Before describing how the pandemic catapulted the parties in the Dachau district into a new political reality, it is worth taking a look at one of the few constants in 2021. Something that every politically interested person in Germany and the district can rely on, Corona In spite of this, the first predictions flicker across the TV screens shortly after 6 p.m. on an election evening. And politicians and journalists in the Dachau District Office always follow together how the projections solidify into results. In the large conference room, those present stared spellbound at two televisions on which the election reports from ARD and ZDF running. Usually one of the CSU suggests at some point to the BR to switch because the focus is on the election result in Bavaria. The result is more important to the CSU than the nationwide performance of the Union; it legitimizes their claim to power in Berlin.
In this context, the evening of September 26, 2021, the day of the federal election, will also start in the district office. And yet everything is different in the second year of the pandemic. A pile of CSU politicians, including the member of the state parliament Bernhard Seidenath and some mayors, sit at the table shortly after 6 p.m. with petrified faces. Everyone is staring at the screens, at the numbers that are miserable for the Union. Nobody says a sound. One could almost believe that they have made an appointment to hide their frustrations. Switch to the BR. Bavaria, that counts. The first extrapolation of the Bavarian results is in progress. But the CSU politicians react almost as if that were none of their business. 31.7 percent of the second vote for the CSU – that will be the end result later. A staggering number. The CSU candidate Katrin Staffler wins the direct mandate in the constituency of Dachau / Fürstenfeldbruck. But this victory is overtaken by a defeat. It is the end of 16 years of government under the leadership of the CDU / CSU. A new political era begins, also in the district.
How are the campaigners supposed to reach the voters if they are supposed to keep their distance from them?
Their harbingers will be announced at the beginning of the year. All parties and their members know that the 2021 election campaign will be more difficult than any previous one. Katrin Staffler (CSU), who wants to defend the direct mandate, and her biggest competitors Beate Walter-Rosenheimer (Greens) and Michael Schrodi (SPD) agree: “Nobody has ever seen an election campaign like this.” The pandemic subjugates all election planners with imponderables. What is true in January can be very different in summer. Large rallies, like the usual Political Tuesday at the Dachau Volksfest, are impossible. But how are the campaigners supposed to reach the voters if they are supposed to keep their distance from them? The deliberations of the parties and their candidates in the spring revolved around this question. Looking back, it can be said that each party finds different answers – and is sometimes more and sometimes less successful.
For the CSU and Katrin Staffler, it will be a stumbling block in the federal election campaign. At the end of April 150 CSU delegates come together in the Brucker Stadtsaal to nominate Katrin Staffler. That offends some people. Such events are actually canceled at this time due to the pandemic. Other parties – for example the SPD – elect their Bundestag applicants at open-air meetings in order to avoid infections. In the neighboring constituency of Starnberg, the free voters determine their candidate at five degrees Celsius. Staffler and her party have to counter the impression that the proverbial extra sausage applies to the CSU. In the pandemic, faux pas can quickly become fat vats.
In its letter of invitation to delegates and the media, the CSU points out that election and assembly meetings of political parties are constitutionally protected and are subject to the Bavarian Assembly Act. That is why they are also permissible according to the currently applicable Bavarian Infection Protection Measures Ordinance. The message behind it: The same rules apply to us as to everyone else. At the nomination meeting, the delegates send Katrin Staffler into the race with a formidable result of 96 percent of all votes. It is one of the strengths of the CSU that its members move closer together when they get on the defensive.
It seems that Staffler and the CSU have drawn their conclusions from this bumpy start. From now on, they will rely on a mixture of face-to-face and online events in the election campaign. On the one hand, the CSU MP appears together with party leaders like Alexander Dobrindt, on the other hand, it is noticeable that Staffler uses the Internet for election campaigns more than other candidates. With some online formats, however, political content often falls by the wayside. Once Staffler and her Dachau party friend Julia Grote cook pumpkin gnocchi and stream it live on the Internet. And at another online presence, Staffler and another CSU direct candidate talk to Markus Söder about two topics for 45 minutes: Markus Söder and how Markus Söder became Markus Söder.
Staffler’s election victory is never really in danger. In the end, the woman from Turkey beats her opponents clearly as she did four years ago. Even though it too has to lose votes compared to 2017. Your party, on the other hand, received a violent slap. In the second vote, the CSU got 33.3 percent, the second worst result in the constituency since 1949. This continues the decline that began with the 2017 federal election.
