As of: 09/30/2021 2:23 p.m.
Minister, puller, advisor, President of the Bundestag – and now backbencher? Wolfgang Schäuble had made Laschet possible as a candidate for chancellor – and is now losing his last office.
Wolfgang Schäuble only had reason to celebrate. He was 79 years old nine days before the general election. “I don’t need to become anything anymore. I don’t want to become anything anymore,” said the CDU politician over and over again. He was already so much.
And now Schäuble has already become something again: namely, the longest serving member of the Bundestag. He has now been in Parliament for 49 years. Not even August Bebel managed that. It is a lonely record in the history of German parliament. “Of course I have been there for a long time. You have to make that clear to others,” says Schäuble, who calls politics his passion.
In 1972 he came to Bonn as a member of parliament. A lot has happened since then. Even if they weren’t just extremely conservative back then, says Schäuble today. “When I came to the Bundestag, Annemarie Renger was just becoming the first female president of the Bundestag. It’s not quite like that, that the women just walked around with aprons and bonnets.”
Power man Schäuble for Laschet
But it wasn’t quite as colorful and diverse as it is today. Wolfgang Schäuble, a power man, a minister and, until recently, the old wise man in the CDU whom they asked for advice. That, he says, was the reason why he started again when he was 79. The boys in the CDU would have pushed him. Schäuble is the one who, if necessary, can remind and bring people together.
Schäuble brought them together. Most recently in his very own way. In a night session he is said to have slowed Markus Söder and the CSU and thus made Armin Laschet possible as a candidate for chancellor. The power man Schäuble played poker and ended up wrong. CSU MPs like Emmi Zeulner resent Schäuble for this pulling of the strings. Your accusation: “back room politics.” That is not possible. “This is a policy like what felt like 100 years ago, as it was practiced by a generation of politicians around Wolfgang Schäuble.”
Backroom politics of a man who – ironically of the story – by working for Laschet is now losing the office he loved so much. President of the Bundestag. The strongest parliamentary group in the Bundestag occupies this office – and that is no longer the Union, but the SPD.
“Isch over” for Schäuble
Schäuble is not unprepared for the loss: Even before the election, the Union was behind the SPD in surveys. He was well aware of the possibility of ending up as a simple member of parliament, “he said at the time.” I’m prepared for that and that’s not a problem for me. “” It’s over, he would say himself. His days as President of the Bundestag are numbered.
In 49 years of politics, Schäuble never avoided a fight. “I am not easy to care for. I am not comfortable. But I am loyal,” he once said of himself, who in his old age also recognizes advantages. “You gain freedom.”
Now Schäuble, as the longest serving member of the republic, at least as senior president, is likely to open the first session of the 20th German Bundestag with a speech on October 26th. Someone else will sit behind him and turn on the microphone for Schäuble. As President of the Bundestag, he was responsible for this for four years.