Nobody doubts that Horst Seehofer is a great son of his hometown. Nevertheless, a local farce has arisen around the plan to make him an honorary citizen.
There are repeated examples in real life of the phrase “the opposite of good is well-intentioned”, which is often wrongly ascribed to Kurt Tucholsky, but which probably goes back to Gottfried Benn. Whereby a coincidental chain of circumstances is often the cause of annoyance in projects that are undisputed in themselves. It is absolutely undisputed that Horst Seehofer, who will step down from the political stage in a few weeks, is an important citizen of his hometown Ingolstadt. In the past you would have said: a great son. From which it follows that it is also indisputable to make Seehofer an honorary citizen as soon as he has crossed the political finish line. If only because all prime ministers since Alfons Goppel have been made honorary citizens of their hometowns. A Bavarian tradition, so to speak.
So it could have gone straight through. But, well, it led to complications that could be described as a mixture of overzealousness and weariness. Normally, probably not only in Ingolstadt, honors of all kinds are ventilated in the council of elders. Not that suddenly there is unexpected resistance and nothing comes of the honor, although the person to be honored has already been looking forward to it. In terms of honorary citizenship for Seehofer, however, the local CSU has placed a lot of value on the fact that the proposal comes from it and that it becomes known. So she made it via press release.
Unfortunately, there have previously been two other cases in which proposals for honors were first submitted to the public. That in turn stinked the Ingolstadt mayor Christian Scharpf, who vented his anger where, in his opinion, such things should be discussed: in the council of elders. In the matter, the SPD politician asserts, he strongly supports Seehofer’s honorary citizenship and counts on a “very broad majority”. Seehofer has also been inaugurated for a long time and is delighted about it. The Ingolstadt CSU parliamentary group leader Alfred Grob therefore thinks that the matter should not be so high on now. And what does the mayor say in the council of elders after the cleansing thunderstorm? “I wouldn’t hang it that high anymore.”