Martin Brudermüller can only attack.
Always forward, always energized, always loud - pace, pace, pace.
The Russian war against Ukraine has hit the CEO of BASF to the core because he is no longer in control of the proceedings.
If Putin turns off the gas or if the federal government decides to boycott the country, the wheels of the chemical industry will stand still.
In the worst case, production at the BASF headquarters, the largest chemical complex in the world, would have to be shut down overnight.
And Martin Brudermüller couldn't do anything about it.
Bernd Freytag
Business correspondent Rhein-Neckar-Saar based in Mainz.
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And that in the midst of a transformation that the chemical industry has never seen before.
Brudermüller reacted early, ordered the group to make a climate-neutral conversion and electrified the production facilities.
He talked his mouth off in Berlin and Brussels, urgently calling for the expansion of renewable energies.
He was the first chemical leader to join the Economic Advisory Board of the Greens.
He wants to be at the forefront of the movement.
Anyone who can deliver climate-neutral products has an international competitive advantage.
But all this takes time.
If no more gas comes from Russia, the conversion is at stake.
And Martin Brudermüller cannot do anything about it.
Ignorance bothers him at least as much as war itself.
That in an economic nation so many people, even in prominent positions, do not understand the value chains.
That they don't understand how the basis of prosperity, industry, works.
That they don't realize what the consequences would be for the entire industry if the large-scale chemical plant came to a standstill and no more preliminary products were supplied, no paints, no plastics, no foams, no fertilizers, not even pharmaceuticals.
From Karlsruhe to Berkeley
After the Russian attack, Brudermüller continued as usual.
How paralyzed.
Even to investors, he only mentioned a possible gas boycott in passing, instead discussing the progress made in the conversion to climate-friendly production.
After a few days, his collar burst, and in an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper, he talked about his anger from the liver.
Warned in drastic words of the destruction of an entire economy.
From the naivety of the moralists.
The fact that well-known economists assess a gas boycott as manageable almost causes it to burst.
The biggest spokesmen, he says, are those who bear no responsibility.
His interview continues to make waves to this day.
Did BASF and its subsidiary Wintershall finance the Russian war with the financing of Nord Stream 2 and the long-term contracts with Gazprom?
No, he rumbles, the group, with the support of politicians, has spent decades building up a competitive energy supply for Germany and Europe together with many others.
Nobody could have foreseen the war.
Brudermüller is a chemist.
He did his doctorate in Karlsruhe, did research as a postdoc in Berkeley, his father was a physicist, he is a natural scientist through and through.
The fact that political logic can undermine economic logic is alien to him.
"Morals are spelled differently than reason," said Christian Kullmann, Evonik boss and president of the chemical association VCI, at the parliamentary evening in Berlin this week.
Brudermüller, in the audience, sees it no differently.
Nobody in the industry can do anything about it
Instead of using pipelines to get cheap gas from nearby Russia, the war means that future fracked gas from America is first liquefied, then transported across the ocean by ship, and then painstakingly turned back into gas in Europe.
Even the idea causes physical pain for Brudermüller.
Industry will still feel the consequences of war long after the guns have fallen silent.
The Americans will get their gas for a sixth of the price, while the Chinese and Indians, both of whom are not participating in the sanctions, can already produce 20 percent cheaper.