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No one believed her capable of anything when she became foreign minister following a failed election campaign. But Annalena Baerbock seems to be in her element.
It is an image that stuck: when Annalena Baerbock gathered journalists traveling with her on a flight for a background discussion, she looked around attentively. She must have felt pressure on her ears; anyway, she pinched her nose and had puffed out her cheeks. So she sat there, in a red silk dress, with that chubby Pippi Longstocking face, oblivious to herself. She is often reminiscent of the self-confident tomboy: unconventional, not afraid of authorities, robust. At the beginning of January 2023, the Washington Post headlined: “Germany’s Green foreign minister is taking the lead on Ukraine”, almost a year following the turning point, her first year in office.
