Lothar Wieler was one of the defining faces of the Corona crisis. Now he is resigning from his post – after a time that he himself could not have imagined. Germany experienced him as pugnacious and desperate, dutiful and disillusioned. About someone who gave everything.
from
Angelica Slavik, Berlin
If the occasion hadn’t been so bitter, Lothar Wieler’s performances could have been awarded a remarkable cabaret quality. At the peak of the pandemic, the head of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) sat week after week in the federal press conference and tried to bring the virus closer to the Germans. And as clearly as possible. The virus, he then explained, was like “a bulging balloon that we have to keep under water together”. Or, another week, Germany is like a car that is traveling much too fast on a winding mountain road, “then the emergency brake won’t help anymore”. When the number of infections exploded, he stated: “This bucket of water has been poured out. We can’t get this water in there anymore.” And when he felt his warnings weren’t getting enough heed, he concluded, “I’ve been a parrot for a long time.”