New book about Olaf Scholz
A clever chancellor that no one can understand
Who is this Chancellor Olaf Scholz? Journalist Daniel Brössler has accompanied Scholz almost every step of the way since he took office in 2021. photo
© Markus Schreiber/AP/Pool/dpa
Olaf Scholz wanted to become head of government in a “progressive coalition”. He became a wartime SPD chancellor. A new book looks behind the scenes of his personal turning point.
Brössler recapitulates the eventful hours in the Chancellery after the start of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine on February 24, 2022. At 4:30 a.m., the call from the Federal Government’s situation center in Potsdam woke Scholz from his sleep: “It’s starting.” Russian President Vladimir Putin has – as long feared – ordered his army to launch an attack on Kiev.
Scholz coins the word “turning point”
The hours in which Scholz and his closest advisors formulated the German response to this unique step are experienced just as much as Olaf Scholz’s hectic telephone diplomacy. In the end there is the insight that he formulates in his government statement a few days later.
It is a “turning point” in German politics. A government made up of the SPD, Greens and FDP is supplying weapons to a war zone, and the Social Democrats are faced with the shambles of their decades-long Russia-friendly policy.
Brössler’s approach to Scholz is also gripping reading because it also describes the SPD politician’s personal turning point: from the peace-loving young socialist from Hamburg who traveled to the GDR and demonstrated with 300,000 others in 1981 against the NATO double decision of the SPD Chancellor Helmut Schmidt , to the head of government who has to decide which weapons to deliver to the Ukrainians and when. Plus the fear of empty gas storage facilities, the hopeless talks with Putin, the constant turbulence about everything and nothing in the traffic light coalition.
The Chancellor is very confident in himself
“A German Chancellor” portrays Scholz as a man who is very confident in himself, but who certainly changes his political convictions. At a young age he traveled to Moscow and wrote Marxist essays while still a law student. Today he acts as a pragmatist who identifies prudence as his brand essence. At the same time, he is trying to position himself as a “peace chancellor” among frightened voters with his hesitation in delivering the Taurus cruise missiles – while Germany delivers as many weapons to Ukraine as only the Americans otherwise do.
So who is this Olaf Scholz? According to the book, Scholz’s classmates at the high school in Hamburg-Rahlstedt made the judgment that is still valid today: “The others know: Scholz is smart. But they won’t learn from him.”