The CDU politician gives a speech on the farewell of the DGB boss Reiner Hoffmann. But their public appearances remain well dosed.
The then Chancellor Angela Merkel and the DGB boss Reiner Hoffmann 2018 in the guest house of the federal government in Meseberg.
suk. After months of media abstinence, ex-Chancellor Angela Merkel is now appearing publicly for the first time. On Wednesday evening she holds the laudation at the farewell of the union boss Reiner Hoffmann in Berlin. Hoffmann invited around 200 guests and companions from politics and trade unions to his official farewell as head of the trade union federation. It was important to Hoffmann to have a personal celebration, said the DGB when asked. There should be no media coverage.
Merkel and Hoffmann, who led the DGB from 2014, appreciate each other. Hoffmann was invited to the cabinet retreats at Schloss Meseberg, the guest house of the federal government, on several occasions. Hoffmann was replaced in May by former SPD general secretary Yasmin Fahimi.
Merkel will appear again next Tuesday: together with the journalist Alexander Osang, she will discuss German responsibility in foreign policy and German identity in the Berliner Ensemble. The background is her speech on the Day of German Unity last year. Further public appointments of the former head of government are not known so far.
Actor Matthes: Merkel does not want to be a secondary chancellor
Merkel left office on December 8 last year and has since largely withdrawn from the public eye. Only a few photos, for example from visits to Italy, have since been published. The CDU politician also spoke only briefly about her office about the Ukraine war and criticism of her Russia policy. The actor Ulrich Matthes, with whom Merkel is on friendly terms, believes he knows the reason for her media reticence. “I suspect that she does not want to be present as a kind of secondary chancellor,” said the film and theater actor in an interview published in “Stern” on Wednesday. Merkel is also not striving for “the role of Elder Stateswoman”. In addition, she does not attach importance to daily talk show presence. “In the next few years there will be a different kind of presence from her and a different way of underplaying this role,” says Matthes.
At the beginning of May, Matthes was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit by Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. Here Merkel made an exception to her media reticence and appeared at his invitation to the award ceremony in Bellevue Palace.