A television evening without the newly elected Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach is no longer imaginable. If you use the Bavarian basic vocabulary, then it meets all the criteria to be considered Doudschmatzer, Gscheidhaferl, Gschaftlhuber and Wuisler. Some even compare it to a plum almond.
Lauterbach here, Lauterbach there, Lauterbach there. The SPD politician has been omnipresent since the outbreak of the Corona crisis. A TV evening without Lauterbach is no longer imaginable. In the Bundestag, the newly elected Federal Minister of Health attracted attention early on because he was permanently annoying his fellow human beings, as the weekly newspaper Die Zeit had just read – everyone, regardless of who they were. Peter Struck, the now deceased ex-chairman of the SPD parliamentary group, once complained that Lauterbach should “just shut up.”
If you want to describe Lauterbach in all its facets, it is worth using the basic Bavarian vocabulary. He undoubtedly meets all the criteria to pass as Doudschmatzer, Gscheidhaferl, Gschaftlhuber and Wuisler. Recently someone from his circle of friends even referred to him as Zwetschgenmandl. This assignment is original in that such a figure was originally made from dried plums. In a figurative sense, it is a thin man who is not taken very seriously because he strains your nerves. The satirist Gerhard Polt created a general memorial to the Zwetschgenmandl in a sketch. He met it in a tavern, where the Zwetschgenmandl, who had no fun, spooned a goulash soup out of a plastic thing. Until a friend came along with a salt mug and “had a snack on the Zwetschgnmandl in goulash soup”, because: “Schbäzi, sour makes fun!” Lauterbach, however, does not eat salt as a matter of principle. For him, the only question that matters is: will he become the savior of the nation or will he go down in history as a political Wolpertinger?