Thursday, June 03, 2021
“Longing for privacy”
Seehofer is looking forward to retirement
For more than four decades, Horst Seehofer has been active in politics at the state and federal level. The Minister of the Interior is looking forward to the end of his career and retreat into privacy. In retrospect, he would do some things differently.
Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer is looking forward to his upcoming departure from active politics. “In the balance, a longing for privacy, for this freedom from deadlines and constraints, clearly predominates,” Seehofer told the magazine of the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”. After more than 40 years in politics, he was “actually way beyond thirst”.
Seehofer is currently the Federal Minister of the Interior, but was also Minister of Health and Agriculture. In addition, he was CSU chairman and Bavarian Prime Minister for several years.
Seehofer told SZ-Magazin that his worst quality was “seduction, for example through moods”. He wouldn’t give some speeches today either. “The blood rushes to my cheeks.” This includes, for example, the remark from 2011 that he wanted to defend himself against immigration into German social systems “down to the last bullet”.
Seehofer’s relationship with Chancellor Angela Merkel is ambivalent, he praised and criticized her in public. He told the magazine: “She is a great politician, a very great one. I don’t see anything like it in Europe at the moment, despite all the arguments.”
Seehofer described a life-threatening illness in 2002 as a turning point in his life, but also the death of his father in 1971. “That was a very bitter time,” he said. He has always mastered difficult life situations alone. “I’ve never felt lonely.” In politics, however, “a limit has now been reached” for him. “I’m turning 72 now and I’m actually well beyond thirst. There has been a lot of routine over the decades,” said Seehofer. “Sometimes my wife says when I drive away at home: It never takes long. Well, I’m happy. Really.”
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