With a fine Lenten soup, followed by housewife-style matjes on parsley potatoes, optionally also with grilled pike-perch on ratatouille vegetables, it is easy to slide into Lent on Ash Wednesday. The two CSU candidates for the state elections in the autumn in the Munich district provide that little bit of extra spice on the evening, when fish and politics traditionally come together. For them, the appointment so early in the election year is a good opportunity to show themselves and get in touch with their voters.
Rough exchanges of blows, attacking political opponents without restraint and polemicizing violently are the characteristics of political Ash Wednesday. As a Bavarian tradition, it is said to be traceable back to the 16th century. Tonight the evening is more civilized in many places. “Anyone who knows me knows that it’s not my style to talk about others,” says Maximilian Böltl. “I’m not the Assault Division.” The Mayor of Kirchheim, who is running as a direct candidate for the CSU in the Munich-Land North constituency, is allowed to eat fish twice with prominent party friends: on Ash Wednesday, February 22, alongside Bavaria’s Digital Minister Judith Gerlach in the Putzbrunn community center (7 p.m.) and again on Friday, February 24th, in Victor’s Residenz Hotel in Unterschleißheim with the head of the state chancellery, Florian Herrmann (6 p.m.), then the event is only called “political fish dinner”.
Maximilian Böltl wants to “absorb opinions like a sponge”
Böltl prefers to listen at both performances: According to his own statement, he wants to “absorb opinions like a sponge” and get a feeling for the mood among the guests. He leaves the big entrance at the microphone to the ministers and reduces it to a greeting. But one topic for this is already certain: the new definition of prosperity. That this not only includes a good income, but also a clean environment, “that will also be heard at a fish dinner”.
Especially in the election year, political Ash Wednesday has a very special meaning. Anyone who wants to get their voters’ votes wants to make sure that they are well received in their own ranks, says Stefan Krimmer, who, as CSU local chairman, invites people to eat fish in Unterschleißheim. The evening offers the opportunity for “good feedback to the base.” There may be an entertainment factor.
Kerstin Schreyer, former Minister of State and CSU direct candidate for the Munich-Land Süd constituency, regards Ash Wednesday as a “wonderful tradition”. He allows the political situation to be viewed “somewhat more pointedly”. That’s exactly what she wants to do again in Grünwald, where she is invited every few years by the CSU local association to eat fish, this year in the Alter Wirt (7 p.m.). She enjoys looking at the topics in a more “reflected” way. She will probably direct her attention to the outcome of the election in Berlin, should it still be relevant on Wednesday, she says. And how the question of how “we can all get through Putin’s war of aggression” is to be resolved will also be an issue. In her opinion, the answer is “not slobs,” as the Greens see it as propagating it, but rather increasing the supply of energy, as the CSU sees fit. With this pointed statement, she alludes to a statement by the Baden-Württemberg Prime Minister of the Green Party, Winfried Kretschmann, who praised the usefulness of the washcloth compared to constant showering against the background of saving energy. “Ash Wednesday needs polarization,” says Schreyer. But most of the time she spontaneously says something completely different than she had previously thought about.
“It’s not a celebration of political debate,” says Florian Schardt
One can not do anything with the political Ash Wednesday. For Florian Schardt, SPD district leader and direct candidate in the northern voting district, the date is just about suitable for “bullshit bingo” with friends. Everyone knows in advance what the other is saying. “It’s not a celebration of political debate.” In any case, he would not necessarily join the fan club of political Ash Wednesday. Since everyone can post a video with their opinion on the Internet at any time, Ash Wednesday is “a relic of days gone by”. In the entire district of Munich this year there will be no SPD fish dinner flavored with politics, and there were no invitations from the Greens to the political Ash Wednesday either.
When dessert is served at the CSU – apple strudel with vanilla ice cream in Unterschleißheim – Schreyer and Böltl have long since joined the crowd at the tables. For her, it goes without saying that she doesn’t just talk and then leave. “Politics thrive on being in conversation,” says Schreyer. She also likes to eat fish. In the end it will probably be an evening of great mutual encouragement, at least that’s to be expected, because: You’re on your own.