in the hall. Until a gentleman from Vogtland gets up and confronts the minister. Always new deliveries of weapons, what’s the point? he wants to know. In the meantime, the Ukrainian land gains are “zero”. Thousands of young people would have to pay for it with their lives. “When, Ms. Baerbock, is the right time to negotiate? Not until the last Russian soldier has left the Crimea?” He doesn’t get an answer. And there are others on this day who find the offer of talks from Berlin, well, still room for improvement.

“Strong together” is written on Baerbock’s sky-blue bus

At noon, Baerbock’s coach rolls into the Czech-Saxon borderland, to Bärenstein in the Ore Mountains. A humble nest lies here on a river that separates the Czech Republic from Germany. On the one hand, in the municipality of Wejprtyl, there is a midday quiet, on the German side, in Bärenstein, there are shouts as the German Foreign Minister walks over a pedestrian bridge with her counterpart Jan Lipavský.

“Get lost”, “traitors of the people”, warmongers”, “stupid cow”, “No one wants you,” shout demonstrators at the top of their lungs. Heavily tattooed people are making noise here, as are older women with carefully arranged hair and residents with whistles. Someone stops Sign up: “Greens to the Eastern Front.”

Baerbock tries to smile, but it doesn’t quite work. Now, in front of photo boards, people explain to her what it was like when this place was still divided by the Iron Curtain. And how people breathed a sigh of relief in 1990, until the pandemic and the Corona rules locked them in their homes again. “It was a bad time,” says the mayor, who could probably say a lot about the loss of trust in the state during the pandemic.

But Baerbock prefers to focus on happier things: the cross-border cooperation between the authorities here. If there’s a fire in the German part of the city, the Czech fire brigade will sometimes turn up, and German federal police officers will patrol with Czech colleagues. You can see what the European spirit achieves, praises the minister. “We can live Europe here every day.” “Shame on you,” chanted demonstrators a few meters away.

Elisabeth Kahl is one who yells, she is 66 and used to be an occupational medicine assistant. Now she is waving a flag of the Kingdom of Saxony from 1815, a symbol of identification of the right-wing extremist Free Saxons. Baerbock, Scholz, Merz, all criminals, says Frau Kahl. “They spend the money lavishly, and everyone gets it, just not the Germans.” The schools are broken, pensioners collect bottles, and these “gender people”, Mrs. Kahl, is getting louder. “As a people, we are the sovereign. And the sovereign is no longer perceived.” Nowhere else do people like her appear in the media or in politics, which is why she appreciates the AfD, has stopped reading the newspaper, and gets information from like-minded people. When did it actually start, this turning away from the state? Mrs. Kahl shakes her head. “We don’t turn away from the state, we get involved.”

The foreign minister doesn’t hear that, she’s already over in the Czech part of town talking to federal police officers. Once or twice a month, German and Czech colleagues set out on joint patrols on both sides of the border, says an official. Then he is silent. Annalena Baerbock could now ask what he experiences on patrol. But she doesn’t ask.

Open detailed view

Compared to June 2022, the number of illegal entries from the Czech Republic to Germany has increased by around 50 percent, the federal police recently announced. Just a few days ago, a smuggler in the Ore Mountains, fleeing from the police, jumped out of a moving van and let 22 migrants with two small children on the loading area drive into the ditch. The smugglers are becoming less scrupulous, they accept great danger, says a policewoman. “You can actually see that in the entire Czech-Saxon border area,” says her colleague.

What the police officers don’t want to say, their cautious looks reveal: that here, on the eastern edge of the republic, they wouldn’t mind a little more support from Berlin. Especially since the Foreign Minister is no stranger to the topic of migration. The Greens politician recently gave her yes to a tougher border regime at the EU’s external borders. Many party friends were appalled by the plan to keep refugees in huge prisons.

However, Baerbock does not appear to have any regrets at having pushed ahead with the tightening of EU asylum practices in the European convoy. Only if the external borders are protected could Europe’s internal borders remain open, even here, “in the heart of Europe,” she argues. And what does the minister say to the many Saxons who would like permanent border controls? a journalist asks on the market square. Daily travel across the border, back and forth, is “the pulse of Europe,” Baerbock replies. She doesn’t want to change that “at the moment”. Then she has to go, time is running out. The minister looked happier.