Tuesday, December 7th, 2021
Person of the week: The Chancellor
The three secret strengths of Olaf Scholz
By Wolfram Weimer
Olaf Scholz becomes a Federal Chancellor of Hanseatic Objectivity. Where are charisma and emotion, imagination and humor, ask his critics. But Scholz has a different, secret repertoire of strengths that should not be underestimated.
Olaf Scholz becomes the ninth Chancellor of the Federal Republic. But none of the previous eight came across as brittle as he. Not even Angela Merkel, that natural North German cool, rationality and modesty that grew out of the Protestant clinker building.
Olaf Scholz at the presentation of his SPD ministers. In the background the statue of Willy Brandt in the party headquarters.
(Photo: AP)
Scholz surpasses his predecessor in sobriety, his technocratic speech has even made him the much-quoted “Scholzomat” New York Times even brought the evil label of the “biggest bore” into circulation and had a diplomat proclaim that it was “more exciting to watch a pot of boiling water” than him.
The 63-year-old native of Osnabrück actually sometimes acts like an anesthetist of power. In his own party, whose fourth chancellor he is now after Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt and Gerhard Schröder, they respected him, but never loved him. For a long time he was even ridiculed by the left wing of his party as “Schrödermann”, “Agenda-Freund” (which means something like: cold capitalist) and as “the great coalition that has become flesh”. And even now, as he has miraculously enabled social democracy to return to the Chancellery, which they no longer thought possible, the left-wing milieu is nibbling around with its new FDP companionship and lack of social passion.
Standing and receiving qualities
The otherwise SPD-friendly Frankfurter Rundschau criticizes: “Olaf Scholz does not convey a spirit of optimism. His rhetoric is anything but a good introduction to the future.” The left taz finds it “grayish”, “inconspicuous” and predicts it already: “No sovereign start”. I see it differently and already two years ago I predicted the chancellorship for Scholz, not although, but precisely because he is so brittle-serious-central.
Scholz has three latent strengths that his left and right critics tend to underestimate.
First Scholz has enormous standing and receiving qualities. Politically, he was repeatedly written off, humiliated and voted out, and yet he stood proud and tenaciously defended his positions, both in terms of power politics and content. Falling down seven times and getting up eight times seems to be the motto of his perseverance. His own party did not want him as chairman, the polls sidelined him for months, the media ridiculed him, scandals shook his image, and before a year ago he seemed to be the relegated person of 2021. But Olaf Scholz is someone who does not allow himself to be deterred, true to Humboldt’s slogan: You must not give up your goal, even on the edge of the abyss. In short: Olaf Scholz is a master of resilience.
Acting from the background
Secondly Scholz cleverly exploits the apparent weakness of his lack of temperament. He likes to let his opponents run into the void with his dry basic calm. Scholz is a stoic and follows Marc Aurel’s advice: “The best reaction to anger is silence”. Scholz needs less drama and spotlight than many other top politicians. He can act well from the background. With his Hanseatic restraint, he embodies an underestimated asset of political power: calm and serenity. In times of excitement in particular, the discreetly balanced becomes a quality. The louder the shouting of social polarization, the sooner quiet sovereignty becomes an autonomous force. His Buddhist smile is therefore quite a political weapon. In other words: its strength lies in rest.
Third Scholz has a good instinct for the political center. Years ago, as Hamburg’s first mayor, he recognized that successful politicians should embody the middle of society. He learned from Helmut Schmidt and Angela Merkel that middle means power – but that power is based on balance. The center-inclination will help him to balance the delicate coalition with the Greens and the FDP. Scholz works like a broker of the feasible and relies on pragmatic, serious solutions. Political integrity is an underestimated category that Wolfgang Schäuble drew on for years. Olaf Scholz is now imitating him. He is an engineer of power, does not promise blooming landscapes, but rather looks for a craftsman for the irrigation system.
As Chancellor, Scholz will urgently need the three virtues of resilience, calm and do-it-yourself pragmatism. Because this traffic light government does not require a Basta Chancellor like Gerhard Schröder, no central powerful authority like Helmut Kohl and also no power autonomists like Angela Merkel. Scholz has to withdraw much more than his predecessors, he has to balance the first three-party coalition, with Robert Habeck and Christian Lindner he has to endure two charismatics who can overshadow him. The Chancellor’s party has never been so small and the coalition partners so strong. On top of that, his chancellorship starts in the middle of a pandemic. So Scholz will have to use his three secret strengths tremendously.