Status: December 8th, 2021 1:10 p.m.
When the government and the chancellor change, so do the spokespersons. For eleven years, Steffen Seibert was the voice of Chancellor Merkel, with Scholz there is a new one: Steffen Hebestreit becomes government spokesman. A vice has also been chosen.
Steffen Hebestreit becomes government spokesman for the new federal government made up of the SPD, Greens and FDP. The man is no stranger to Chancellor Olaf Scholz: The lifting dispute was previously the spokesman for the Federal Ministry of Finance.
He will officially take over the office of government spokesman on Thursday. Hebestreit reported for the first time today on the Twitter account @RegSsprecher to speak. “I am really looking forward to exchanging ideas with you here! Tomorrow I will officially be in office,” he wrote.
The previous government spokesman Steffen Seibert had sent his farewell tweet a few hours earlier. “I would like to thank everyone who followed me here for their great interest,” he wrote on Twitter – and now asked for attention to the lifting dispute. Seibert’s Twitter account is now to be archived. The first government press conference with lifting dispute is to take place on Monday.
At the side of the new chancellor: Steffen Hebestreit (right) is to become government spokesman.
Image: dpa
Hebestreit comes from journalism, he was first with the “Frankfurter Rundschau” and later with the media group DuMont. In 2014 he switched sides and became the spokesman for the SPD general secretary at the time, Yasmin Fahimi. Since 2018, SPD member Hebestreit has been head of communication in the Federal Ministry of Finance and spokesman for Federal Finance Minister Scholz.
Wolfgang Büchner becomes vice
On Tuesday it became known that the former editor-in-chief of “Spiegel” and the German press agency, Wolfgang Büchner, had been named by the FDP as one of the two vice-government spokesmen. “I am pleased that the Liberals can nominate Büchner, one of the most accomplished German journalists, for the office of deputy government spokesman,” said FDP leader Christian Lindner to the news portal “ThePioneer”.
Büchner (55) was editor-in-chief of the Hamburg news magazine “Der Spiegel” from September 2013 to December 2014. At the time, he came from the German Press Agency, where he was initially deputy editor-in-chief from July 2009 and editor-in-chief from January 2010. After his time at “Spiegel”, Büchner worked in a leading position at the Swiss Blick Group and as editor-in-chief of the editorial network Germany (RND). For several months he has been working as a strategic communications advisor for the Liberals.
It is still unclear who the Greens will propose as deputy government spokesperson.
Merkel’s spokesman Seibert had held the position since 2010. The former ZDF journalist became the longest-serving spokesman for a federal government. The Journalistenverein Bundespressekonferenz (BPK) counted 1,165 visits from Seibert – eleven of them together with Merkel.
Steffen Seibert was the spokesman for the Merkel governments for eleven years.
Image: dpa