Horst Seehofer: The Minister of Principles | tagesschau.de

He has experienced ups and downs, both politically and privately. Seehofer sees himself as a man of principles. At the age of 72, CSU politician Horst Seehofer is now retiring – after four decades in politics.

In January 2002 Horst Seehofer’s life hangs by a thread. The CSU politician comes home from the enclosure of his party from Wildbad Kreuth completely weakened. He says to his wife Karin: “I have to surrender.” Because of a delayed myocarditis, he is in the intensive care unit for three weeks. His cardiac output is less than ten percent. Since then he only does “positive stress” to himself. Others get the negative for it.

Head lump sum: First trouble with Merkel

That was not always so. In 2004 the Union is in opposition. The Union parliamentary group leader and CDU party leader Angela Merkel calls for equal contributions for everyone in health insurance, the so-called flat rate per capita. The health expert in the parliamentary group, Seehofer, is strictly against it. The former Federal Minister of Health is raising the mood against the plans of his own parliamentary group. This affects low-income earners in particular and cannot be done with him, the CSU politician rages. In the end, he resigns as a parliamentary deputy. There is no flat rate per capita today. It shouldn’t be the only argument between Seehofer and Merkel.

Politics for the “little people”

Seehofer’s commitment to people with low incomes is probably also due to his origins. The large family cannot afford to send Horst, who was born in 1949, to a higher school. The father works in construction and is often unemployed. After secondary school, Horst Seehofer becomes an official in Ingolstadt.

He succeeds in advancing into the higher service. To this day he is one of the few politicians who have made it to the Federal Minister and Prime Minister without an academic career. When he was addressed as the new Federal Minister of Health in the Kohl cabinet in 1992 as “Dr. Seehofer”, he replied with a laugh: “Please delete the doctor. I am eternally grateful to my parents that I did not go to university.”

Health professional in difficult times

When Seehofer took over the Federal Ministry of Health in 1992, the statutory health insurance companies were on the verge of collapse. He implements an austerity course that hits doctors and pharmacists harder than the insured. The politics for the “common people” becomes clearly visible.

For other weak people in society, however, Seehofer shows less heart: In 1987, the then CSU member of the Bundestag called for people infected with HIV and AIDS to be “concentrated” in “special homes”.

Bumpy road to the CSU boss and prime minister

At the beginning of 2007, the then CSU chairman and Bavarian Prime Minister Edmund Stoiber had his back to the wall within the party. Seehofer would like to become head of the CSU, but Günther Beckstein and Erwin Huber have long since agreed on the division of power. There are also reports of a Seehofers affair in Berlin.

The young woman, an office manager in the Bundestag, is pregnant. Party colleagues urge Seehofer to decide. He stays with his wife, but Seehofer loses the chairman election to Huber. When the CSU incurred heavy losses in the state elections a year later, Seehofer was on target. In October 2008 he becomes Prime Minister and CSU party leader.

Great passion as Minister of the Interior, less for construction and home

After Seehofer was Federal Minister of Health (1992 to 1998), Federal Minister of Agriculture (2005-2008) and Bavarian Prime Minister (2008 to 2018), the discussion about the non-academic Seehofer comes up again. When he was to become Federal Minister of the Interior in Merkel’s fourth cabinet, critics complained that this office could only be held by lawyers. Seehofer remains calm this time too, after all, he is an “experience lawyer”.

Far more worrying is the political competition of Seehofer’s agenda in the newly created Ministry of the Interior, Construction and Homeland. The parliamentary manager of the Greens parliamentary group, Britta Haßelmann, recently complained in the editorial network in Germany that the Heimat department was purely a show event. A committee of the ministry, which should deal with equal living conditions, had just met twice.

Seehofer also only partially solved the pressing problems on the housing market. Seehofer considers the fact that his ministry promised 1.5 million new apartments, but only 1.2 million were built, to be “petty”. In addition, the states and municipalities are usually responsible for building.

Campaign against Merkel’s refugee policy

Seehofer sees his main task in the Ministry of the Interior in migration and refugee policy. It sometimes seems as if Seehofer will continue as Minister in 2018 where he started in 2015 as Bavarian Prime Minister. Seehofer could not be reached on the evening of September 4, 2015. And so Chancellor Merkel decided single-handedly to let the refugees from Hungary into the country. Seehofer will later speak of a “rule of injustice”.

When the CSU met at the party congress a few weeks later, Seehofer once again asked the Chancellor to make a public promise of an upper limit for refugees. Merkel says no. The picture that remains: The Bavarian Prime Minister lets the Chancellor stand next to him at the lectern like a schoolgirl for a full 15 minutes. The President of the Bavarian State Parliament, Barbara Stamm, sits down in the hall and thinks: “When will it end up there?”

It is not the only memorable appearance. The grand coalition is tightening asylum law. In July 2018, Seehofer presented the “Migration Master Plan” and complained that too few refugees who were required to leave the country were deported. Not always, however: “On my 69th birthday, of all things, 69 people were returned to Afghanistan – I didn’t order that.” This statement brings him harsh criticism. To this day, Seehofer cannot see anything bad about it.

No regrets and no apologies

Seehofer has received many nicknames in his life: “Crazy Horst”, “Drehhofer” and “Alpen-Taliban”. He told the “FAS” that it was the price to have to have positions and fight for them. Seehofer sees himself as a man of principles, as someone who keeps his back straight. After all these years he has nothing to take back. He also never apologized to Merkel. He is looking forward to retirement. In a conversation with the “SZ-Magazin” he recently summed up: After more than 40 years in politics he is “actually way beyond thirst”.

From 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. you can see a detailed interview with Horst Seehofer and an overview of the construction sites he is leaving behind today on tagesschau 24 and here in the live stream.