Since 2009 and now in its 27th season, the “heute show” tells us on Friday evening that even bad politics is still good for a laugh. The German educational misery alone provides enough material this week. And of course the news situation.
The week was once again not very pleasant from a news point of view. The disaster of the property tax return, Hans-Georg Maassen as the new head of the “Union of Values”, an Italian post-fascist in the Bundestag, Donald Trump starting the election campaign: all of this could and should cause us concern, and we haven’t even spoken about Ukraine . With some news, however, behind all the worries, a tenderly hopeful thought germinates: Well, that’s a steep template for the “today show”.
Nancy Faeser, for example, in her new double burden: something can be made of it. Australia is looking for a radioactive capsule a few millimeters in size – and even finds it. Or the climate activists who first block traffic and then fly to Thailand. All this is so absurd that even comedians are probably wondering how this can be taken to the extreme.
But this time the “heute-show” does not jump on the first trains that come along, but puts new ones on the track. First of all, Oliver Welke complains that German television currently knows no other topics than combat systems for the Ukraine. Every talk show now sounds like a tank quartet in the schoolyard. After Brehm’s little military life with leopards and tanks, martens and weasels, it’s now the turn of the fighter jets and submarines. “I can’t keep up,” groans Welke.
In order to set itself apart, the “heute show” opens a new arena and launches an attack for a special education fund. According to the teachers’ association, Germany is currently experiencing the worst shortage of teachers in 50 years. The teachers’ association therefore wants to recruit lateral entrants, retirees and foreign teachers, and allow active school staff to work longer with more lessons and larger classes. Sounds like a joke, but unfortunately it’s meant seriously.
While artificial intelligence and ChatGPT as homework help are being discussed throughout Germany, there are now apparently more career changers teaching in Berlin than educators with actual teacher training. “LOVL” is the name of the new teachers: teachers without full teaching qualifications, who have not even studied the subject they teach. “This teacher shortage is an absolute disgrace for a rich country like ours,” comments Oliver Welke. No joke!
After all: Welke takes up the issue of the double burden of Nancy Faeser and promotes the Minister of the Interior to Super-Nancy, who is underchallenged with just one ministerial post. At the same time, he lists what should actually be on Super-Nancy’s to-do list instead of the Hessian election campaign: for example, the question of how Germany intends to deal with asylum seekers with a criminal record in the future. But the traffic light coalition has now hired an assistant for this: Joachim Stamm, once Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia and now “Special Representative for Migration Agreements”. Hopefully not only in the mini job.
The “Today Show” scientist Dr. Albrecht Humboldt, alias Alexander Schubert, does not want to see the potential for violence solely in immigrants or so-called “passport Germans”; instead, he draws on another statistical fact: the vast majority of crimes are committed by men. He substantiates his thesis of the man as a “tragic chromosomal accident” and social problem bear with Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, Lord Voldemort and the CSU politician Andreas Scheuer. In the face of this evidence, who would want to disagree?
Shortly before the credits roll, Welke mentions them: the climate activists. Because the number of young smokers is rising again for the first time in years, the “heute-show” gives the young smokers a few facts that are not so funny at all: With disposable vapers, a battery is also thrown away. The manufacture and smoking of cigarettes produce 84 million tons of carbon dioxide every year. So why not stick to a cigarette machine next time?
Smile, even if it hurts: Friday’s “heute-show” is not a thigh-slapping, but a satire born of the political emergency. She sums up our total discomfort from five working days full of bad news over the weekend and multiplies the result until we can laugh about it again. And at least once a week have the feeling that someone is openly saying what’s going on and what’s going wrong. Thanks for that!
