Can Charlotte Merz still become chancellor’s wife after reporter reprimand?

column

Charlotte Merz, wife of Friedrich Merz, recently caused a stir. She pushed the microphone away from a ZDF reporter who wanted to question the CDU leader about the concept of a dominant culture in front of the camera, saying:

This “angry announcement” (ZDF) has, in the course of the usual outbursts, led to accusations against Charlotte Merz’s understanding of the law, because she is not only a district judge, but could also be the wife of the next chancellor. After all, no one has yet demanded that Mr. Merz should only be allowed to run for office if he divorces Mrs. Merz, because she does not undoubtedly stand on the basis of the free democratic basic order.

And what if it actually happens soon?

The man in office, the woman out of the job

The typology of the chancellor’s wife (and the only chancellor’s husband to date) has changed over the decades. It is striking that from Ludwig Erhard onwards (Konrad Adenauer came into office as a widower), all chancellors had strong, usually well-educated women at their side, who, however, including the journalist Doris Schröder-Köpf, gave up their careers during their husband’s term in office. Rut Brandt, Loki Schmidt and Hannelore Kohl submitted to their husbands’ office, advised them on decisions, impressed foreign heads of state with their charm or their foreign language skills, were involved in charitable work – and often suffered from loneliness.

Loki Schmidt, as historian Heike Specht writes in her book “Your Side of History”, described himself as “politician’s in-law”. In the holiday photos from Lake Wolfgang, Hannelore Kohl presented a smile that seemed cemented – “almost iconographic evidence of a West German pseudo-reality”, as the “Hamburger Abendblatt” once wrote about the photos.

Doris Schröder-Köpf was the first to intervene openly in her husband’s political affairs. During the 2005 election campaign, she said of the childless Angela Merkel that her biography did not embody the experiences of most women who have to raise children and take care of their careers. Schröder defended his wife by saying that she “lives what she says”. That was “not least the reason why I love her”.

Charlotte Merz is a judge

Merkel’s husband Joachim Sauer, a renowned scientist, was not only the first partner to simply carry on working. He also refused to comment on the Chancellor. “I have no connection with Angela Merkel’s political work. That’s why I’m not of interest to the public.” When we once encountered him in a meeting room on the government plane as Merkel’s press escort on a flight to George W. Bush’s private ranch, Sauer was visibly shocked and fled without saying hello. He only appeared as the Chancellor’s husband when it was absolutely unavoidable – an attitude that Britta Ernst adopted from Sauer in the same way that her husband Olaf Scholz adopted the sofa in the Chancellor’s office from Merkel.

Charlotte Merz is clearly already helping her husband to attest to a modern image of women. We do not know whether the 63-year-old would remain an active judge if Merz were to become Chancellor. If so, her husband would have to hold out for three years so that his wife, the first chancellor’s wife, reaches retirement age in the job. If you think about it, that would be a considerable step forward that the CDU should definitely attribute to its guiding culture.