2024-04-03 10:31:01
Germany Schäuble memoirs
“And he wanted to persuade me to overthrow Merkel in order to become chancellor myself.”
As of: 12:31 p.m. | Reading time: 3 minutes
Wolfgang Schäuble during an interview in 2022
Source: picture alliance/epd-bild/Christian Ditsch
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The refugee crisis in 2015 caused major upheavals within the Union. In his memoirs, which have now been published posthumously, Schäuble describes former CSU leader Edmund Stoiber’s considerations for overthrowing the then Chancellor.
The late CDU politician Wolfgang Schäuble recounted in his memoirs the efforts of former CSU leader Edmund Stoiber to persuade him to overthrow Chancellor Angela Merkel during the refugee crisis. In excerpts published by “Stern” on Wednesday, Schäuble describes that the situation in the Union became difficult in the fall of 2015. “The highlight was the CSU party conference, when the Bavarian Prime Minister and CSU chairman (Horst Seehofer) defied the Chancellor like a schoolgirl,” it says. “In the meantime, Edmund Stoiber also became active and encouraged Seehofer, his successor in the prime ministership, in his attacks against Merkel. And he wanted to persuade me to overthrow Merkel in order to become chancellor myself.”
He firmly rejected this, writes Schäuble. “As was the case with Kohl decades before, I remained convinced that the fall of our own chancellor could only harm our party in the long term without actually solving the problem. That was my understanding of loyalty, which perhaps seems a little antiquated by today’s standards.”
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Stoiber was Prime Minister of Bavaria from 1993 to 2007 and chairman of the CSU from 1999 to 2007. During the refugee crisis, he repeatedly criticized Merkel’s course.
When asked by the German Press Agency in Munich, Stoiber explained that he did not want to comment on Schäuble’s account: he had only had as many personal and confidential conversations with few colleagues in his life, “as with my long-standing and closely associated colleague Wolfgang Schäuble.” “I have never commented on reports about this and of course that still applies to me today after his death.”
Wolfgang Schäuble and Angela Merkel in the German Bundestag in 2015
Quelle: picture alliance/SvenSimon/Annegret Hilse/SVEN SIMON
In the passages published by “Stern”, Schäuble, who died in December, reiterated his fundamental support for Merkel’s decision to keep the German borders open to refugees in autumn 2015, but also expressed criticism of her actions on the issue. “When the Chancellor made the decision on September 4, 2015, which in retrospect was central to this crisis, to keep the borders open in view of the catastrophic conditions at the Budapest train station, where thousands of refugees were stranded, I thought this was right for humanitarian and European policy reasons.” , he writes.
He supported Merkel to the best of his ability and he also found her sentence “We can do it” correct. “Those were strong statements. They simply should have been accompanied by a large number of other measures and efforts to make it clear that this unique emergency measure was unrepeatable.” In contrast to the Chancellor, he thought it was right to “pour the citizens pure wine and make it clear that “The commitment to the refugees also involves costs and sacrifices.” He was occasionally frustrated that “Merkel remained resistant to advice in some respects. In my opinion, she would have had completely different options to really lead politically and not just react.”
The Schäuble book “Memories. My Life in Politics” will be published next week. The CDU politician died on Boxing Day at the age of 81. In his long political career, Schäuble was head of the Chancellery, Federal Minister of the Interior and Finance, chairman of the CDU and President of the Bundestag. Most recently, he was a simple member of the Bundestag, where he served for 51 years – longer than any other member in German parliamentary history. He was buried in his hometown of Offenburg.
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