Jens Spahn and the parliamentary group chair: Cadad’s smithy for the Chancellery

Helmut Kohl was Chancellor for 16 years. But his almost six years as head of the Union faction in the Bundestag once referred to the “most difficult of my political life”. It was the time when he had to prevail against Franz Josef Strauß, who had said about Kohl in the famous Wienerwald speech: “He is totally incapable. He lacks the character, the spiritual and the political conditions. He lacks everything for it.” The Chancellery said by “for that”.

For Jens Spahn there may be a bit of comfort in this reminiscence. Yes, the job of the Union faction leader is hard. But even if the companions deny the character properties for the Chancellery – and do this at Spahn to the Union – the path can still lead to the finish. Even if the path appears very far these days.

The parliamentary group chair is the best springboard to the top in the Union. Not everyone of the twelve bosses so far since 1949 has become Chancellor. Rainer Barzel and Wolfgang Schäuble are the best known failed. But of six Chancellors of the CDU, four initially led the MPs in the Bundestag, in addition to Kohl, Angela Merkel and Friedrich Merz, Konrad Adenauer, although only for 14 days.

The situation is different in the SPD. Only Helmut Schmidt was group leader in the Bundestag for two years. Talents were rarely forged in this office. The SPD Chancellor, in the knowledge of the tendency of their people, prefers to chose in principle in principle, with Herbert Wehner, Peter Struck, Franz Müntefering and also Rolf Mützenich rather gnarled guys at the top of their deputies. They were able to rely on them as a assertive majority procurer without having to fear higher ambitions. In this – and only in this – Volker Kauder, Angela Merkel’s almost eternal parliamentary group leader of quasi social democratic stature.

However, it was often also the group leader who showed the lawyers to show the hard tour: Herbert Wehner on the hard tour when he was despising in 1973 about Willy Brandt Herzog (“The Chancellor likes to bathe Lau-in a bubble bath”); Franz Müntefering a little gentle than he entrusted Gerhard Schröder in 2005 not being able to guarantee a majority in the SPD faction; Volker Kauder when he was voted out by his own people after 13 years after 13 years, who also missed Merkel a memo.

MPs are a confident species. When Adenauer was asked as a chancellor what the purgatory was for him, he replied: “When I have to go to the parliamentary group.” Later, however, he maintained a lax handling of rebellions. One day a CDU Member grasp that the parliamentary group did not want to be treated like willless vocal cattle. It was a situation that Friedrich Merz and Jens Spahn recently experienced as Union people against the election of the SPD candidate for the constitutional court.

When the deputy scolded Adenauer’s time that he did not just want to say yes and amen, Adenauer replied: “It is enough if they say yes.” Maybe Merz and Spahn should try it. Adenauer actually always works.