When the applause for Friedrich Merz’s speech is over, Markus Söder goes to the lectern. “I don’t know who else knows Hans Rosenthal,” says the CSU leader. “He always said: ‘That was great.’” Rosenthal always jumped into the air with this sentence – it was his trademark on “Dalli Dalli”. Söder is not doing that now. But his message is so clear. Friedrich Merz has just made his first appearance as a candidate for chancellor at the CSU. And Söder thought he was great.

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