Development Minister Müller: The conscience works

Hardly anyone was more impatient, hardly anyone so uncomfortable: With Development Minister Müller, someone is saying goodbye to politics who never gave up on a good cause. And held up the mirror to society.

When Bayer Gerd Müller moved into the Bundestag in 1994, many politicians thought of the “bomber”, the footballer of the same name. Today, when you hear the name Gerd Müller in Berlin, you think of the CSU’s clear conscience. That’s what they like to call him. The man has never ceased to be outraged: “It cannot be that ten people own as much as 3.5 billion of the poorest. And should it continue like this?” The Development Minister likes to ask the people who listen to him . The man, who has been traveling the world as a minister for eight years, talks, occasionally upsetting friends and foes – likes to be clear: “Hunger is murder. Because we know how we can eliminate hunger.”

He, the son of a farmer from the Allgäu, knows it. It’s been a long time. It demands it from the world community. But also from your own government. Hardly any minister is more impatient than Müller. Even more intolerant when he feels indifference in the other person.

Unequal friends

From 1989 onwards, Müller was a MEP for five years. It was then that he met Claudia Roth. Pretty unequal friends. But he still likes her to this day. “And do you know why? Because she lives it, because she wants to move something. What I miss now is that we want to move and change something. Why am I otherwise in politics?” That’s what the man sounds like. Anyone who travels the world with Müller experiences a minister who wants to move, change. Straight. Klartextmüller just. He likes to go where it hurts.

Two years ago he was in Kutupalong, in the Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh. Misery, hardship, death and displacement. They all live here. “Yes, that’s terrible and that’s why I’m here because I want to draw attention to this forgotten refugee disaster,” he said at the time.

Then he had development cooperation with Myanmar stopped on the plane on the onward flight to India. That something like that led to foreign policy entanglements – it doesn’t matter to someone like Müller. He wants the world to forget nothing, including Myanmar’s crimes against the Rohingya.

Uncomfortable to the point of being annoying

The man is uncomfortable to the point of being annoying. It is rare for a minister to want more than the MPs. Müller always wanted more. Pressed the pace. His compass was and is the look in the mirror. “I think of my father who said: Boy, you always have to be able to look in the mirror every day.”

He can say that. “A world without hunger is possible,” he says, by the way, wherever he appears. “We know. I know. I’m a farmer’s son.” According to the trained businessman, hunger will be defeated by 40 billion US dollars per year and by 2030. “Why am I not being heard? Why is nothing going on? Why do you just let it ripple?” To this day he still does not understand her. This sometimes vicious world, this navel gaze of the untraveled, this rich and saturated Germany: “Germany. We are one percent of humanity. We are not as important as we always take ourselves.

Critics, however, say that this development minister sometimes comes up with ideas that are a little too big. His Marshall Plan for Africa, for example. Not everyone liked the name alone. Marshall Plan With Africa should be called better. The many billions it was supposed to generate did not turn out as hoped in the end. Other things stay in the mind

Müller’s masterpiece

He has just fought through the supply chain law. Against all odds up to the Chancellor. Müller’s masterpiece. Together with Hubertus Heil. Since then he has been friends with the Minister of Labor. Not the only Social Democrat in Müller’s circle of friends. “You can have friends,” is Müller’s answer. “Don’t talk – do it”, the Müller motto. People should use their time, he says, because people are ephemeral. “Don’t take yourself so seriously. I live in the Allgäu. And when I come home I look at the Alps. They have been there for millions of years. They will still be there in millions of years.”

He is now at the end of his political career. He wants to make room for others, so he’s leaving. As a minister anyway, but also as a member of parliament. What is he missing? The rebels in politics. The contradictions. Always be like everyone – not his. “If everyone speaks and thinks the same way, then there is a mental standstill.” As a young member of parliament, he learned that from Heiner Geißler.

What’s next? He says volunteer work. That is a slight understatement. Angela Merkel suggested him some time ago as the future head of the UN organization for industrial development. He could then continue to annoy Müller-wise. In the service of humanity.