NSJust before the end of the evening when an onlooker asks the question that brings you back down to earth: will Mr. Maaßen join the CDU today? Within the past two hours, the impression had grown stronger and stronger that I was here at the Suhl Convention Center for everything, except for the union campaign event. The party logo can’t be seen anywhere anyway, only two stands that look like Mason. On the other hand, the event was in short order and, as the head of the Meiningen CDU, Ralph Liebaug, said, it was moved from Volkshaus in Meiningen to Suhl for “security reasons”. Which left in Meiningen a number of frustrated people standing in front of Volkshaus. Instead of Maaßen and Sarrazin, they found themselves in front of closed doors with comrades-in-arms from the “Meiningen ist bunt” coalition, posters with inscriptions such as “We will not allow democracy to be taken away from us!” , “Maaßen – exclusion from parties” and “Germany abolishes Maaßen!” have brought with them.
Meanwhile, about 100 people gathered in the convention center’s “Simson” room, exactly the same room in which Maaßen was elected as a candidate for the federal election in Constituency 196 by the four CDU regional associations at the end of April. There is a youth group from neighboring Bavaria, including a few women, but the vast majority of older white men, getting along perfectly with the three speakers on stage. Maassen, to the audience’s left, wears a dark suit and pink tie, and in the middle is Sarrazin, very retired, dressed in jeans, a shirt, and a jacket without a tie. For Maaßen, he’s another star guest from the supposedly clear-text line of loudspeakers. Previously, former Bundestag member Wolfgang Bosbach, former civil rights activist Arnold Watz and the police union Rainer Wendt were guests of the Maaßen. So far, Sarrazin. In what follows, both will gratefully address the admin topics or rather the keyword suppliers that fueled the mood.
“Isn’t politics becoming more and more irrational and dogmatic?” Is it one of the shortcomings, or also: “Is it not true that only democrats in Germany represent the dominant opinion?” , even, in various forms: whether today’s “conditions” are not “as they were at that time in the GDR”. In Maaßen and Sarrazin it all must seem intellectually untapped, but this is an election campaign, you are in between, so they can play their favorite topics without any effort. Not surprisingly, it is primarily about climate change, freedom of expression and migration.
Maaßen complains about alleged “excessive morality” in the media and politics, which invalidates applicable law in the case of asylum and sea rescue, for example. Sarrazin agrees: “You are absolutely right, Mr. Maassen.” By the way, German politicians are increasingly interested in things they can’t change anyway – like climate change. Sarrazin says there is “no connection” between this and the flooding on the Ahar. Instead, politicians “slept” and continued to build in flood areas, and this failure they now want to “blame” on climate change.