“There is now an open flank. There is drilling”
While the mood curve at the CSU tends to move downwards rather than upwards throughout the year, it is different for the Greens, albeit with a similar result in the end. The Greens are starting the election campaign euphorically in view of the nomination of their first candidate for Chancellor Annalena Baerbock. But discussions about Baerbock and especially their unsuccessful book publication quickly depress the mood. At the start of her election campaign in Groebenzell, the Dachau candidate Beate Walter-Rosenheimer had to protect her party colleague: “It is insane how she is approached,” she says of the political and media attacks on Baerbock. The MP, who has been in the Bundestag since 2012, also knows: “There is now an open flank. There is drilling going on.”
The Dachau Greens go on the offensive – and are rewarded. You manage the scoop of the election campaign in the constituency: You bring Annalena Baerbock around a month before the federal election as a speaker for “Summer on the Thoma meadow”, the replacement event for the Dachau folk festival. It’s a historic Political Tuesday. Never before has a speaker at this event had to do without a beer tent. Because of the pandemic, the city was not allowed to set up one.
The open-air performance is definitely a risk for Baerbock and the Dachau Greens. A lot can go wrong. Is it raining? Can Baerbock inspire the audience in such an atmosphere? On a fresh but dry August evening, Baerbock stepped onto a stage in the beer garden area. 1300 people came. She doesn’t give a smack speech, as we know from other Political Tuesdays. Instead, she often uses the words “together” and “courage”, such as “the courage to make the country climate neutral” or the courage to make forward-looking decisions now and not wait “until the next crisis comes”. That goes down well with the visitors, many of whom, of course, sympathize with the Greens. When Baerbock later wants to leave the stage and go to her campaign bus, she disappears into a crowd that grows and grows. Everyone wants to take a souvenir photo. Baerbock is celebrated like a rock star in Dachau – for the Dachau Greens the evening is a success across the board.
But in the end, the Greens in the constituency must feel like losers on election night. With the second vote, they get almost 16 percent in the constituency. You want to be happy, but then you get annoyed at the soarings in the surveys that have raised expectations. For a long time it seems as if Beate Walter-Rosenheimer missed the move. She is already clearing her office in Berlin. Only after the review of all votes cast in mid-October does it emerge that the Bavarian Greens have 188 more votes. With that, Walter-Rosenheimer is suddenly back in the Bundestag. It’s a forgiving peak in the green sentiment curve.
Michael Schrodi rises with Olaf Scholz
2021 will be a year of political surprises. Statements that some Social Democrats make in the spring are almost funny from today’s perspective: “It currently does not look as if the SPD will appoint the Chancellor,” said Hubert Böck, the SPD local chairman in Indersdorf at the end of April. Whereby you have to defend Böck. At the time, hardly anyone expected that Olaf Scholz would be sworn in as Chancellor around eight months later. With Scholz, Michael Schrodi also rises within the party. In November, the Dachau deputy is elected deputy chairman of the SPD Upper Bavaria. In mid-December, the parliamentary group appointed him financial policy spokesman. What happened between April and December?
For the SPD in the constituency of Dachau / Fürstenfeldbruck it has paid off that Michael Schrodi has made a name for himself within the party leadership over the past four years. He is very well connected. This enables him to campaign with the party leaders. Schrodi, who often wears bright red shoes when he is on election campaigns, is walking through Dachau in August with then Secretary General Lars Klingbeil. At the beginning of September, Schrodi and party leader Saskia Esken visit the Dachau concentration camp memorial. Only five days before the election, the party leader at the time, Norbert Walter Borjans, came to Olching to make an election recommendation for the Olching Schrodi. The prominent support helps: In the general election, almost one in four people in the constituency makes his mark near Schrodi. Everything is possible for him now, including victory in the state elections in two years. “As a team, we will do everything we can to achieve a good SPD result in autumn 2023 and to send the CSU into the opposition in Bavaria as well,” he said at a party conference.
On the evening of the election, Katrin Staffler and Michael Schrodi meet in the district office. Election coverage is still on TV. It has long been clear that Staffler defended the direct mandate. It is also becoming apparent that the SPD will emerge as the election winner in Germany. Staffler and Schrodi can both feel like winners. They talk nicely. Both grin. Soon he will take on hers and she will take on his role. Schrodi is now part of the government faction, Staffler is an opposition politician. You still have to get used to it.