Ulla Schmidt on Angela Merkel: “She was outclassed as Kohl’s girl”

podcast

“ÜberMerkel” – Episode 3
“Angela Merkel was affected by that for a long time” – Ulla Schmidt looks back on the early days of Merkel’s chancellorship

She was a minister under Chancellor Gerhard Schröder – and under Chancellor Angela Merkel. And has experienced both sides: working under a man and working under a woman. SPD politician Ulla Schmidt was one of the best-known and most controversial figures in federal politics in the 2000s, keyword health care reform.

Ulla Schmidt talks about Angela Merkel

In the third episode of starpodcast “ÜberMerkel – Vertraute recounting” she remembers her time together with Angela Merkel and sees parallels but also differences to the work under Gerhard Schröder. “You won’t believe that, Merkel lets everyone have their say,” Schmidt was quoted as saying after becoming boss in February 2007.

“About Merkel – telling stories”

Angela Merkel was Chancellor for 16 years. The first. At the end of 2021 she resigned her post, now there is a man in office. What is left of her? What was she like, the chancellor? How is she as a boss, as a friend, as a feminist? For years, the story of Angela Merkel was mostly told by men. stern– Editor-in-chief Anna-Beeke Gretemeier meets for the podcast “ÜberMerkel – Vertraute recounting” with companions of the former Chancellor – yes, only with women. The conversations show new perspectives and thus draw a very personal audio portrait.

“ÜberMerkel – Familiar stories” appears weekly on Tuesdays at AudioNow, Spotify, iTunes, Amazon Music and everywhere there are podcasts. You can also find all episodes here.

In conversation with star– Editor-in-Chief Anna-Beeke Gretemeier is not only concerned with official matters. Schmidt also reports on private moments with the ex-Chancellor, a moment in which she felt “very great empathy” with Merkel. In addition, the 79-year-old SPD politician tells how style has changed under Merkel, for example when shopping in the Ullrich consumer market: “As chancellor, she always brought normality into a sphere that was not intended for that at all, because men don’t do that.”

Of course, the podcast episode is also about Merkel’s reaction to Ulla Schmidt’s “company car affair” – and about how the two politicians discussed the women’s quota on an airplane in the early 1990s. You can hear that and much more in the third episode of “ÜberMerkel – Telling Trusted Ones”.