There was the Hendl parable by Hubert Aiwanger, in May 2020. It was about innkeepers whose insurance companies did not pay in the corona lockdown with reference to the small print. And about the Economics Minister (FW), who invented a compromise in Bavaria. Shortened: half the amount after deduction of state benefits, if both sides want it. That, explained Aiwanger eloquently, is like having “half the chicken at the table ready to roast”.
“The alternative would have been if I leaned back and said the chicken was running around somewhere in the back garden, catch it, then you’ll have a whole chicken” – and in the end you might not even see it on the lawsuit.
Many were reminded of Edmund Stoiber’s Transrapid stammer (“in ten minutes”), at about the same time Aiwanger’s beer bank speech on the distance rules, “six to eight people, each with their buddy”. The network cheered, and the content of the Hendl idea was also mocked. The Greens, for example, complained that the deal was “horse trading” and that the deal was “a size too big for the shirt-sleeved minister”.
A message from the ministry on Friday was brimming with satisfaction. The Federal Court of Justice (BGH), where a dispute between the landlord and the insurance company ended up, had previously decided: If Corona is not explicitly in the contract, there is no money; a policy does not offer protection for every new illness. “Regrettable for the catering industry,” said Aiwanger, but that shows “that we were right from the start with our Bavarian solution.”
Around three quarters of the companies accepted offers from their insurers and ended up doing better. “The green permanent naggers like the parliamentary group leader Hartmann” should apologize for the mockery at the time, “many insured persons did not accept the comparison because of this criticism”.
Ludwig Hartmann countered: “In view of the biggest gastronomy death in the history of Bavaria, the Minister of Economics should actually start a funeral march. Instead, he sings jubilee arias because of a court decision that deprives many small innkeepers of their livelihood by relieving large insurance companies.”