stern editor-in-chief about new title for Olaf Scholz’s re-election

“The secret of freedom is courage.” Politicians like to quote this sentence from Pericles. Of course, they don’t like living it themselves, as the traffic light government is currently proving. Christian Lindner from the FDP makes no secret of the fact that he considers the coalition to be a toxic relationship. But he doesn’t have the courage to break up.

Robert Habeck from the Greens dares to let two scapegoats in his own party resign. But he remains in his post and even wants to become a candidate for chancellor.

And Chancellor Olaf Scholz from the SPD? Above all, he dares to know everything better than anyone else. Our cover author Nico Fried writes: “Olaf Scholz still believes in himself. That never stops for him.” But for Fried, who has been observing Scholz for 20 years, Scholz’s principle of infallibility is now reaching its limits: “At some point, democracy is also at stake, the belief in its ability to react, the trust in the actors, in their insight and in you Sense of responsibility. At some point, now, the Chancellor has to do something.”

Is it disrespectful to use the casual saying “Is this art or can it go away?” apply to the Chancellor and show Scholz on a hand truck halfway out the door? That may be true, but things cannot continue like this in this traffic light government. Recognizing this takes courage. But it can have a liberating effect, see above.

Baerbock is showing courage

It takes courage as a politician to admit that you sometimes feel powerless, even powerless. This is perhaps even more true for women, who are often viewed more critically in the harsh everyday politics. Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock does this in the Stern interview with Miriam Hollstein and Jan Rosenkranz when she talks about shuttle diplomacy in the Middle East, where the situation is more explosive than ever a year after Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel: “Some days I feel very frustrated.”

You don’t have to agree with everything that Baerbock initiated as German Foreign Minister, but no one can deny her courage. When Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made drinking vodka at lunchtime an endurance test, she told him that having two children was hard enough. And when she pointed out to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that there was hunger in Gaza, she let him shout at her, as she confirms: “Diplomacy also means not beating around the bush.”

However, Baerbock cannot resolve the basic German conflict. As Germans, we owe Israel every solidarity. But how much solidarity do we owe to Netanyahu, who uses extreme harshness to eliminate Israel’s enemies but also threatens to set the region ablaze? Is it about his country or his own power?

Crime is not only a part of life, but also of the star. However, our reporters are mostly concerned with the question of what happens after the crime – especially to the people who have to live on somehow. My colleague Nico Schnurr looked at a sad case in Bramsche in Lower Saxony, where around a year and a half ago an apparently mentally disturbed man shot his neighbor’s 16-year-old son. The mother had to watch this, but decided while still in the hospital not to move away, but to continue living in her apartment next to the crime scene, next to the perpetrator’s apartment, next to neighbors, some of whom still keep in touch with the murderer. After reading it, I asked myself the question: For whom does such an act actually mean a life sentence?