The Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder is more famous for hardly anything than for his versatility: from Edmund Stoiber to Marilyn Monroe, from Merkel bullies to Merkel maniac - he was everything before. Even Corona and the associated lack of humor could not spoil Söder's joy in the disguise, he is now just a little more discreet. So he came to the most recent meeting with Friedrich Merz in a devil's costume - without the designated CDU chairman, who tried to pretend to be Bavarian in traditional jackets, had noticed. It took the well-known historian Hedwig Richter, who commented on an already iconic photo on Twitter showing Söder Merz his Bavarian lands: "I will give you all of this if you fall down and worship me."

Whether such carnival achievements, which are now also recognized by serious science, it is not surprising that Söder, after the Aachen Order "Against the Animal Seriousness" and the "Franconian Schlappmaulorden", also received the "Golden Fool's Bell" from the Swabian Association this year. Alemannic fools guild is to be awarded.

"Probably no other politician got his party friends going more in the past year," said Roland Wehrle, who with this view did all the credit to his role as fool president.

"A loose tongue"

Söder is considered "one of the most colorful, popular, but at the same time controversial personalities of the present". The CSU chairman is "a friend of carnival, masks and costumes", he is characterized by "a penchant for provocation" and he has "a loose tongue". The “Golden Fool's Bell” will be presented on February 9th in Europa-Park in Rust, which Söder will certainly interpret in his acceptance speech as a signal that he is also a great European. In any case, the award can be interpreted as strengthening the southern track or, as Söder recently says, the “free south”. That Söder's friend Winfried Kretschmann, the Prime Minister of Baden-Wuerttemberg, is one of the people who wear fool's bells underlines this.

In general, Söder is following in big footsteps, as other predecessors like Günther Oettinger and Tony Marshall prove.

The fact that they are not too big, for example, shows the former CDU minister of education and top candidate in the state elections, Susanne Eisenmann, who lost the state election shortly after receiving her award.

By the way, Bavaria will vote in 2023.