When Florian von Brunn became state head of the then starving SPD almost two years ago, he immediately announced a “heavy dose of attack”. In principle he is not wrong. A tame and lame opposition is no alternative to the CSU. But attacks on political opponents are not an end in themselves. With his repeated calls for the resignation of cabinet members, the SPD leader has meanwhile overdone it. And that applies all the more to his complaint in one of the mask affairs, with which Brunn wanted to force investigations into the prominent CSU people Monika Hohlmeier and Stephan Mayer. Public prosecutors don’t need party leaders to investigate suspicious transactions. The mask affairs have been investigated for a long time, but not against Hohlmeier and Mayer for lack of a reason.
He is responsible for the receipt that Brunn has now received from the Munich Public Prosecutor’s Office. And the SPD leader did the CSU a favor with his exaggerated approach. Now the Christian Socialists can continue to get outraged about Brunn’s wrong choice of means and his “loudspeakerism”. Which distracts from the CSU felt, which still exists and which has once again become visible in the mask affairs in a more than unsavory way.
Andrea Tandler, daughter of CSU grandee Gerold Tandler, also brokered mask deals with reference to her father and via CSU channels and, together with a partner, pocketed many millions of euros. Alfred Sauter and Georg Nüßlein also cashed in on other mask deals; less, but still more than enough. Tandler, Sauter and Nüßlein enriched themselves with the people when the need was particularly great at the beginning of the pandemic. That is and will remain scandalous, even if it turns out not to be punishable in the end. And the fact that the CSU, including party and government leader Markus Söder, is largely silent on the Tandler millions is an indictment.
Brunn and the SPD should concentrate on what their task is: to work with the Greens and the FDP to provide clarification in the state parliament’s mask investigation committee. Finding out what went wrong in the pandemic and what lessons can be learned from it is in everyone’s interest. To be better prepared next time. And who knows: maybe the pending screening of transactions between MPs like Sauter and the Free State of the CSU felt can be largely ended.