Quotes
“Isch over” is probably one of Wolfgang Schäuble’s most legendary sentences. But his comparisons of Napoleon and Merkel or FC Bayern and the Chancellery also show dry humor. A selection.
He was a minister, head of the Chancellery and parliamentary group, President of the Bundestag and a simple member of parliament. In all of his offices, the CDU politician Wolfgang Schäuble stood for statements that were characterized by dry humor as well as emotion. A selection:
“On the 28th, midnight, it’s over.”
(2015 with a view to the expiry of a European aid program for Greece)
“The pleasure of the heights was short, the hardship of the plains will hold us captive for a long time.”
(1993 on the effects of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the political upheaval in 1989)
“I don’t believe that the shitstorm is the further development of democracy.”
(2014 at a reception for the 20th birthday of “Spiegel Online”)
Black zero and Bayern Munich
“Nobel Prize winners think I have nothing in my head except a zero.”
(2015 on the insistence on the “black zero” in the budget)
“Then I would probably choose Bayern Munich.”
(In 2016 when asked what he would do if he could choose between the office of Federal Chancellor, Federal President or President of FC Bayern Munich)
“We shouldn’t fight here.”
(2017 in the Bundestag on the manners of parliamentarians in the coming years)
Tears over Brexit
“My first reaction to Brexit was: I cried.”
(2017 at the World Economic Forum in Davos)
“If I put on an unfriendly face, it saves me 80 percent of the conversations.”
(2017 on his strategy for negotiating financial planning)
“Coalition talks are always like a fountain of youth.”
(2016 when asked why he seemed so vital)
Kohl, Merkel, Napoleon
“It’s not as hurrah-like as Napoleon’s – but it’s more successful.”
(2014 in the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” about the leadership qualities of the then Chancellor and party leader Angela Merkel)
“Mr. Kohl has so much pity for himself that he doesn’t need my pity. I can’t help him.”
(2000 in the Swiss “Weltwoche” about his relationship with ex-Chancellor Helmut Kohl in connection with the CDU donations affair)
“Here in Baden-Württemberg they say: Don’t complain, I’ll just gloat enough.”
(2016 on an agreement between the federal and state governments, in standard German: Not complaining is praised enough.)
(Source: dpa)