The state helps in times of need and withdraws again.
It has to be like that.
What went wrong in the case of Commerzbank is proving to be a recipe for success at Lufthansa.
That contained a lot of unreasonable demands: the company would have preferred not to get the state as a shareholder, but to receive cheaper aid.
Managers who acted self-confidently despite the crisis caused heads to shake in Berlin.
And a five-digit number of employees had to see that government donations did not secure all jobs.
Anyone who feared a repetition of the Commerzbank case has learned otherwise.
For Lufthansa, the following applies: An intact business model works again after a shock.
The fact that Lufthansa boss Carsten Spohr just missed his goal of replacing German aid before the federal election will ultimately be a fact for currant counters.
With the large capital increase, there is a roadmap back to independence, which will probably be achieved in two years.
The same applies: the state is not the better entrepreneur.
After an analysis of the opportunities offered by a business model, his emergency aid should not be demonized per se.
His stepping in has preserved a corporation and more than 100,000 jobs.
And the support will even have been a profitable business for the tax authorities.