“Dear Hubertus” and “Dear Dieter” are guests of “Dear Florian”. The greetings are extremely friendly at the winter retreat of the SPD parliamentary group in the state parliament. Five press conferences are on the program over three days, and as the chancellor’s party, there’s a lot of hustle and bustle. Florian von Brunn sits on the podium and watches with pleasure as SPD federal minister Hubertus Heil and Munich’s SPD mayor Dieter Reiter do as guests what is usually at the top of his list: shoot properly at the CSU.
Heil, who was connected, lectures from the wall screen about Berlin’s “progressive coalition” without a Union, without a CSU transport minister who “wast hundreds of millions on the toll.” Reiter complains about the CSU’s “blockade attitude” on “burning issues” for the municipalities. And scoffs: It’s “only about building and living”, Bavaria has a “totally well-functioning local transport system”, which you as the state government can sometimes “run under further”.
It’s time for the SPD to take responsibility in Bavaria, the year after next, after the state elections. “Oh, in a year, it’s getting faster and faster,” corrects Reiter. And Florian von Brunn? Is strangely quiet, exorbitantly quiet by Brunn standards. As if someone had simply unplugged this speaker that became human.
Brunn has been SPD state chairman since April 2021, together with Ronja Endres. Since May 2021 also parliamentary group leader. Neither are actually jobs that are considered subject to entertainment tax. There has always been something tragic about the Bavarian SPD, not long ago when the last chapter of this tragedy seemed to have begun. In the 2018 state election, the party fell to 9.7 percent, in polls they raced towards the five percent hurdle, with a lead foot in the direction of insignificance.
But now, all of a sudden, there is this number: 14. The percentage that the SPD should expect according to the BR-Bayerntrend would now be the state election. Third place, the Greens (16 percent) in sight. In other surveys recently, colored by the arrival of Chancellor Olaf Scholz, you were even ahead of the Greens. The Bavarian SPD is suddenly successful and Brunn is the face of the Bavarian SPD. The question is whether one has anything to do with the other.
Which minister has he not asked to resign?
The self-confident Brunn has an answer: Sure! “By making our positions clear to the public and also getting into conflicts, Ronja Endres and I have done our part,” he says. Talent for oratory and the ability to deal with conflict, that is what those who escorted him to the top attest to. Only there were almost as many who wanted to prevent Brunn’s rise. They also attest to his talent for speaking and the ability to deal with conflicts, but they mean it differently: big mouth and lust for rows.
On a Thursday in January, Brunn asks to come to his office in the state parliament. Red sofa, red coffee cups, red napkins. Anyone who asks Brunn about his Remmidemmi image looks into innocent eyes: Me, a riot?! The best way to approach him is with a brisk counter-question: Is there a minister whose resignation he has not yet called for? Klaus Holetschek, CSU Minister of Health, says Brunn. For sure? Brunn now seems seriously unsettled. Do I have?
He does not have. The fact that he is slowly losing track of his demands for his resignation says something about the man who could become the SPD’s top candidate and challenger to Prime Minister Markus Söder. Challenger, big word. On the other hand, Chancellor Olaf Scholz was also an adventurous idea for a long time.
The CSU is weakening, recently came to 36 percent in the survey, and would no longer have a majority for its coalition with the Free Voters. The black and red scenario is already buzzing around in the SPD. Brunn himself dreams of a traffic light, like in the federal government. dream dance?
He likes to skip a few steps on the escalation ladder
Florian Bolko von Brunn – 52, born in Munich, grew up in the surrounding area, master’s degree, IT consultant, member of parliament since 2013, initially as an environmental expert – is the one about whom some slander that the SPD had to sink deep in order to reach him in terms of quality , the biggest riot noodle in the store. It wasn’t his first attempts until Brunn asserted himself as parliamentary group leader and before that as state leader – the SPD was seven percent in polls.
With the trade unionist Endres, he promised an “end of stepping quietly”, a “trend reversal”, 15 percent in the first step; many laughed. The duo narrowly won, four votes ahead. It was even closer in the faction, in a fight vote against Horst Arnold. During the internal power struggle, Brunn once said: “If I listen to myself, I won’t give up.”
