It was an emotional performance, perhaps even the most emotional in the former Chancellor's tenure.

A good year ago, on December 9, 2020, Angela Merkel could hardly suppress tears at the lectern of the Reichstag, she warned against family visits at Christmas.

Otherwise it could easily be “the last Christmas with the grandparents,” she said in a fragile voice.

She also spoke about mulled wine and waffle irons: “As hard as it is - and I know how much love goes into setting up mulled wine stands or waffle bakeries: That doesn't go well with the agreement that, for example, we only eat takeaway food Shop at home. "

Ralph Bollmann

Correspondent for economic policy and deputy head of economics and “Money & More” for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung in Berlin.

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This year Merkel did not live to see the 9th of December in office; the day before she handed over the office to her successor Olaf Scholz, and at his behest, the Federal President appointed party friend Karl Lauterbach as Minister of Health on the same day.

Lauterbach of all people, the man who for almost two years made gloomy predictions about future corona developments on talk shows, often rightly warned and usually advised to take stricter measures.

At least that was the perception, even if it was not true in every individual case.

And what happens now?

Lauterbach of all people takes it easy, at least comparatively.

Not a word about the mulled wine stands in the country.

In return, he gave his compatriots complete freedom of travel as a gift in the winter boots provided at the social democratic ministerial presentation to Nicholas.

"We will do it," he said with reference to the entire health crisis - a daring allusion to the refugee autumn of 2015, when Angela Merkel spread an optimism that she missed in the face of the Corona crisis.

On the contrary: your habit of keeping your expectations low turned out to be fatal in terms of motivation in the tough winter lockdown 2020/21.

Scholz has his own agenda

Scholz doesn't want to do it that way, certainly not - not even in view of the approaching omicron wave, of which no one can yet know exactly how bad it really will be. He relies on boosting, not closing.

The fact that the new government is so relaxed about lockdown is attributed in parts of the public to the smallest coalition partner - i.e. the FDP, which owes its electoral success, especially among young people, not least to the criticism of the corona measures of the old federal government. But it's not that simple, because the new Chancellor has his own agenda. First of all, because developments took him by surprise too. In the old government, the roles were distributed in his favor: the unattractive aspects of crisis management, from school closings to cultural lockdowns, went home with the chancellor, the finance minister distributed the aid. Above all: As the future Chancellor, he intended to concentrate on rebuilding after the virus crisis, at a time whenwhich again focused more on distribution issues.

Now things have turned out differently, and the traffic light coalitionists were taken by surprise and looked unsorted during the transition phase.

But that's over.

They now have a plan.

Nobody knows if it will work out in the end, but it's a plan after all.

Scholz does not want to get into the role that Merkel played at the end of her corona management: a Kassandra on the sidelines, who warns in a shrill tone, but cannot prevail in the face of prime ministerial conferences and widespread lockdown fatigue, and who stands up for mishaps like that have to publicly apologize for the failed Easter rest.