How strong is Olaf Scholz’s communication? This is what the guests discuss at the ARD talk “Maischberger”. Attacks also come from the CDU – the Chancellor does not want Ukraine to win the war. If that doesn’t spoil your mood, comedian Kurt Krömer should listen. Then it gets bitter.
It begins with the war that has been cutting off life in Ukraine for three months now and killing lives willfully. “Maischberger” now broadcasts on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, recently also with an audience again. The role of the Germans in the Russian war of aggression quickly follows. And in particular about the role of Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his communication.
The TV group agrees that there is a lot of “incompetence”. And as journalist Christoph Schwennicke diagnoses: “Scholz has quarterly attacks of megalomania”. It attests the cabaret artist Florian Schroeder. Scholz has a communication problem. You experience “a kind of Angela Merkel squared plus arrogance”.
CDU foreign affairs expert Norbert Röttgen and SPD politician Ralf Stegner discuss the controversial statement by CDU politician Roderich Kiesewetter, which reads: “The chancellor doesn’t want Ukraine to win the war.” So they secretly support the German government the Russians?
“Absurd,” says SPD man Stegner. Röttgen argues: The Russians would have to go back to the status quo before the war. During the interview, ARD fades in breaking news about the attack on a Texas school with many dead.
This interview does not bring much. It is not surprising that Röttgen and Stegner fight each other. Each half-set is disassembled. Moderator Maischberger sometimes understands the SPD politician “Ms. Steinmeier”, Stegner emphasizes that it is “Frank Steinmeier”. What is more interesting is what Ralf Stegner thinks about party friend and ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and his commitment to Russian gas. “I don’t think that’s appropriate. You don’t let a warmonger pay you.” And: “You can also earn your money more honorably.”
Mr. Schroeder also has an opinion about Mr. Schröder. “Completely wrong, what he’s been doing there for years.” But the Schröder bashing at the moment, says the comedian, is “also cheap and cheap”. But Schröder confirms what Putin thinks: the West can be bought. “I’m somewhat available for Schröder bashing,” says “Zeit” journalist Anna Mayr. Because: “Someone really grabbed the toilet.” Publicist Christoph Schwennicke also considers “Schröder’s obstinacy in old age to be breathtaking”.
Change of topic: In 2021 there was a new high in sick days in Germany – because of the psyche. Kurt Krömer is a guest. He often lied when people asked him: “How are you?” He was sometimes ashamed because he was fine. Family, good workload. Sometimes he thought: “You’re just ungrateful and angry.”
Nothing worked in 2020. The severely depressed Krömer was in a clinic for eight weeks. In 2021 he made his illness public on his own show. It often took him four hours, he tells Maischberger, to persuade himself to go shopping. Sometimes he could only take two things with him from the store, he couldn’t manage more. Once he thought he was going to die. A panic attack that completely overturned him.
Then alcohol came along to curb the disease. Krömer talks openly about his suffering. And the fear: “I thought in the clinic they would take away the full tit that you need as an artist.” After two months in the psychiatric ward, Krömer had spring fever – in the middle of winter. Today he knows that a “shitty day” is not depression.
“Have you become nicer?” Asks moderator Maischberger. “No, I just don’t invite assholes to my show anymore.” That’s a forgiving end to the way into the night.
