Gillamoos in Abensberg: The best pictures and sayings – Bavaria

Three years have passed since the last political showdown at the Gillamoos folk festival in Lower Bavaria. And if you look at the speech list from 2019, you might think for a moment that the world hasn’t moved on since then. The main speakers in the beer tent at the time were: Markus Söder (CSU), Kevin Kühnert (SPD), Anton Hofreiter (Greens), Hubert Aiwanger (Free Voters).

Three years later, exactly the same men are back on the stage this Monday and are supposed to be saying things to brass band music and banging beer mugs, as if nothing had happened in the meantime. And yet the world outside, outside the marquee walls, is different: pandemic, war, energy crisis, inflation. And oh yes, the climate crisis, that’s still there.

Topics that are about as suitable for a cracking beer steam speech as a steel brush is for morning combing. No wonder the performances this Monday are a bit sluggish. Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia Hendrik Wüst (CDU), one of the main speakers in the CSU tent alongside CSU boss Söder, initially circumnavigates these leaden issues with harmless comments that you can smile at with a lot of benevolence.

Andrew Scheuer? “Today you wish the man back”

When he looks into the beer tent, he emphasizes the many people who wear traditional costumes: lederhosen, dirndls: “I have something like that in my closet too,” he says. “So not a dirndl, but lederhosen.” When he praises the local CSU politicians from Lower Bavaria, the district administrator, the mayor, the European politician Manfred Weber, he also mentions the Passau CSU man and ex-transport minister Andreas Scheuer. “What was beaten on the man?” asks Wüst. “Today you want the man back.” You wait in vain for the first loud laugh in the audience. Wasn’t that a joke?

The North Rhine-Westphalia head of government only scored a point when he attacked the traffic light coalition in Berlin, for example SPD Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht, who was only interested in the Bundeswehr “if she needs a helicopter to Sylt”. He accuses the Chancellor of inactivity and indecisiveness in political action: “The only question that Olaf Scholz has ever answered clearly is: do you accept the election?” Then Wüst’s Gillamoos premiere is over again – and he clears the stage for Markus Söder.

“He can do significantly less damage in the beer tent than on the government bench”

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His speech also gets off to a slow start and never really gets going. At first he extensively justifies why so many folk festivals are taking place despite the pandemic – and why he then visits them in an inflationary way. A question that the FDP parliamentary group leader in the state parliament, Martin Hagen, raised in his Gillamoos speech: “Söder has only taken part in three state parliament sessions since the beginning of the year, but has attended thirteen folk festivals in the last five weeks,” says Hagen.

He likes that. “He can do significantly less damage in the beer tent than on the government bench.” Söder’s answer: “If you’re dealing with politicians and journalists all week, it’s a great pleasure to be with very reasonable people in the beer tent.”

Lauterbach and Buschmann? “Ernie and Bert of the Federal Government”

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The pandemic anyway – for Söder, once the first representative of the “Team Caution”, it only seems to be a political nuisance. He accuses Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach (SPD) of scaremongering because of his warnings about the corona virus. Lauterbach and Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann (FDP), who keep arguing about the Corona policy, are “Ernie and Bert of the federal government,” said Söder, referring to the constantly bickering dolls from Sesame Street.

The Prime Minister also has a saying ready for the Green Anton Hofreiter, who is standing on the stage in a tent next door. “Formerly the first Easter marcher, today he looks like the representative of a functioning Bavarian armaments company,” says Söder about the member of the Bundestag, who has repeatedly campaigned for more arms deliveries to Ukraine. “I don’t believe the court rider until he finally gets a haircut like this that he’s committed to the Bundeswehr.”

“Mr. Söder changes direction faster than a weathercock”

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At about the same time, the counterattack by the Green Hofreiter, who attacked Söder’s energy policy – with the support of CSU politician Ilse Aigner: “That’s what differentiates Aigner from Söder: she admitted that it was wrong not to rely on the power lines from the north. Or to admit that preventing wind turbines was a mistake.” Mistakes that the Greens would like to correct after the 2023 state elections. “Next year we will govern Bavaria,” said Hofreiter.

Ludwig Hartmann, co-head of the Greens parliamentary group, had previously addressed the sluggish expansion of wind power in Bavaria and described the CSU as a “party to prevent wind turbines”. “Söder and Aiwanger are the double zeros of the energy transition in Bavaria. Inflation also flows to Bavaria through every pipeline.” Katharina Schulze, co-leader of the Greens, castigated the many political changes of the Bavarian Prime Minister: “Mr. Söder changes direction faster than a weathercock.”

Kühnert on the AKW stretch operation: “It’s like Söder: Next year it will be switched off”

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SPD General Secretary Kevin Kühnert, after the beer tent premiere in 2019 for the second time at the Gillamoos, attacks Söder on energy policy and the great dependence on nuclear power: “With the SPD there is no re-entry into nuclear energy in Germany. The maximum is now It’s like Söder: Next year the CSU will be switched off.” Kühnert accuses Söder of an “ego trip” and “necessity” when governing. “He lies to people’s faces.” For his part, Söder accuses the Ampel government of “lying” in the dispute over the extension of nuclear power.

Everyone against everyone, that could be the headline for this year’s Gillamoos. In his speech, Söder often taunts the federal government, but also other federal states, including North Rhine-Westphalia, the country of his CDU guest Hendrik Wüst. “Please stop listening for a moment, dear Hendrik,” says Söder here and there, but Bavaria is a leader, for example in industrial jobs, economic output, the expansion of renewables. The CSU leader is also attacking his own government partner, the Free Voters, whose politics would end in “total confusion” without the CSU.

“Long live Bavaria, Germany, Winnetou and freedom of expression”

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In Abensberg, Free Voters boss Hubert Aiwanger primarily shoots at the federal government and the traffic light parties. He accuses the SPD, Greens and FDP of “policy from the cabinet of horrors”. “Our main problem in Germany is this federal government.” The people must again say where to go, “and not a few weird ideologues in Berlin”. Aiwanger once again regrets that the Free Voters did not make it into the Bundestag in the last election. “If all people were free voters, this world would be a better place.”

Aiwanger concluded his speech with the words: “Long live Bavaria, Germany, Winnetou and freedom of expression.”