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Berlin (dpa) - In the debate in the SPD about the social course towards sexual and other minorities, the former President of the Bundestag Wolfgang Thierse, in his own words, experienced "overwhelming approval".
At the same time, he reiterated his criticism of the culture of conversation and debate, a so-called identity politics, because it does not aim at reconciliation and concrete progress.
Even the chairman of the SPD Fundamental Values Commission, Gesine Schwan, did not spare criticism.
She said to the address of SPD chairwoman Saskia Esken and party vice-president Kevin Kühnert: “I want to show both of them: It doesn't work that way.
That was a mistake you made, "she told the weekly newspaper" Der Spiegel "(Sunday).
You consider “these collective identities to be the plague”.
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Last week, the former Bundestag President Wolfgang Thierse criticized “left identity politics” in a guest article for the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”.
An attitude is spreading to refuse discussions.
This caused a heated debate on social media.
The preliminary highlight was a letter from Thierses to the SPD leadership in which the former GDR civil rights activist had expressed doubts as to whether it would be desirable to remain in the party if two members of the party leadership distanced themselves from him.
This was an allusion to the fact that Esken and Kühnert had previously criticized “statements by individual representatives of the SPD” on identity politics.
SPD chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz recalled Thierse's achievements in the ZDF program “Berlin direkt” on Sunday evening: “Wolfgang Thierse has made great contributions to the SPD, to our country, to German unity.
He is someone we in the SPD will enjoy for a long time to come. "
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Thierse made it clear in the magazine “Cicero” on Saturday that a public distancing of Esken and Kühnert could only have been aimed at him, since no one else from the party has currently publicly commented on the questions.
The criticism is also "inappropriate".
“Since this essay was published, I have found it hard to save myself from e-mails.
I got between 500 and 1000 emails - besides the shit storm.
It was overwhelming approval, not just from within our own party, ”said Thierse.
As a left-wing East German, he could also describe his life story as a sequence of minority experiences, he told the "Spiegel".
«You have to learn to deal with them, and not just suffering and complaining.
You get small and ugly and you get nothing. "
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