Bundestag election campaign: Scholz translates nonsense: “Invented stuff”

Chancellor Olaf Scholz has reiterated his accusation against his challenger Friedrich Merz that he is spreading “false information” about him. And he specified what he meant by that. When asked by a journalist how he would translate the Low German word Tünkram into Standard German, he said when presenting the SPD election program: “That’s easy if you’re stupid…”. Scholz took a short pause, then finished the sentence like this: “When you talk about fictitious stuff.”

He chose this formulation because he wanted to respond “very casually” to Merz’s statements about his appearances in Brussels. Scholz rejected criticism of this. “I always find it very surprising that people say strange things that aren’t entirely true, and then are surprised that people point them out somewhat casually.”

Merz criticized Scholz in the Bundestag on Monday for the fact that the Chancellor often sits silently at EU summits without getting involved politically. The CDU/CSU parliamentary group leader said that the way the Chancellor moves in the EU is “shaming.” Scholz reacted to this on Monday evening on ZDF with the sentence: “Fritze Merz likes to tell nonsense.”

At the press conference in the Willy Brandt House, Scholz said that he was constantly talking to people in Brussels, and “you can’t just claim that it’s different and tell it three times,” said Scholz. “Then you can only say nonsense.” Scholz recommended Merz: “Perhaps you shouldn’t continue the election campaign with untrue allegations. My suggestion.”

When asked why he called Merz “Fritze,” Scholz then said: “That fit the fancy stuff.”