Fried – view from Berlin
Bye, Mr. Lindner – why I will be missing a little too
The politician Christian Lindner is history. He was often irritating, but it was interesting as a person. And there is a reason to regret his farewell, our author thinks.
The other day I drove especially to the FDP party conference to listen to Christian Lindner’s last speech. That certainly meant nothing, but I was because I found him politically often irritating, but found it interesting as a person. In addition, you can put a lot like politically against Lindner, and many will say that he is finally gone. But talk, he could.
Christian Lindner polarized. He learned that from Guido Westerwelle
For the first time I really noticed Lindner in 2011 when he was FDP General Secretary under Guido Westerwelle. At the Epiphany meeting in Stuttgart, he gave a speech in which he listed all the projects of technical progress that the Greens initially fought. That was enough for traffic projects to screen text, ISDN telephones and networked jobs. It was the sheer polemic, but was great. The then FDP rapporteur of the “Berliner Zeitung”, Steffen Hebestreit, even called the speech “rhetorically brilliant”. He could not have guessed that as a government spokesman he would prepare a different speech almost 14 years later, namely the one with which his boss Olaf Scholz gave the finance minister Lindner.
Lindner has often polarized, and he learned the provocation from Guido Westerwelle. What the “late Roman decadence” was the “free mentality”. Lindner term politics also as a game, he was keen to risk, celebrated great success and collected hard defeats. How much he always liked it describes a typical scene that I once observed in the Bundestag restaurant. There was Lindner with Rolf Mützenich. And while the SPD parliamentary group leader leaned over the table top, Lindner casually leaned into his chair and accompanied his words with great gestures.
A close confidante Lindners once told me that it was part of the job profile of an FDP chairman, estimated by a few, despised and hated by many. Lindner can handle it well. The kitchen psychologist in me wondered whether that could be or whether Lindner would not have been popular. At least a little.
Over the years I have met Lindner from time to time. It always went similarly: this man formulates concisely, you can listen to him well, he is entertaining, quickly in the head. But when the conversation is over, you don’t really know what it is about, what attitude was and what was serious. And one thing has changed over the years: the sound became sharper, his humor came more and more than sarcasm.
The relationship between Christian Lindner and the star Was burdened in the past few years, apparently because he found that our reporting on his wedding in 2022 on Sylt violated his privacy. Lindner was said to be annoyed by other media because in his view, she inappropriately addressed his marriage to a former journalist.
In his farewell speech at the party congress, Lindner indicated this conflict in remarkable words, which he addressed directly to his wife: “You had to carry the life of a politician with you, even though you have married me and not the FDP.” For that he was grateful to her. That has achieved the romantic in me.
The rest of the speech also gave the impression that one is glad that he has had it.
Source: Stern
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
