Portrait of Stephan Lamby on the occasion of the new documentary “Ways of Power” – Media

There are currently plenty of election campaign shows and podcasts in which the candidates for chancellor vie for attention. But hardly anyone in the media comes as close to the protagonists of federal politics as journalist Stephan Lamby in his numerous TV documentaries. When others pack their equipment after press appointments and take the video material to the editorial office, he keeps on doing it. In the elevator, in the car, in the hall of the party headquarters or sitting behind the desk in the office, he elicits a number of statements from officials that cause a stir, and with his films makes the process behind power struggles, stagings and failures visible, where often the result is first in the daily News is presented.

For more than ten months for his new documentary, he focused the camera on the people who are applying for the Chancellery this year, or as Joschka Fischer called it “the death zone of politics”: Annalena Baerbock, Armin Laschet and Olaf Scholz. Also in the documentary Ways to power. Germany’s decision year there are moments and quotes that should be new even to information junkies. How is it that the television journalist with a keen eye for interviewees has access to the most powerful politicians in the country like no other?

Lamby was very close to federal politics even in his childhood. After all, he was born in the Bad Godesberg district of Bonn. And where did his father work? In the Federal Chancellery. Stephan Lamby says that he probably met a Federal Chancellor for the first time at the nativity play at the end of the 1960s, when he and his brother Josef played Maria in the Chancellery, while Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger was also in the audience. The Bonn boy went to the hairdresser’s in the parliament building, where the members of parliament also had their hair beautified. During the hated haircut he saw Willy Brandt running to the plenary hall. Even then, the impression arose that political decision-makers need not be out of reach.

In the end, Stephan Lamby only came to political journalism and documentary film via detours. He is studying German and English to become a teacher, has lived in New York for a while and earns a living by writing about jazz music. He plays the saxophone and is still in a band to this day. In Hamburg he is helping to set up radio station 107 and is the editor-in-chief of the television magazine der Time. At the age of almost 40, he founded his TV production company. With one of his first documentaries, Schäuble’s case – inside views of an affair, he succeeds as a political journalist with a coup.

When he shoots the documentary about Schäuble, Schäuble gets deeper and deeper into the vortex of the party donation affair. Lamby keeps turning

It’s not just any Schäuble TV report. In 1999 Lamby began filming with – as he, like the whole of Germany, probably thought at that time – the supposedly next candidate for chancellor of the CDU / CSU, Wolfgang Schäuble. But Schäuble is getting more and more caught up in the party donation affair surrounding former Chancellor Helmut Kohl. The disaffected party leader resigned from office at the beginning of 2000 and had to put aside his political ambitions. He continues to keep the shooting dates. “Schäuble’s most difficult phase in human terms was certainly the assassination, his politically most difficult phase was the break with Helmut Kohl,” says Lamby, “during this epic dispute Michael Rutz and I are at his side as a documentary filmmaker and shoot, shoot, shoot.” Contemporary history in the old 4: 3 television format and a testimony to Schäuble’s anger.

Anyone who sees this film and thinks that Helmut Kohl only had excessive criticism for the filmmaker will be surprised. Because a few years later Stephan Lamby will shoot a portrait of the former Chancellor. Why does Kohl agree to the shooting? “I think what a lot of politicians sense is that I treat them critically but fairly,” says Lamby. “It can be tough, it can be uncomfortable. But a conversation never becomes a tribunal.” Professional politicians are happy when they can develop three or four coherent thoughts. Such situations are of course easier to create when you make a 75 or 90 minute film than when you are doing the daily News only have a minute and a half available.

Open detailed view

The time factor is of great importance for the filmmaker not only in the end product, but also in the shooting. He meets his protagonists for days, weeks, often even months. “I don’t usually do five or six minute interviews. When I make films about just one person, it’s long, intense conversations,” explains Lamby. CSU politician Horst Seehofer offers insights into the balance of power within the CDU / CSU in many of Lamby’s films. Before the 2017 federal election, the journalist spoke to him about his relationship with Angela Merkel. The interior minister, who vehemently opposes Merkel’s refugee policy, describes her negotiating style as tough and bitter and laughs out loud, no, there has not yet been any physical violence. Its irony cannot hide the seriousness of the situation.

It is not the only time that the attentive listener Lamby catches such a moment. The documentary filmmaker is attentive and is not quickly satisfied. In his current film, he asks Olaf Scholz the same yes / no question several times, whether he had previously seen a withdrawn SPD election ad that concerns individual CDU / CSU politicians because of their political views and suitability. Scholz, however, lets every follow-up question ricochet off with empty phrases.

But even the experienced political journalist Lamby cannot really get hold of Chancellor Angela Merkel despite several interviews

He has the right counterpart for every interview sequence. The FDP chairman Christian Lindner explains in Labyrinth of Power – Protocol to form a government from 2018, every concession in the coalition negotiations was carried out by other parties. Change of scene, Interior Minister Horst Seehofer sits in front of a Jesus cross and replies that Lindner has repeatedly photographed documents and sent them to journalists. The counter cuts by Armin Laschet and Markus Söder in were also successful Ways to power. Germany’s decision year, which shows the embarrassing cockfight in the CDU / CSU from this year. With close-ups, Stephan Lamby directs the viewer’s gaze at the protagonists’ facial expressions and gestures and captures uncertainty, rejection or even vehemence.

That doesn’t mean that everyone always participates. Even the experienced political journalist Lamby cannot really get hold of Chancellor Angela Merkel despite several interviews. “I like to – and that has nothing to do with my party-political preference – interviewing politicians who have a basic trust in my work and a certain degree of sovereignty,” says Lamby. Wolfgang Schäuble, Horst Seehofer, Peer Steinbrück or Robert Habeck would have shown interest in being challenged in the conversation and not reproducing the pale print quotes that had been re-read umpteen times. The interviews with Angela Merkel, on the other hand, have become shorter and shorter and less productive.

It is no coincidence that all of his films can be found on YouTube; Lamby is looking for an exchange with viewers. “I am happy when the films are discussed and argued on my own. It is not enough for me if I find out the audience rating the next morning.” He finds the exchange on social media to be an extremely exciting development. He sees the risks very well, but also the possibility of participating in the public discourse for people who otherwise would not be heard.

There is actually a lot to discuss: The climate crisis as an epoch-making challenge, corona, digitization – one started with the awareness of the enormous problem areas and then discussed for months about bonus payments that were reported too late, plagiarism or an unreasonable laugh. “I am very disappointed with this campaign and the campaign leadership,” says Lamby. “It became an election campaign of lost opportunities.” Some things do not become more convincing even if you are very close. Ways of power. Germany’s decision year Shortly before the general election, he may not tell anything about Baerbock, Laschet and Scholz that will change the impression of the past few months, but Stephan Lamby succeeds again in sharpening the focus on the election campaign and the people behind it.

Ways of power. Germany’s decision-making year, September 20, 2021, Das Erste, 8.15 p.m.