In the meantime, he has not only called for resignations, he has also received a reprimand from the state parliament president for calling Hitler’s CSU predecessors “stirrup holders.” Brunn likes to skip a few steps on the escalation ladder. “It’s not almost automatically the case that someone who speaks out pointedly and enters into conflicts has disadvantages,” he says of the headlines he produces.
Olaf Scholz once brought out the “bazooka”, literally, when it came to Corona financial aid. Brunn always has the bazooka ready. Rhetorically, of course. Often with phrases from the outrage kit, “the CSU swamp must finally be drained”. Sometimes with original punch lines, if he wants.
When CSU man Ernst Weidenbusch was criticized for consulting fees and verbosely praised his work, Brunn countered: Weidenbusch’s inclusion in the “Marvel Superhero Universe” was only a matter of time. A Google search for “Brunn files a criminal complaint” and “Brunn files a lawsuit” results in long lists of hits.
“If you’re too slow, you won’t appear”
This is how you develop a reputation as a nuisance. Of course, the fact that he is pushy in the CSU mask affair has its good side, it’s not exactly a scandal. It’s “the task of the opposition,” says Brunn, “to keep at it, especially when a party like the CSU has governed for so long, is so encrusted and has secured such a sinecure.” He finds politicians such as Bundestag Vice Wolfgang Kubicki difficult, “who creates enormous reach with his statements, but slips into dubiousness. That’s not my style.” It is now better to ignore the fact that FDP fighting cock Kubicki recently called for Söder’s resignation.
Of course, Brunn knows that the Bayern SPD high has more to do with Scholz than with him: “It’s a strong tailwind.” When Brunn sits in the office, he looks at a brightly colored mural: Kurt Eisner, the first Bavarian Prime Minister in 1918/1919, a social democrat.
Another Brunn idol hangs in the closet: Renate Schmidt. Her name is there on a fire protection plan in the doorway, created in the 1990s, when the Socialists got up to 30 percent under her leadership and were able to use the word challenger without triggering such a malicious grin among the CSU seat neighbors in the state parliament as today. Schmidt and he – Brunn sees consistency there.
What’s next? There will be a government program, Bavaria should become the “most child-friendly federal state,” says Brunn. The SPD wants to combine climate protection with the economy and justice. And make politics for rural areas, “in contrast to the Greens,” who mainly talk about urban issues. There are signs of competition, but Brunn says there is “respectful interaction” between the traffic light parties in Bavaria. Well, maybe not everyone sees it that way.
When the opposition decided to use the “Mask” committee of inquiry, the Greens and FDP are said to have been amazed – that Brunn was the first to launch the report and gave the impression that he himself was the U-Committee. An unfair maneuver? “Whoever is too slow does not appear,” says one of Brunn’s fans in the SPD.
In general, Brunn’s fan camp seems to be growing. As early as the summer, there was a sense of satisfaction at the grassroots level that the SPD was being talked about again because of Brunn’s Bohei. And about the fact that Brunn, Endres and Secretary General Arif Taşdelen show up in local clubs where no top socialite has been sighted for a long time. “When you have a year and a half before the election, you need a breath of fresh air and dynamism. Florian von Brunn definitely exudes both,” says Mayor Reiter after the exam.
Critics attest him “megalomania”
The parliamentary group is Brunn’s “construction site,” says another who has insight. After the change of power, there was talk of the “Ice Age”, two factions in one. Brunn’s critics grumbled about the “megalomania” of the boss, “who thought he was Renate Schmidt”. The resentment is still there, but since the SPD chancellorship it hasn’t penetrated the outside world as much. Maybe it’s discipline, so as not to appear as a quarrelsome troupe right now.
“One or the other difference” is “normal in the SPD,” says Brunn. He refers to many conversations, all of which “said: We are behind you”. Outwardly, he conspicuously praises specialist politicians in his parliamentary group, both camps. However, if you listen to the inside of the group, you will notice that the unity is not nearly as great. Brunn still has a lot to “create acceptance for the fact that everything is tailored to him,” says an experienced SPD election campaigner.
On the last day of the retreat, you can watch Brunn doing this. Press conference number five, Brunn praises the increase in the survey as a “team effort”. His goals for 2023: second strongest faction behind the CSU and the traffic light. Until then, a lot will be heard from Brunn. And by then he will probably have completely settled into the executive office. A portrait of the boxer Muhammad Ali, author of a famous quote: “I am the greatest!”