The Rhön is beautiful, beautiful landscapes, tranquil places, including Fladungen, the northernmost town in Bavaria, including the Franconian open-air museum. Summer excursions are a must, especially since in Fladungen you can now dine in a Franconian inn in the middle of the small town, in the “Krone”, a dream. Let’s go – although that shouldn’t apply to Markus Söder and Hubert Aiwanger, or at least to a very limited extent, and also not to Florian von Brunn, Martin Hagen or Katharina Schulze. They all get nothing on the table.
According to the sign at the entrance to the house, they are not alone in this fate. “Members of the Landtag and Bundestag are neither fed nor accommodated,” says the owner of the restaurant, Andreas Hoch. He is not only known as such in Fladungen – but also as the head of the local CSU.
What’s that supposed to mean? If you get into a conversation with Hoch, you have to be quick with the questions, the answers just flow out. He spent a seven-figure amount to build the inn, but the costs literally exploded – if only because of the “hopelessly excessive” fire protection regulations. There used to be more than half a dozen inns in the core of Fladungen, all history, there was simply a lack of political support for the flat country. In general: Hoch counted the end of a total of 27 local family businesses in the past two decades, there was always talk of “structural change”, “but that is the economic clearing out of the country”.
Politics, he believes, is now primarily made for: “City dwellers, idlers and corporations.” One thing, of course, is absolutely out of the question for him: leaving his party, the CSU, “under no circumstances”.
Highly prefer other means of protest; but is also facing a lot of headwind right now. Cheap inn PR, silly bashing of MPs and populism from a CSU man of all people resonated with him. All sorts of “anger and frustration” he has registered, says Hoch, he didn’t want it that way, he will soon take the sign down again. But the debate is important to him – and a message: “We are Bavaria too!” Albeit shortly before Fulda.